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PETRARCH’S INKSTAND. 

In the Possession of Miss Edgeworth, presented to her by a Lady. 

By beauty won from soft Italia’s land. 

Here Cupid, Petrarch’s Cupid, takes his stand. 

Arch suppliant, welcome to thy fav’rite isle, 

Close thy spread wings, and rest thee here awhile ; 

Still the true heart with kindred strains inspire, 

Breathe all a poet’s softness, all his fire; 

But if the perjured knight approach this font. 

Forbid the words to come as they were wont. 

Forbid the ink to flow, the pen to write, 

And send the false one baffled from thy sight. 


Miss Edgeworth 






























































































THE 


TABLE BOOK, 


OF 


DAILY RECREATION AND INFORMATION: 


CONCERN(NO 


REMARKABLE MEN, MANNERS, 

; •*»-* • -Ai -» t 

\ ' >) . / ! 

\ gA 

TIMES, SEASONS, 


SOLEMNITIES, M EHRY- M A KIN G S, 

Antiquities aulr pMties, 


FORMING A 


H777/ CLV7i HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN ENGRAVINGS. 


COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE YEAR. \ 


BY WILLIAM HONE. 


i i 



LONDON: WILLIAM T E G G. 

1866. 
























L 


THE FRONTISPIECE 


PETRARCH'S 

1 Mrss Edgeworth’s lines express her esti¬ 
mation of the gem she has the happiness 
:o own. That lady allowed a few casts 
from it in bronze, and a gentleman who 
possesses one, and who favours the “ Table 
Book ” with his approbation, permits its 
use for a frontispiece to this volume. The 
engraving will not be questioned as a deco¬ 
ration, and it has some claim to be regarded 
as an elegant illustration of a miscellany 
which draws largely on art and literature, 
and on nature itself, towards its supply. 

“ I delight,” says Petrarch, “ in my pic¬ 
tures. I take great pleasure also in images; 
they come in show more near unto nature 
than pictures, for they do but appear ; but 
these are felt to be substantial, and their 
bodies are more durable. Amongst the 
Grecians the art of painting "was esteemed 
above all handycrafts, and the chief of all 
the liberal arts. How great the dignity hath 
been of statues; and how fervently the study 
and desire of men have reposed in such 
pleasures, emperors and kings, and other 
noble personages, nay, even persons of in¬ 
ferior degree, have shown, in their indus¬ 
trious keeping of them when obtained.” 
Insisting on the golden mean, as a rule of 
happiness, he says, “ I possess an amazing 
collection of books, for attaining this, and 
every virtue : great is my delight in behold¬ 
ing such a treasure.” He slights persons 
who collect books “ for the pleasure of 
boasting they have them; who furnish their 
chambers with what was invented to furnish 
their minds; and use them no otherwise 
than they do their Corinthian tables, or 
their painted tables and images, to look 
at.” He contemns others who esteem not 
the true value of books, but the price at 
which they may sell them—“ a new prac¬ 
tice” (observe it is Petrarch that speaks) 

“ crept in among the rich, whereby they may 
attain one art more of unruly desire.” He 
repeats, with rivetting force, “ I have great 
plenty of books : where such scarcity has 
been lamented, this is no small possession : 

I have an inestimable many of books!” 
He was a diligent collector, and a liberal 
imparter of these treasures. He corres¬ 
ponded with Richard, ue Bury, an illus¬ 
trious prelate of out own country, eminent 
for hi" ’ove of learning and learned men, 


INKSTAND. 

and sent many precious volumes to Eng- 
land to enrich the bishop’s magnified* 
library. He vividly remarks, “ I deligh 
passionately in my books;” and yet he who 
had accumulated them largely, estimated 
them rightly : he has a saying of books 
worthy of himself—“ a wise man seeketh 
not quantity but sufficiency.” 

Petrarch loved the quiet scenes of nature, ! 
and these can scarcely be observed from a 
carriage or while riding, and are never 
enjoyed but on foot; and to me—on whom 
that discovery was imposed, and who am 
sometimes restrained from country walks, 
by necessity — it was no small pleasure, 
when I read a passage in his “ View of 
Human Nature,” which persuaded me of 
his fondness for the exercise : “ A jour¬ 
ney on foot hath most pleasant commo¬ 
dities ; a man may go at his pleasure ; none 
shall stay him, none shall carry him beyond 
his wish; none shall trouble him; he hat); 
but one labour, the labour of nature—to 
go.” 

In “ The Indicator” there is a paper ot 
peculiar beauty, by Mr. Leigh Hunt, “on 
receiving a sprig of myrtle from Vaucluse,” 
with a paragraph suitable to this occasion • 

“ We are supposing that all our readers 
are acquainted with Petrarch., Many of 
them doubtless know him intim 
Should any of them want an introd 
to him, how should we speak of him irthe 
gross? We should say, that he was one 
of the finest gentlemen and greatest scho¬ 
lars that ever lived ; that he was a writer 
who flourished in Italy in the fourteenth 
century, at the time when Chaucer was 
young, during the reigns of our Edwards; 
that he was the greatest light of his age; 
that although so fine a writer himself, and 
the author of a multitude of works, or 
rather because he was both, he took the 
greatest pains to revive the knowledge of 
the ancient learning, recommending it every 
where, and copying out la'ge manuscripts 
with his own hand; that two great cities, 
Paris and Rome, contended which should 
have the honour of crowning him ; that he 
was crowned publicly, in the metropolis of 
the world, with laurel and with myrtle; 
that he was the friend of Boccaccio the 
father of Italian prose ; and lastly, that his 


B 














PETRARCH’S INKSTAND. 


greatest renown nevertheless, as well as the 
predominant feelings of his existence, arose 
from the long love he bore for a lady of 
Avignon, the far-famed Laura, whom he 
fell in love with on the 6th of April, 1327, 
on a Good Friday; whom he rendered 
illustrious in a multitude of sonnets, which 
have left a sweet sound and sentiment in 
the ear of all after lovers; and who died, 
still passionately beloved, in the year 1348, 
on the same day and hour on which he first 
beheld her. Who she was, or why their 
connection was not closer, remains a mys¬ 
tery. But that she was a real person, and 
that in spite of all her modesty she did not 
show an insensible countenance to his pas¬ 
sion, is clear from his long-haunted imagi¬ 
nation, from his own repeated accounts, 
from all that he wrote, uttered, and thought. 
One love, and one poet, sufficed to give the 
whole civilized world a sense of delicacy 
in desire, of the abundant riches to be 
found in one single idea, and of the going 
out of a man’s self to dwell in the soul and 
happiness of another, which has served to 
refine the passion for all modern times ; 
and perhaps will do so, as long as love re¬ 
news the world.” 

At Vaucluse, or Valchiusa, “ a remark- 
ab.e spot in the old poetical region of Pro- 
j vtnce, consisting of a little deep glen of 
! green meadows surrounded with rocks, and 
containing the fountain of the river Sorgue,” 
Petrarch resided for several years, and 
composed in it the greater part of his 
poem« 

Ine following is a translation by sir 
William Jones, of 

AN ODE, BY PETRARCH, 

To the Fountain of Valchiusa 

Ye clear and sparkling streams! 

(Warm’d by the sunny beams) 

Through whose transparent crystal Laura play’d ; 
Ye boughs that deck the grove. 

Where Spring her chaplets wove. 

While Laura lay beneath the quivering shade ; 

Sweet herbs! and blushing flowerr t 
That crown yon vernal bowers, 

For ever fatal, yet for ever dear; 

And ye, that heard my sighs 
When first she charm’d my eyes, 
^oft-breathing gales! my dying accents hear. 

If Heav’n has fix’d my doom. 

That Love must quite consume 


My bursting heart, and close my eyes In death 
Ah I grant this slight request,— 

That here my urn may rest. 

When to its mansion flies my vital breath. 

This pleasing hope will smooth 
My anxious mind, and soothe 
The pangs of that inevitable hour: 

My spirit will not grieve 
Her mortal veil to leave 
In these calm shades, and this enchant'np bower 
Haply, the guilty maid 
Through yon accustom’d glade 
To my sad tomb will take her lonely way 
Where first her beauty’s light 
O’erpower’d my dazzled sight. 

When love on this fair border bade roe stray: 
There, sorrowing, shall she see. 

Beneath an aged tree. 

Her true, but hapless lover’s lowly bier; 

Too late her tender sighs 
Shall melt the pitying skies. 

And her soft veil shall hide the gushing tear 
O 1 well-remember’d day. 

When on yon bank she lay. 

Meek in her pride, and in her rigour mild ; 

The young and blooming flowers. 

Falling in fragrant showers, 

Shone on her neck, and on her bosom smil’d 
Some on her mantle hung. 

Some in her locks were strung, 

Like orient gems in rings of flaming gold ; 

Some, in a spicy cloud 
Descending, call’d aloud, 

“ Here Love and Youth the reins of empire hold.* 

I view’d the heavenly maid • 

And, rapt in wonder, said— 

“ The groves of Eden gave this angel birth, 

Her look, her voice, her smile. 

That might all Heaven beguile. 

Wafted my soul above the realms of earth . 

The star-bespangled skies 
Were open’d to my eyes; 

Sighing I said, “ Whence rose this glittering scene V 
Since that auspicious hour, 

This bank, and odorous bower, 

My morning couch, and evening haunt have been. 
Well mayst thou blusu, my 6ong, 

To leave the rural throng 
And fly thus artless to my Laura’s ear. 

But, were thy poet’s fire 
Ardent as his desire. 

Thou wert a song that Heaven might stoop to hear 

It is within probability to imagine, that 
the original of this “ ode” may have been 
impressed on the paper, by Petrarch’* pea, 
from the inkstand of the frontispiece. 










THE 

TABLE BOOK. 



Formerly, a “Table Book’’ was a memo¬ 
randum book, on winch any thing was 
giaved or written without ink. It is men¬ 
tioned by Shakspeare. Polonius, on disclos- 
| mg Ophelia’s affection for Hamlet to the 
king, inquires 

“ When I had seen this hot love on the wing, 

-;---what might you. 

Or my dear majesty, your queen here, think. 

If l had play’d the desk, or table-book ?” 

Dr. Henry More, a divine, and moralist, 
of the succeeding century, observes, that 
“ Nature makes clean the table-book first, 
and then portrays upon it what she pleas- 
eth.” In this sense, it might have been 
used instead of a tabula rasa, or sheet of 
blank writing paper, adopted by Locke as 
an illustration of the human mind in its 
incipiency. It is figuratively introduced 
to nearly the same purpose by Swift: he 
! tells us that 

“ Nature’s fair table-book, our tender souls, 

W> scrawl all o’er with old and empty rules, 

Male memorandums of the schools.” 

Dryden says, “ Put into your Table-Book 
whatsoever you judge worthy.”* 

I hope I shall not unworthily err, if, in 
the commencement of a work under this 
title, I show what a Table Book was 

Table books, or tablets, of wood, existed 
before the time of Homer, and among the 
Jews before the Christian aera. The table 
books of the Romans were nearly like ours, 
which will be described presently; except 
that the leaves, which were two, three, or 
niore in number, were of wood surfaced 
with wax. They wrote on them with a style, 
one end of which was pointed for that pur¬ 
pose, and the other end rounded or flattened, 
for effacing or scraping out. Styles were 
made of nearly all the metals, as well as of 
, bone and ivory; they w r ere differently formed, 
and resembled ornamented skewers; the 
I common style was iron. More anciently, 
the leaves of the table book were without 
jwax, and marks were made by the iron 
style on the bare wood. The Anglo-Saxon 
style was very handsome. Dr. Pegge was 
of opinion that the well-known jewel of 
Alfred, preserved in the Ashmolean 
museum at Oxford, was the head of the 
style sent by that king with Gregory’s 
Pastoral to Athelney.f 

A gentleman, whose profound knowledge 
of domestic antiquities surpasses that of 


• Johnson. 

t Fosbjrokn’a Encyclopaedia of Antiquities. 


preceding antiquaries, and remains unri¬ 
valled by his contemporaries, in his “Illus¬ 
trations of Shakspeare,” notices Hamlet’s j 
expression, “ My tables, —meet it is I set 
it down.” On that passage he observes, 
that the Roman practice of writing on wax 
tablets with a style was continued through 
the middle ages; and that specimens of 
wooden tables, filled with wax, and con¬ 
structed in the fourteenth century, were 
preserved in several of the monastic libra¬ 
ries in France. Some of these consisted of 
as many as twenty pages, formed into a 
book by means of parchment bands glued 
to the backs of tne leaves. He says that 
in the middle ages there were table books 
of ivory, and sometimes, of late, in the form 
of a small portable book with leaves and 
clasps ; and he transfers a figure of one of 
the latter from an old work* to his own : 
it resembles the common “ slate-books” 
still sold in the stationers’ shops. He pre¬ 
sumes that to such a table book the arch¬ 
bishop of York alludes in the second part 
of King Henry IV., 

“ And therefore will he wipe his tables clean 
And keep no tell tale to his memory.” 

As in the middle ages there were table- 
books with ivory leaves, this gentleman 
remarks that, in Chaucer’s “ Sompnour’s 
Tale,” one of the friars is provided with 

“ A pair of tables all of ivory, 

And a pointel ypolished fetislily, ..«• 

And wrote alway the names, as he stood, 

Of alle folk that yave hem any good.” 

He instances it as remarkable, that neither 
public nor private museums furnished spe¬ 
cimens of the table books, common in 
Shakspeare’s time. Fortunately, this ob¬ 
servation is no onger applicable. 

A correspondent, understood to be Mr 
Douce, in Dr. Aikin’s “ Athenaeum,” sub 
sequently says, “ I happen to possess t 
table-book of Shakspeare’s time. It is t 
little book, nearly square, being three inches 
wide and something less than four in length, 
bound stoutly in calf, and fastening .vith 
four strings of broad, strong, brown tape. 
The title as follows : ‘ Writing Tables, with 
a Kalender for xxiiii yeeres, with sundrie 
necessarie rules. The Tables made by 
Robert Triple. London, Imprinted for tire 
Company of Stationers.’ Thr tables are 
inserted immediately after the almanack. 
At first sight they appear like what we 
call asses-skin, the colour being precisely 

* Gesner De reruin fossilium tiguris, &c. Tigur. 15<K)* 
12mo. 


1 
















































THE TABLE BOOK 


the same, but the leaves are thicker : what¬ 
ever smell they may have had is lost, and 
there is no gloss upon them. It might be 
supposed that the gloss has been worn off; 
but this is not the case, for most of the 
tables have never been written on. Some 
of the edges being a little worn, show that 
the middle of the leaf consists of paper; 
the composition is laid on with great 
nicety. A silver style was used, which is 
sheathed in one of the covers, and which 
produces an impression as distinct, and as 
easily obliterated as a black-lead pencil. 
The tables are interleaved with common 
paper.” 

In July, 1808, the date of the preceding 
communication, I, too, possessed a table 
book, and silver style, of an age as ancient, 
and similar to that described ; except that 
it h'ad not “ a Kalender.” Mine was 
brought to me by a poor person, who found 
it in Covent-garden on a market day. 
There were a few ill-spelt memoranda 
respecting vegetable matters formed on its 
leaves with the style. It had two antique 
slender brass clasps, which were loose ; the 
ancient binding had ceased from long wear 
to do its office, and I confided it to Mr. Wills, 
the almanack publisher in Stationers’-court, 
for a better cover and a silver clasp. Each 
being ignorant of what it was, we spoiled 
“ a table-book of Shakspeare’s time.” 

The most affecting circumstance relating 
to a table book is in the life of the beau¬ 
tiful and unhappy “ Lady Jane Grey.” 
“ Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, 
when he led her to execution, desired her 
to bestow on him some small present, 
which he might keep as a perpetual memo¬ 
rial of her: she gave him her table-book , 
wherein she had just written three sentences, 
on seeing her husband’s body ; one in 
Greek, another in Latin, and a third in 
English. The purport of them was, that 
human justice was against his body, but 
the divine mercy would be favourable to 
his soul; and that, if her fault deserved 
punishment, her youth at least, and her 
imprudence, were worthy of excuse, and 
that God and posterity, she trusted, would 
show her favour.”* 


Having shown what the ancient table 
book was, it may be expected that I should 
say something about 

My 

Table Book. 

The title is to be received in a larger 
sense than the obsolete signification : the 

• Glossary by Mr. Archd. Nares. 


old table books were for private use—mine 
is for the public; and the more the public 
desire it, the more I shall be gratified. I 
have not the folly to suppose it will pass 
from my table to every table, but I think that 
not a single sheet can appear on the table 
of any family without communicating some 
information, or affording some diversion. 

On the title-page there are a few lines 
which briefly, yet adequately, describe the 
collections in my Table Book : and, as re¬ 
gards my own “ sayings and doings,” the 
pievailing disposition of my mind is per¬ 
haps sufficiently made known through the 
Every-Day Book. In the latter publica¬ 
tion, I was inconveniently limited as to 
room ; and the labour I had there prescribed 
to myself, of commemorating every day, 
frequently prevented me from topics that 
would have been more agreeable to my 
readers than the “ two grains of wheat in 
a bushel of chaff,” which I often consumed 
my time and spirits in endeavouring to 
discover—and did not always find. 

In my Table Book , which I hope will 
never be out of “ season,” I take the liberty 
to “ annihilate both time and space,” to 
the extent of a few lines or days, and lease, 
and talk, when and where I can, according 
to my humour. Sometimes I present an 
offering of “ all sorts,” simpled from out- 
of-the-way and in-the-way books; and, at 
other times, gossip to the public, as to an 
old friend, diffusely or briefly, as I chance 
to be more or less in the giving “ vein,” 
about a passing event, a work just read, a 
print in my hand, the thing I last thought 
of, or saw, or heard, or, to be plain, about 
“ whatever comes uppermost.” In short, 
my collections and recollections come forth 
just as I happen to suppose they may be 
most agreeable or serviceable to those 
whom I esteem, or care for, and by whom 
I desire to be respected. 

My Table Book is enriched and diver¬ 
sified by the contributions of my friends ; 
the teemings of time, and the press, give it 
novelty ; and what I know of works of art, 
with something of imagination, and the 
assistance of artists, enable me to add pic¬ 
torial embellishment. My object is to 
blend information with amusement, and 
utility with diversion. 

My Table Book, therefore, is a series 
of continually shifting scenes—a kind of 
literary kaleidoscope, combining popular 
forms with singular appearances— by which 
youth and age of all ranks may be amused; 
and to which, I respectfully trust, many 
will gladly add something, to imurove its 
views. 


2 















NDANTE 


<2E>tsc to tlje JletD i?ear. 

From the Every Day Book; set to Music for the Table Book 9 

By J. K. 





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cy 


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Ol 




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All hail to the birth of the Year! See golden-hair’d 

- E-- E P -Q 






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Oh 






mounting his dew - spangled car. Stern Winter con-geals every 




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o- 


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brook, That mur- mur’d so late - ly with glee, And pla-ces a 


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snowy peruke On the head of each bald - pated tree. 


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* m * For the remaining verses see the Every-Day Book , vol. ri. p. 26. 


3 









































































































































































































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


£I)e Brtu §9tar. 

HAG MAN-HEIGH. 

Anciently on new year’s day the Ro¬ 
mans were accustomed to carry small pre¬ 
sents, as new year’s gifts, to the senators, 
under whose protection they were severally 
placed. In the reigns of the emperors, 
they flocked in such numbers with valuable 
ones, that various decrees were made to 
abolish the custom ; though it always 
continued among that people. The Romans 
who settled in Britain, or the families con¬ 
nected with them by marriage, introduced 
these new year’s gifts among our forefathers, 
who got the habit of making presents, even 
to the magistrates. Some of the fathers of 
the church wrote against them, as fraught 
with the greatest abuses, and the magistrates 
were forced to relinquish them. Besides 
the well-known anecdote of sir Thomas 
More, when lord chancellor,* many in¬ 
stances might be adduced from old records, 
of giving a pair of gloves, some with “ lin¬ 
ings,” and others without. Probably from 
thenoe has been derived the fashion of giv¬ 
ing a pair of gloves upon particular occa¬ 
sions, as at marriages, funerals, &c. New 
year’s gifts continue to be received and 
given by all ranks of people, to commemo¬ 
rate the sun’s return, and the prospect of 
spring, when the gifts of nature are shared 
by all. Friends present some small tokens 
of esteem to each other—husbands to their 
wives, and parents to their children. The 
custom keeps up a cheerful and friendly 
intercourse among acquaintance, and leads 
to that good-humour and mirth so necessary 
to the spirits in this dreary season. Chan¬ 
dlers send as presents to their customers 
large mould candles; grocers give raisins, 
to make a Christmas pudding, or a pack of 
cards, to assist in spending agreeably the 
long evenings. In barbers’ shops “ thrift- 
box,” as it is called, is put by the appren¬ 
tice boys against the wall, and every cus¬ 
tomer, according to his inclination, puts 
something in. Poor children, and old in¬ 
firm persons, beg, at the doors of the cha¬ 
ritable, a small pittance, which, though 
collected in small sums, yet, when put 
together, forms to them a little treasure; 
so that every heart, in all situations of life, 
beats with joy at the nativity of his Saviour. 

The Ilagman Heigh is an old custom 
observed in Yorkshire on new year’s eve, as 
appertaining to the season. The keeper of 
the pinfold goes round the town, attended 

• Every-Day Book, i. 9. 


by a rabble at his heels, and knocking at 
certain doors, sings a barbarous song, be- . 
ginning with— 

“ To-night it is the new year’s eight, to-morro?r is 
the day ; 

We are come about for our right and for our ray. 

As we us’d to do in old king Henry’s day : 

Sing, fellows, sing, Hagman Heigh," &c. 

The song always concludes with “ wish¬ 
ing a merry Christmas and a happy new 
year.” When wood was chiefly used as 
fuel, in heating ovens at Christmas, this was 
the most appropriate season for the hagman , 
or wood-cutter, to remind his customers of 
his services, and to solicit alms. The word 
hag is still used in Yorkshire, to signify a 
wood. The “ hagg” opposite to Easby 
formerly belonged to the abbey, to supply 
them with fuel. Hagman may be a name 
compounded from it. Some derive it from 
the Greek the holy month, when 

the festivals of the church for our Saviour’s 
birth were celebrated. Formerly, on the 
last day of the year, the monks and friars 
used to make a plentiful harvest, by begging 
from door to door, and reciting a kind of 
carol, at the end of every stave of which 
they introduced the words “ agia mene,” 
alluding to the birth of Christ. A very 
different interpretation, however, was given 
to it by one John Dixon, a Scotch presby- 
ter.an minister, when holding forth against 
this custom in one of his sermons at Kelso. 

“ Sirs, do you know what the hagman sig¬ 
nifies ? It is the devil to be in the house; 
that is the meaning of its Hebrew original.”'* 


SONNET 


ON THE NEW YEAR. 


When we look back on hours long past away, 

And every circumstance of joy, or woe 
That goes to make this strange beguiling show 
Call’d life, as though it .fere of yesterday, 

We start to learn our quickness of decay. 

Still flies unwearied Time;—on still we go 
And whither?—Unto endless weal or woe, 

As we have wrought our parts in this brief play. 
Yet many have I seen whose thin blanched locks 
But ill became a head w r here Folly dwelt, 

Who having past this storm with all its shocks. 
Had nothing learnt from what they saw or felt: 
Brave spirits ! that can look, with heedless eye, 
On doom unchangeable, and fixt eternity. 


• Clarkson’s History of Richmond, cited by a cor¬ 
respondent, A. B. 



4 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


antiquities. 

Westminster Abbey. 

The following letter, written by Horace 
Walpole, in relation to the tombs, is curious. 
Di.-, whom he derides, was Dr. Za¬ 

chary Pearce, dean of Westminster, and 
editor of Longinus, &c. 

Strawberry-hill, 1761. 

1 heard lately, that Dr.-, a, very 

learned personage, had consented to let the 
tomb of Aylmer de Valence, earl of Pem¬ 
broke, a very great personage, be removed 
for Wolfe’s monument; that at first he had 
( objected, but was wrought upon by being 
told that hight Aylmer was a knight tem¬ 
plar, a very wicked set of people as his lord- 
ship had heard, though he knew nothing of 
them, as they are not mentioned by Longi¬ 
nus. I own I thought this a made story, 
and wrote to his lordship, expressing my 
concern that one of the finest and most 
ancient monuments in the abbey should be 
removed; and begging, if it was removed, 
that he would bestow it on me, who would 
ierect and preserve it here. After a fort¬ 
night’s deliberation, the bishop sent me an 
answer, civil indeed, and commending my 
zeal for antiquity! but avowing the story 
under his own hand. He said, that at first 
they had taken Pembroke’s tomb for a 
knight templar’s;—observe, that not only 
the man who shows the tombs names it 
every day, but that there is a draught of it 
at large in Dart’s Westminster;—that upon 
discovering whose it was, he had been very 
unwilling to consent to the removal, and at 
lust had obliged Wilton to engage to set it 
'up within ten feet of where it stands at pre¬ 
sent. His lordship concluded with congra¬ 
tulating me on publishing learned authors 
at my press. I don’t wonder that a man 
'who thinks Lucan a learned author, should 
mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I 
had a mind to be angry, I could complain 
with reason,—as having paid forty pounds 
for ground for my mother’s funeral—that the 
chapter of Westminster sell their church 
|over and over again : the ancient monu¬ 
ments tumble upon one’s head through 
thoi** neglect, as one of them did, and killed 
<, man at lady Elizabeth Percy’s funeral ; 
and they erect new waxen dolls of queen 
Elizabeth, &c. to draw visits and money 
from the mob. 


JJtograpfttral jweniorantra. 

Cometary Influence. 

Brantome relates, that the duchess of 


Angoul&me, in the sixteenth century, being 
awakened during the night, she was sur¬ 
prised at an extraordinary brightness which 
illuminated her chamber; aporehending it 
to be the fire, she reprimanded her women 
for having made so large a one; but the) 
assured her it was caused by the moon. 
The duchess ordered her curtains to be un¬ 
drawn, and discovered that it was a comet 
which produced this unusual light. “ Ah !” 
exclaimed she, “ this is a phenomenon 
which appears not to persons of common 
condition. Shut the window, it is a comet, 
which announces my departure; I must 
prepare for death.” The following morning 
she sent for her confessor, in the certainty 
of an approaching dissolution. The phy¬ 
sicians assured her that her apprehensions 
were ill founded and premature. “ If I had 
not,” replied she, “ seen the signal for 
death, I could believe it, for I do not feel 
myself exhausted or peculiarly ill.” On 
the third day after this event she expired, 
the victim of terror. Long after this period 
all appearances of the celestial bodies, not 
perfectly comprehended by the multitude, 
were supposed to indicate the deaths of 
sovereigns, or revolutions in their govern¬ 
ments. 


Two Painters. 

When the duke d’Aremberg was confined 
at Antwerp, a person was brought in as a j 
spy, and imprisoned in the same place. ' 
The duke observed some slight sketches by 
his fellow prisoner on the wall, and, con¬ 
ceiving they indicated talent, desired Ru¬ 
bens, with whom he was intimate, and 
by whom he was visited, to bring with 
him a pallet and pencils for the painter, who 
was in custody with him. The materials I 
requisite for painting were given to the ! 
artist, who took for his subject a group of 
soldiers playing at cards in the corner of a 
prison. When Rubens saw the picture, he 
cried out that it was done by Brouwer, 
whose works he had often seen, and as 
often admired. Rubens offered six hundred 
guineas for it; the duke would by no means 
part with it, but presented the painter with 
a larger sum. Rubens exerted his interest, 
and obtained the liberty of Brouwer, by 
becoming his surety, received him into his 
house, clothed as well as maintained him, 
and took pains to make the world acquainted 
with his merit. But the levity of Brouwer’s 
temper would not suffer him long to con¬ 
sider his situation any better than a state, 
of confinement; he therefore quitted Ru¬ 
bens, and died shortly afterwards, in con¬ 
sequence of a dissolute course of life. 


5 






















1 


TiiE TABLE-BOOK. 



^presentation of a pageant ©elude antj $3Iap. 


The state, and reverence, and show. 
Were so attractive, folks would go 
From all parts, ev’ry year, to see 
The<e pageant-plays at Coventry. 


This engraving is from a very curious Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, ancienuy 
orint in Mr. Sham’s “ Dissertation on the performed at Coventry.” 


6 






















































































































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Coventry is distinguished in the history 
of the drama, because, under the title of 
“ Ludus Coventries ,” there exists a manu¬ 
script volume of most curious early plays, 
not yet printed, nor likely to be, unless 
there are sixty persons, at this time suffici¬ 
ently concerned for our ancient literature 
and manners, to encourage a spirited gen¬ 
tleman to print a limited number of copies, 
[f by any accident the manuscript should 
be destroyed, these plays, the constant 
theme of literary antiquaries from Dugdale 
to the present period, will only be known 
through the partial extracts of writers, who 
have sometimes inaccurately transcribed 
from the originals in the British Museum.* 

Mr. Sharp’s taste and attainments qua¬ 
lifying him for the task, and his residence 
at Coventry affording him facility of re¬ 
search among the muniments of the cor¬ 
poration, he has achieved the real labour 
of drawing from these and other unexplored 
sources, a body of highly interesting 
facts, respecting the vehicles, characters, 
and dresses of the actors in the pageants or 
dramatic mysteries anciently performed by 
the trading companies of that city ; which, 
together with accounts of municipal enter¬ 
tainments of a public nature, form his meri¬ 
torious volume. 

Very little has been known respecting 
the stage “ properties,” before the rise of 
the regular drama, and therefore the abun¬ 
dant matter of that nature, adduced by this 
gentleman, is peculiarly valuable. With 
“ The Taylors’ and Shearemens’ Pagant,” 
complete from the original manuscript, he 
gives the songs and the original music, 
engraved on three plates, which is'eminently 
remarkable, because it is, perhaps, the only 
existing specimen of the melodies in the 
old Mysteries. There are ten other plates 
in the work; one of them represents the 
club, or maul, of Pilate, a character in the 
pageant of the Cappers’ company. “ By a 
variety of tntries it appears he had a club 
or maul, stuffed with wool ; and that the 
exterior was formed of leather, is authenti¬ 
cated by the actual existence of such a 
club or maul, discovered by the writer of 
this Dissertation, in an antique chest within 
the Cappers’ chapel, (together with an iron 

• By a notice in Mr. Sharp’s “ Dissertation,” he pro¬ 
poses to publish the “ Coventry Mysteries,” with notes 
and illustrations, in two vols. octavo: 100 copies on 
royal paper, at three guineas; and 25, on imperial 
paper, at five guineas. Notwithstanding he limits the 
entire impression to these 125 copies, and wi f. 0 ™* 
mence to print as soon as the names of sixty subscribers 
are sent to his publishers, it appears that this smah 
number is not yet complete. The fact is men mned 
here, because it will b' reproach to the age if such an 
overture '.s not embraced. 


cresset, and some fragments of armour,) 
where it had probably remained ever since 
the breaking up of the pageant.” The 
subject of the Cappers* pageant was usually 
the trial and crucifixion of Christ, and the 
descent into hell. 

The pageant vehicles were high scaffolds 
with two rooms, a higher and a lower, 
constructed upon four or six wheels ; in 
the lower room the performers dressed, 
and in the higher room they played. This 
higher room, or rather, as it may be called, 
the “ stage,’* was all open on the top, that 
the beholders might hear and see. On the 
day of performance the vehicles were 
wheeled, by men, from place to place, 
throughout the city ; the floor was strewed 
with rushes; and to conceal the lower 
room, wherein thf performers dressed, 
cloths were hung round the vehicle : there 
is reason to believe that, on these cloths, 
the subject of the performance was painted 
or worked in tapestry. The higher room 
of the Drapers’ vehicle was embattled, and 
ornamented with carved work, and a crest; 
the Smiths’ had vanes, burnished and 
painted, with streamers flying. 

In an engraving which is royal quarto, 
the size of the work, Mr. Sharp has laud¬ 
ably endeavoured to convey a clear idea of 
the appearance of a pageant vehicle, and 
of the architectural appearance of the houses 
in Coventry, at the time of performing the 
Mysteries. So much of that engraving as re¬ 
presents the vehicle is before the reader on 
the preceding page. The vehicle, supposed 
to be of the Smiths’ company, is stationed 
near the Cross in the Cross-cheaping, and 
the time of action chosen is the period when 
Pilate, on the charges of Caiphas and Annas, 
is compelled to give up Christ for execu¬ 
tion. Pilate is represented on a throne, 
or chair of state ; beside him stands his son 
with a sceptre and poll-axe, and beyond 
the Saviour are the two high priests; the 
two armed figures behind are knights. The 
pageant cloth bears the symbols of the 
passion. 

Besides the Coventry Mysteries and other 
matters, Mr. Sharp notices those of Chester, 
and treats largely on the ancient setting of 
the watch on Midsummer and St. John’s 
Eve, the corporation giants, morris dancers, 
minstrels, and waites. 

I could not resist the very fitting op¬ 
portunity on the opening of the new year, 
and of the Table Book together, to introduce 
a memorandum, that so important an ac¬ 
cession has accrued to our curious litera 


7 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


tare, as Mr. Sharp’s “ Dissertation on the 
Coventry Mysteries.” 


“The Thing to a T.” 

A young man, brought up in the city of 
London to the business of an undertaker, 
went to Jamaica to better his condition. 
Business flourished, and he wrote to his 
father in Bishopsgate-street to send him, 
with a quantity of black and grey cloth, 
twenty gross of black Tacks. Unfortu¬ 
nately he had omitted the top to hisT, and 
the order stood twenty gross of black Jacks. 
liis correspondent, on receiving the letter, 
recollected a man, near Fleet-market, who 
made quart and pint tin pots, ornamented 
with painting, and which were called black 
Jacks , and to him he gave the order 
for the twenty gross of black Jacks. The 
maker, surprised, said, he had not so many 
ready, but would endeavour to complete 
the order; this was done, and the articles 
were shipped. The undertaker received 
them with other consignments, and was 
astonished at the mistake. A friend, fond 
of speculation, offered consolation, by pro¬ 
posing to purchase the whole at the invoice 
price. The undertaker, glad to get rid of 
an article he considered useless in that part 
of the world, took the offer. His friend 
immediately advertised for sale a number 
cf fashionable punch vases just arrived from 
England, and sold the jacks, gaining 200 
per cent.! 

The young undertaker afterwards dis¬ 
coursing upon his father’s blunder, was 
told by his friend, in a jocose strain, to 
crder a gross of warming-pans, and see 
whether the well-informed correspondents 
in London would have the sagacity to con¬ 
sider such articles necessity in the latitude 
of nine degrees north. The young man 
laughed at the suggestion, but really put 
in practice the joke. He desired his father 
in lus next letter to send a gross of warm¬ 
ing-pans, which actually, and to the great 
surprise of the son, reached the island of 
Jamaica. What to do with this cargo he 
knew not. His friend again became a pur¬ 
chaser at prime cost, and having knocked 
ofl tbe covers, informed the planters, that 
he had just imported a number of newly- 
constructed sugar ladles. The article under 
that name sold rapidly, and returned a 
large profit. The parties returned to Eng¬ 
land with fortunes, and often told the story 
of the black jacks and warming-pans over 
the bottle, adding, that “ Nothing is lost in 
a good market,” 


BoOKd. 

-Give ttc 

Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that does 
Contain my books, the best companions, is 
To me a glorious court, where hourly I 
Converse with the old sages and philosophers; 

And sometimes for variety, I confer 

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels; 

Calling their victories, if unjustly got, 

Unto a strict account; and in my fancy. 

Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I then 
Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace 
Uncertain vanities? No : be it your care 
To augment a heap of wealth: it shall be mine 
To increase in knowledge. Fletcher. 


Imagination. 

Imagination enriches every thing. A 
great library contains not only books, but 
“ the assembled souls of all that men held 
wise.” The moon is Homer’s and Shak- 
speare’s moon, as well as the one we look 
at. The sun comes out of his chamber in 
the east, with a sparkling eye, “rejoicing 
like a bridegroom.” The commonest thing 
becomes like Aaron’s rod, that budded. 
Pope called up the spirits of the Cabala to 
wait upon a lock of hair, and justly gave it 
the honours of a constellation; for he has 
hung it, sparkling for ever, in the eyes of 
posterity. A common meadow is a sorry 
thing to a ditcher of a coxcomb; but by the 
help of its dues from imagination and the 
love of nature, the grass brightens for us, ^ 
the air soothes us, we feel as we did in the 
daisied hours of childhood. Its verdures, 
its sheep, its hedge-row elms,—all these, 
and all else which sigVit, and sound, and j 
association can give it, are made to furnish j 
a treasure of pleasant thoughts. Even j 
b ick and mortar are vivified, as of old at 
the harp of Orpheus. A metropolis be-; 
comes no longer a mere collection of houses 
or of trades. It puts on all the grandeur 
of its history, and its literature ; its tow- 
ers, and rivers; its ait, and jewellery, and 
foreign wealth; its multitude of human 
beings all intent upon excitement, wise or 
yet to learn ; the huge and sullen dignity j 
of its canopy of smoke by day; the wide 
gleam upwards of its lighted lustre at night¬ 
time; and the noise of its many chariots, 
heard, at the same hour, when the wind sets 
gently towards some quiet suburb .—Leivk 
Hunt. 


Actors. 

Madame Rollan, who died in 1785, in 
the seventy-fifth year of her age, was a 
principal dancer on Covent-garden stage in 


8 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


I 

1731, and followed her profession, by pri¬ 
vate teaching, to the last year of her life. 
She had so much celebrity in her day, that 
having one evening sprained her ancle, no 
less an actor than Quin was ordered by the 
manager to make an apology to the audi¬ 
ence for her not appearing in the dance. 
Quin, who looked upon all dancers as “the 
.mere garnish of the stage,” at first de- 
1 muned ; but being threatened with a for¬ 
feiture, he growlingly came forward, and in 
his coarse way thus addressed the audience: 

“ Ladies and Gentlemen, 

“ I am desired by the manager to inform 
you, that the dance intended for this night 
is obliged to be postponed, on account of 
mademoiselle Rollan having dislocated her 
ancle: I wish it had been her neck.” 


In Quin’s time Hippesley was the Roscius 
of low comedy ; he had a large scar on his 
cheek, occasioned by being dropped into 
the fire, by a careless nurse, when an in¬ 
fant, which gave a very whimsical cast to 
his features. Conversing with Quin con¬ 
cerning his son, he told him, he had some 
thoughts of bringing him on the stage. 
“ Oh,” replied the cynic, “ if that is your 
intention, I think it is high time you should 
burn his face,” 


On one of the first nights of the opera 
of Cymon at Drury-lane theatre, when the 
late Mr. Vernon began the last air in the 
fourth act, which runs, 

“ Tom from me, torn from me, which way did they 
take her ?” 

a dissatisfied musical critic immediately 
answered the actor’s interrogation in the 
following words, and to the great astonish¬ 
ment of the audience, in the exact tune of 
the air, 

“ Why towards Long-acre, towards Long-acre.” 

This unexpected circumstance naturally 
embarrassed poor Vernon, but in a moment 
recovering himself, he sung in rejoinder, 
the following words, instead of the author’s : 

“ Ho, ho, did they so. 

Then I’ll soon overtake her, 

I’ll soon overtake her.” 

Vernon then precipitately made his exit 
amidst the plaudits of the whole house. 


®omr Department. 

Potatoes. 

If potatoes, how much soever frosted, 
be only carefully excluded from the atmo¬ 
spheric air, and the pit not opened until 


some time after the frost lias entirely sub¬ 
sided, they will be found not to have us- , 
tained the slightest injury. This is on ■ 
account of their not having been exposed 
to a sudden change, and thawing gradually, 
A person inspecting his potato heap, 
which had been covered with turf, found 
them so frozen, that, on being moved, they 
rattled like stones : he deemed them irre¬ 
coverably lost, and, replacing the turf, left 
them, as he thought, to their fate. lie 
was not less surprised than pleased, a con¬ 
siderable time afterwards, when he disco¬ 
vered that his potatoes, which he had given 
up for lost, had not suffered the least de¬ 
triment, but were, in all respects, remark¬ 
ably fine, except a few near the spot which 
had been uncovered. If fanners keep their 
heaps covered till the frost entirely disap¬ 
pears, they will find their patience amply 
rewarded. 


iLmrUon. 

Lost Children. 

The Gresham committee having humanely 
provided a means of leading to the discovery 
of lost or strayed children, the following 
is a copy of the bill, issued in consequence 
of their regulation :— 

To the Public. 

London. 

If persons who may have lost a child, or 
found one, in the streets, will go with a 
written notice to the Royal Exchange, they 
will find boards fixed up near the medicine 
shop, for the purpose of posting up such 
notices, (free of expense.') By fixing their 
notice at this place, it is probable the 
child will be restored to its afflicted parents 
on the same day it may have been missed. 
The children, of course, are to be taken 
care of in the parish where they are found 
until their homes are discovered. | 

From the success which has, within a 
short time, been found to result from the 
immediate posting up notices of this soit., 
there can be little doubt, when the know¬ 
ledge of the above-mentioned boards is 
general, but that many children will be 
speedily restored. It is recommended that 
a bellman be sent round the neighbourhood, 
as heretofore has been usually done. 

Persons on receiving this paper are re¬ 
quested to fix it up in their shop-window, 
or other conspicuous place. 


The managers of Spa-fields chapel 
improving upon the above hint, caused 


9 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


a board to be placed in front of their chapel 
for the same purpose, and printed bills which 
can be very soon filled up, describing the 
child lost or found, in the following 
| forms:— 

CHILD LOST. 

Sex Age 

I Name 
Residence 

farther particulars ,- r - 

The severe affliction many parents suffer 
by the loss of young children, should in¬ 
duce parish officers, and others, in popu¬ 
lous neighbourhoods, to adopt a plan so 
well devised to facilitate the restoration of 
strayed children. 


Ticket Porters. 


CHILD FOUND. 
I Sex Age 

| is 1 ;i.lie 

I May be heard of at 
Further particulars 


By an Act of common council of the city 
of London, Heygate, mayor, 1823, the 
ticket porters are not to exceed five hun¬ 
dred. 

A ticket porter, when plying or working, 
is to wear his ticket so as to be plainly 
seen, under a penalty of 2s. 6d. for each 
offence. 

No ticket porter is to apply for hire in 
any place but on the stand, appointed by 
the acts of common council, or within six 
yards thereof, under a penalty of 5s. 


FARES OF TICKET-PORTERS. 



Qr. 

Half 

One 


Two 

mile 


Mile. 

Mile. 

Mile. 

Mile. 

Miles. 

fa: thei 


s. d. 

s. d. 

s. d. 

s * d* 

s. d. 

s. d. 

For any Package, Letter, &c. not ex- 







ceeding56lbs 

0 4 

0 6 

0 9 

1 0 

1 6 

0 6 

Above 56 lbs. and not exceeding 







112 lbs. .... 

0 6 

0 9 

1 0 

1 6 

2 0 

0 9 

! Above 112 lbs. and not exceeding 







168 lbs. .... 

' 0 8 

1 0 

1 6 

2 0 

2 6 

1 0 


For 

every 

half 


For every parcel above 14 lbs. which they may have to bring back, they are 

allowed half the above fares. 


A ticket porter not to take more than one 
ob at a time, penalty 2s. 6d. 

Seven, or more, rulers of the society, to 
constitute a court. 

The governor of the society, with the 
court of rulers, to make regulations, and 
annex reasonable penalties for the breach 
thereof, not exceeding 20s. for each offence, 
or three months’ suspension. They may dis¬ 
charge porters who persist in breach of 
their orders. 

The court of rulers to hear and determine 
complaints in absence of the governor. 

Any porter charging more than his re¬ 
gular fare, finable on conviction to the 
extent of 20s., by the governor, or the court 
of rulers. 

Persons employing any one within the 
city, except their own servants or ticket 
porters, are liable to be prosecuted. 

Oliver Cromwell. 

The following is an extract from one of 
Richard Symons’s Pocket-books, preserved 
amongst the Harleian MSS. in the British 
Museum. No. 991. “At the marriage of 


his daughter to Rich, in Nov. 1657, the 
lord protector threw about sack-posset 
among all the ladyes to soyle their rich 
cloaths, which they tooke as a favour, and 
also wett sweetmeats; and daubed all the 
stooles where diey were to sit with wett 
sweetmeats; and pulled off Rich his pe- 
ruque, and would have thrown it into the 
fire, but did not, yet he sate upon it.” 


Old Women. 

De Foe remarks in his “ Protestant 
Monastery,” that “ If any whimsical or 
ridiculous story is told, ’tis of an Old Wo¬ 
man. If any person is awkward at his 
business or any thing else, he is called an 
Old Woman forsooth. Those were brave 
days for young people, when they could 
swear the old ones out of their lives, and 
get a woman hanged or burnt only for 
being a little too old—and, as a warning 
to all ancient persons, who should dare to 
live longer than the young ones think con¬ 
venient.” 


Duel with a Bag. 

Two gentlemen, one a Spaniard, and 
the other a German, who were recom- 


10 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


mended, by their birth and services, to 
the emperor Maximilian II., both courted 
his daughter, the fair Helene Schar- 
fequinn, in marriage. This prince, after 
a long delay, one day informed them, 
that esteeming them equally, and not being 
able to bestow a preference, he should 
leave it to the force and address of the 
claimants to decide the question. He did 
not mean, however, to risk the loss of one 
or the other, or perhaps of both. He 
could not, therefore, permit them to en¬ 
counter with offensive weapons, but had 
ordered a large bag to be produced. It 
was his decree, that whichever succeeded 
in putting his rival into this bag should 
obtain the hand of his daughter. This 
singular encounter between the two gen¬ 
tlemen took place in the face of the whole 
court. The contest lasted for more than an 
hour. At length the Spaniard yielded, and 
the German, Ehberhard, baron de Talbert, 
having planted his rival in the bag, took it 
upon his back, and very gallantly laid it at 
the feet of his mistress, whom he espoused 
the next day. 

Such is the story, as gravely told by M. 
de St. Foix. It is impossible to say what 
the feelings of a successful combatant in a 
duel may be, on his having passed a small 
sword through the body, or a bullet through 
the thorax , of his antagonist; but might 
he not feel quite as elated, and more con¬ 
soled, on having put is adversary “ into a 
bag ? ” 


“ A New Matrimonial Plan.” 

This is the title of a bill printed and dis¬ 
tributed four or five years ago, and‘now 
before me, advertising “ an establishment 
where persons of all classes, who are anxious 
to sweeten life, by repairing to the altar of 
Hymen , have an opportunity of meeting 
with proper partners.” The “ plan” says, 
“ their personal attendance is not abso¬ 
lutely necessary, a statement of facts is all 
that is required at first.” The method is 
simply this, for the parties to become sub¬ 
scribers, the amount to be regulated ac¬ 
cording to circumstances, and that they 
should be arranged in classes in the fol¬ 
lowing order, viz. 

“ Ladies. 

'* 1st Class. I am twenty years of age, 
heiress to an estate in the county 
of Essex of the value of 30,000/., 
well educated, and of domestic 
habits; of an agreeable, lively dis¬ 
position and genteel figure. Re¬ 
ligion that of my future husband. 


“ 2d Class. I am thirty jears of age, a 
widow, in the giocery line in 
London—have children ; ol 
middle stature, full made, fai. 
complexion and hair, temper 
agreeable, worth 3,000/. 

“ 3d Class. I am tall and thin, a little 
lame in the hip, of a lively dispo¬ 
sition, conversable, twenty years 
of age, live with my father, who, 
if I marry with his consent, will 
give me 1,000/. 

“ 4th Class. I am twenty years of age; mild 
disposition and manners; allow¬ 
ed to be personable. 

“5th Class. I am sixty years of age; in¬ 
come limited ; active and rathei 
agreeable. 

“ Gentlemen. 

“ 1st Class. A young gentleman with dark 
eyes and hair ; stout made ; well 
educated ; have an estate of 500/. 
per annum in the county of Kent; 
besides 10,000/. in the three per 
cent, consolidated annuities ; am 
of an affable disposition, and very 
affectionate. 

“ 2d Class. I am forty years of age, tall 
and slender, fair complexion and 
hair, well tempered and of .sober 
habits, have a situation in the 
Excise of 300/. per annum, and a 
small estate in Wales of the an¬ 
nual value of 150/. 

“ 3d Class. A tradesman in the city of 
Bristol, in a ready-money busi¬ 
ness, turning 150/. per week, at 
a profit of 10/. per cent., pretty 
well tempered, lively, and fond 
of home. 

“ 4th Class. I am fifty-eight years of age ; 

a widower, without incumbrance; 
retired from business upon a 
small income; healthy constitu¬ 
tion ; and of domestic habits. 

“ 5th Class. I am twenty-five years of age ; 

a mechanic, of sober habits; in¬ 
dustrious, and of respectable con¬ 
nections. 

“ It is presumed that the public will not 
find any difficulty in describing themselves; 
if they should, they will have the assistance 
of the managers, who wall be in attendance 
at the office, No. 5, Great St. Helen’s, 
Bishopgate-street, on Mondays, Wednes¬ 
days, and Fridays, between the hours of 
eleven and three o’clock.—Please to in-1 
quire for Mr. Jameson, up one pair of 
stairs. All letters to be post paid. 

“ The subscribers are to be furnished 


11 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


with a list of descriptions, and when one 
occurs likely to suit, the parties may cor¬ 
respond ; and if mutually approved, the 
interview may be afterwards arranged. 
Further particulars may be had as above.” 

Such a strange device in our own time, 
for catching would-be lovers, seems incredi¬ 
ble, and yet here is the printed plan, with 
the name and address of the match-making 
gentleman you are to inquire for “ up one 
pair of stairs.’’ 


Copograpliual itrlemorantja. 

Clerical Longevity. 

The following is an authentic account, 
from the “ Antiquarian Repertory,” of the 
incumbents of a vicarage near Bridgenorth 
in Shropshire. Its annual revenue, till the 
death of the last incumbent here mentioned, 
was not more than about seventy pounds 
per annum, although it is a very large and 
populous parish, containing at least twenty 
hamlets or townships, and is scarcely any 
where less than four or five miles in dia¬ 
meter. By a peculiar idiom in that coun¬ 
try, the inhabitants of this large district are 
?aid to live “in Worfield-homeand tire 
adjacent, or not far distant, parishes (each 
of them containing, in like manner, many 
townships, or hamlets) are called ClaVerly, 
or Clarely-home, Tatnall-home, Womburn- 
home, or, as the terminating word is every 
where pronounced in that neighbourhood, 
“ whome.” 

“A list of the vicars of Worfield in the 
diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and in the 
county of Salop, from 1564 to 1763, viz. 

“ Demerick, vicar, last popish priest, con¬ 
formed during the six first years of Eliza¬ 
beth. He died 1564. 

Barney, vicar 44 years ; died 1608. 

Barney, vicar 56 years; died 1604. 

Hancocks, vicar 42 years; died 1707. 

Adamson, vicar 56 years : died 1763. 
Only 4 vicars in 199 years/' 


Spelling for a Wake. 

Proclamation was made a few years ago, 
at Tewkesbury, from a written paper, of 
which the following is a copy :— 

“ Hobnail’s Wake —This his to give 
notis on Tusday next—a Hat to be playd 
at bac sord fore. Two Belts to be tuseld 
fore. A plum cack to be gump in bags 
fowr. A pond of backer to be bold for, 
and a showl to danc lot by wimen.” 


THE BEAUTIES OF SOMERSET. 

A BALLAD. 

I’m a Zummerzetzhire man, 

Zhew me better if you can. 

In the North, Zouth, East, or West} 

I waz born in Taunton Dean, 

Of all places ever seen 
The richest and the best. Old Ballad 


Tune, Alley Croher. 


That Britain’s like a precious gem 
Set in the silver ocean, 

Our Shakspeare sung, and none condemn 
Whilst most approve the notion,— 

But various parts, we now declare. 

Shine forth in various splendour. 

And those bright beams that shine most fair. 

The western portions render;— 

O the counties, the matchless western counties. 
But far the best, 

Of all the rest, 

Is Somerset for ever. 

For come with me, and we’ll survey 
Our hills and vallies over, 

Our vales, where clear brooks bubbling stray 
Through meads of blooming clover ; 

Our hills, that rise in giant pride, 

With hollow dells between them, 

Whose sable forests, spreading wide. 

Enrapture all who’ve seen them; 

O the counties, &c. 

How could I here forgetful be 
Of all your scenes romantic. 

Our rugged rocks, our swelling sea, 

Where foams the wild Atlantic! 

There’s not an Eden known to men 
That claims such admiration. 

As lovely Culbone’s peaceful glen, 

The Tempe of the nation ; 

O the counties, &c. 

To name each beauty in my rhyme 
Would prove a vain endeavour. 

I’ll therefore sing that cloudless clime 
Where Summer sets for ever ; 

Where ever dwells the Age of Gold 
In fertile vales and sunny. 

Which, like the promis’d land of old, 

O’erflows with milk and honey; 

O the counties, &c. 

But 0! to crown my county’s worth, 

What all the rest surpasses. 

There’s not a spot in all the earth 
Can boast such lovely lasses ; 

There’s not a spot beneath the sun 
Where hearts are open’d wider. 

Then let us toast them every on®. 

In bowls of native cider; 

0 the counties, &c. 


12 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


®2HeatJ)fr. 

A new Hygrometer. 

A new instrument to measure the de¬ 
grees of moisture in the atmosphere, of 
which the following is a description, was 
invented by M. Baptist Lendi, of St. Gall: 

In a white flint bottle is suspended a 
piece of metal, about the size of a hazle 
nut, which not only looks extremely beau¬ 
tiful, and contributes to the ornament of a 
room, but likewise predicts every possible 
change of weather twelve or fourteen hours 
before it occurs. As soon as the metal is 
suspended in the bottle with water, it 
begins to increase in bulk, and in ten or 
twelve days forms an admirable pyramid, 
which resembles polished brass; and it 
undergoes several changes, till it has at¬ 
tained its full dimensions. In rainy wea¬ 
ther, this pyramid is constantly covered 
with pearly drops of water; in case of 
thunder or hail, it will change to the finest 
red, and throw out rays ; in case of wind 
or fog, it will appear dull and spotted ; 
and previously to snow, it will look quite 
muddy. If placed in a moderate tempera¬ 
ture, it will require no other trouble than 
to pour out a common tumbler fall of 
| water, and to put in the same quantity of 
fresh. For the first few days it must not 
be shaken. 


©trmtana. 

Calico Company. 

A red kitten was sent to the house of a 
linen-draper in the city; and, on departing 
from the maternal basket, the following 
lines were written :— 

The Red Kitten. 

O the red red kitten is sent away. 

No more on parlour hearth to play; 

He must live in the draper’s house, 

And chase the rat, and catch the mousf. 

And all day long in silence go 
Through bales of cotton and calico. 

After the king of England fam’d. 

The red red kitten was Rufus nam’d. 

And as king Rufus sported through 
Thicket and brake of the Forest New, 

The red red kitten Rufus so 
Shall jump about the calico. 

But as king Rufus chas’d the deer. 

And hunted the forest far and near. 

Until as he watch’d the jumpy squirrel. 

He was shot by Walter Tyrrel; 

So, if Fate shall his death ordain, 

Shall kitten Rufus by dogs be slam, 

And end his thrice three lives of woe 
Among the cotton and calico. 


Ctorlftb-'Uap 

SONNET 

TO A PRETTY GIRL IN A PASTRY-COORDS 
SHOP. 

Sweet Maid, for thou art maid of many sweets. 

Behind thy counter, lo 1 I see thee standing, 

Gaz’d at by wanton wand’rers in the street*. 

While cakes , to cakes. thy pretty fist is handing. 

Light as a puff appears thy every motion. 

Yet thy replies I’ve heard are sometimes tart ; 

I deem thee a preserve , yet I’ve a notion 
That warm as brandied cherries is thy heart. 

Then be not to thy lover like an ice. 

Nor sour as raspberry vinegar to one 
Who owns thee for a sugar-plum so nice, 

Nicer than comfit , syllabub, or bun. 

I love thee more than all the girls so natty, 

I do, indeed, my sipeet, my savoury Patty. 

“ Holly Night ” at Brough. 

For the Table Book. 

The ancient custom of carrying the 
“ holly tree” on Twelfth Night, at Brough 
in Westmoreland, is represented in the ac¬ 
companying engraving. 

Formerly the “ Holly-tree” at Biough was 
really “ holly,” but ash being abundant, 
the latter is now substituted. There are 
two head inns in the town, which provide 
for the ceremony alternately, though the 
good townspeople mostly lend their assist¬ 
ance in preparing the tree, to every branch 
of which they fasten a torch. About eight 
o’clock in the evening, it is taken to a con¬ 
venient part of the town, where the torches 
are lighted, the town band accompanying 
and playing till all is completed, when 
it is removed to the lower end of the town; 
and, after divers salutes and huzzas from 
the spectators, is carried up and down the 
town, in stately procession, usually by a 
person of renowned strength, named Joseph 
Ling. The band march behind it, play¬ 
ing their instruments, and stopping every 
time they reach the town bridge, and the 
cross, where the “ holly” is ag-ain greeted 
with shouts of applause. Many of the in¬ 
habitants caprry lighted branches and flam¬ 
beaus ; and rockets, squibs, &c. are dis¬ 
charged on the joyful occasion. After the 
tree is thus carried, and the torcnes are 
sufficiently burnt, it is placed in the middle 
of the town, when it is again cheered by 
the surrounding populace, and is afterwards 
thrown among them. They eagerly watch 
for this opportunity ; and, clinging to each 
end of the tree, endeavour to carry it away 
to the inn they are contending for, where 
they are allowed their usual quantum of 


13 















Carrptng the “ fiollp Cm” at Brough, ©SlcStinordanb. 


To every branch a torch they tie, 

To every torch a light apply; 

At each new light send forth huzzas 
Till all the tree is in a blaze; 

And then bear it flaming through the town, 
With minstrelsy, and rockets thrown. 


ale and spirits, and pass a “ merry night," 
which seldom breaks up before two in the 
morning. 

| Although the origin of this usage is lost, 
and no tradition exists by which it can be 
traced, yet it may not be a strained surmise 
to derive it from the church ceremony of 
the day when branches of trees were carried 
in procession to decorate the altars, in com- 
tnemoration of the offerings of the Magi, 
whose names are handed down to us as 
! Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar, the pa- 
j trons of travellers. In catholic countries, 
flambeaus and torches always abound in 
their ceremonies; and persons residing in 
the streets through which they pass, testify 
iheir zeal and piety by providing flambeaus 
at their own expense, and bringing them 
'.ighted to the doors of their houses. 

W.H.IL 


Communications for the Tabic Book addressed to 
me, in a parcel, or under cover, to the care of the pub¬ 
lishers, will be gladly received. 

Notices to Correspondents will appear on the 
wrappers of the monthly parts only. 

The Table Book, therefore, after the present sheet, 
will be printed continuously, without matter of this 
kind, or the intervention of temporary titles, unplea¬ 
sant to the eye, when the work comes to be bound in 
volumes. 

Lastly, because this is the last opportunity of the 
kind in my power, I beg to add that some valuable 
papers which could not be included in the Every-Day 
Book, will appear in the Table Book. 

Moreover Lastly, I earnestly solicit the immediate 
activity of my friends, to oblige and serve me, by 
sending any thing, and every thing they cau collect oi 
recollect, which they may suppose at all likely to rcu- ! 
der my Table Book instructive, or diverting. 

W. Hone. 








































































































TUE TABLE BOOK. 



©mfgratton of tfy? Mttv front Cranbourn 1826 

The genial yeais increase the timid herd 
Till wood and pasture yield a scant supply ; 

Then troop the deer, as at a signal word. 

And in long lines o’er barren downs they hie. 

In search what food far vallies may afford — 

Less fearing man, their ancient enemy, 

Than in their native chase to starve and die. 


15 


c 



















TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


The (leer of Cranbourn chase usually 
average about ten thousand in number. In 
the winter of 1826, they were presumed to 
amount to from twelve to fifteen thousand. 
This increase is ascribed to the unusual 
mildness of recent winters, and the conse¬ 
quent absence of injuries which the animals 
are subject to from severe weather. 

In the month of November, a great 
number of deer from the woods and pas¬ 
tures of the Chase, between Gunvile and 
Ashmore, crossed the narrow downs on the 
western side, and descended into the adja¬ 
cent parts of the vale of Black more in 
quest of subsistence. There was a large 
increase in the number about twelve years 
preceding, till the continued deficiency of 
food occasioned a mortality. Very soon 
afterwards, however, they again increased 
and emigrated for food to the vallies, as in 
the present instance. At the former period, 
the greater part were not allowed or were 
unable to return. 

The tendency of deer to breed beyond 
the means of support, afforded by parks 
and other places wherein they are kept, 
has been usually regulated by converting 
them into venison. This is clearly moie 
humane than suffering the herds so to en¬ 
large, that there is scarcely for “ every one 
a mouthtull, and no one a bellyfull.” It is 
al>o better to pay a good price for good 
venison in season, than to have poor and 
cheap venison from the surplus of starving 
animals “ killed off” in mercy to the re¬ 
mainder, or in compliance with the wishes 
of landholders whose grounds they invade 
in their extremity. 

The emigration of the deer from Cran¬ 
bourn Chase suggests, that as such cases 
arise in winter, their venison may be be¬ 
stowed with advantage on labourers, who 
abound more in children than in the means 
of providing for them; and thus the sur¬ 
plus of the forest-bieed be applied to the 
support and comfort of impoverished hu¬ 
man beings. 


Cranbourn. 

Cranbourn is a market town and parish in 
the hundred of Cranbourn,Dorsetshire,about 
12 miles south-west from Salisbury, and 93 
from London. According to the last census, 
it contains 367 houses and 1823 inhabitants, 
of whom 104 are returned as being em¬ 
ployed in trade. The parish includes a 
circuit of 40 miles, and the town is plea¬ 
santly situated in a fine champaign country 
at the north-east extremity of the county, 
near Cranbourn Chase, which extends 

L---- -- 


almost to Salisbury. Its market is on a 
Thursday, it has a cattle market m the 
spring, and its fairs are on St. Bartholomew s 
and St. Nicholas’ days. It is the capital of 
the hundred to which it gives its name, and 
is a vicarage valued in the king’s books at 
£6.13s. 4df. It is a place of high antiquity, 
famous in the Saxon and Norman times for 
its monastery, its chase, and its lords. The 
monastery belonged to the Benedictines, of 
which the church at the west end of the 
town was the priory.* 

Affray in the Chase. 

On the night of the 16th of December, 
1780, a severe battle was fought between 
the keepers and deer-stealers on Chettle 
Common, in Bursey-stool Walk. The deer- 
stealers had assembled at Pimpeme, and 
were headed by one Blandford, a sergeant 
of dragoons, a native of Pimperne, then 
quartered at Blandford. They came in the 
night in disguise, armed with deadly offen¬ 
sive weapons called swindgels, resembling 
flails to thresh corn. They attacked the 
keepers, who were nearly equal in number, 
but had no weapons but sticks and short 
hangers. The first blow was struck by the 
leader of the gang, it broke a knee-cap of 
the sroutest man in the chase, which dis¬ 
abled him fr m joining in the combat, and 
lamed him for ever. Another keeper, from 
a blow with a swindgel, which broke three 
ribs, died some time after. The remaining 
keepers closed in upon their opponents 
with their hangers, and one of the dra¬ 
goon’s hands was severed from the aim, 
just above the wrist, and fell on the ground ; 
the others were also dreadfully cut and 
wounded, and obliged to surrender. Bland- 
ford’s arm was tightly bound with a list 
garter to prevent its bleeding, and he was 
carried to the lodge. The Rev. William 
Chafin, the author of “ Anecdotes respect¬ 
ing Cranbourn Chase,” says, “ I saw 
him there the next day, and his hand 
in the window : as soon as he was well 
enough to be removed, he was committed, 
with his companions, to Dorchester gaol. 
The hand was buried in Pimperne church¬ 
yard, and, as reported, with the ho¬ 
nours of war. Several of these offenders 
were labourers, daily employed by Mr. 
Beckford, and had, the preceding day 
dined in his servants’ hall, and from thenc? 
went to join a confederacy to rob theit 
master.” They were all tried, found guilty 
and condemned to be transported for seven 
years; but, in consideration of their great 

* Hutchins's Dorset. Capper. 


16 




















TABLE BOOK. 


suffering from their wounds in prison, the 
humane judge, sir Bichard Perryn, commu¬ 
ted the punishment to confinement for an 
indefinite term. The soldier was not dis¬ 
missed from his majesty’s service, but suf¬ 
fered to retire upon half-pay, or pension ; 
and set up a shop in London, which he 
denoted a game-factor’s. He dispersed 
hand-bills in the public places, in order lo 
get customers, and put one into Mr. Cha- 
fiu’s hand in the arch-way leading into 
Lincoln’s-inn-square. I immediately re¬ 
cognised him,” says Mr. Chafin, “ as he 
did me; and he said, that if I would deal 
with him, he would use me well, for he 
had, in times past, had many hares and 
pheasants of mine; and he had the assur¬ 
ance to ask me, if I did not think it a good 
breeding-season for game!” 


Buck-hunting. 

/Iwcfc-hunting, in former times, was much 
more followed, and held in much greater 
repute, than new. From letters in Mr. 
Chafin’s possession, dated in June and July 
1681, he infers, that the summers then were 
much hotter than in the greater part of the 
last century. The time of meeting at 
Cranbourn Chase in those days seems in¬ 
variably to have been at four o’clock in the 
evening; it was the custom of the sports¬ 
men to take a slight repast at two o’clock, 
and to dine at the most fashionable hours 
of the present day. Mr. Chafin deemed 
hunting in an evening well-judged, and ad¬ 
vantageous every way. The deer were at 
that time upon their legs, and more easily 
found ; they were empty, and more able to 
run, and to show sport; and as the evening 
advanced, and the dew fe", the scent gra¬ 
dually ifnproved, and the cool air enabled 
the horses and the hounds to recover their 
wind, and go through their work without 
injury; whereas just the reverse of this 
would be the hunting late in a morning. 
What has been mentioned is peculiar to 
Buck-hunting only. 

Stog-hunting is in some measure a sum¬ 
mer amusement also; but that chase is 
generally much too long to be ventured on 
in an evening. It would carry the sports¬ 
man too far distant from their homes. It 
js absolutely necessary, therefore, in pur¬ 
suing the stag, to have the whole day before 
them. 

It was customary, in the last century, 
for sportsmen addicted to the sport of 
Buck-hunting, and who regularly followed 
it, to meet every season on the 29th day of 
May, king Charles’s restoration, with oak- 


boughs in their hats or caps, to show their 
loyalty, (velvet caps were chiefly worn in 
those days, even by the ladies,) and tc 
hunt young male deer, in order to enter the 
young hounds, and to stoop them to theit 
right game, and to get the older ones in 
wind and exercise, preparatoiy to the com¬ 
mencement of the buck-killing season. 

This practice was termed “ blooding the 
hounds;” and the young deer killed were 
called “ blooding-deer,” and their venison 
was deemed fit for an epicure. It was re¬ 
ported, that an hind quarter of this sort of 
venison, which had been thoroughly hunted, 
was once placed on the table before the 
celebrated Mr. Quin, at Bath, who declared 
it to be the greatest luxury he ever met 
with, and ate very heartily of it. But this 
taste seems not to have been peculiar to 
Mr. Quin; for persons of high rank joined 
in the opinion : and even judges, when on 
their circuits, indulged in the same luxury. 

The following is an extract from a stew¬ 
ard’s old accompt-book, found in the noble 
old mansion of Orchard Portman, near 
Taunton, in Somersetsnire • 

“ 10th August 

1680. 

Delivered Sr William, in the 
higher Orial, going a hunting 
with the Judges £2. Os. 0 d." 

From hence, therefore, it appears, that 
in those days buck-hunting, for there could 
be no other kind of hunting meant, was in 
so much repute, and so much delighted in, 
that even the judges could not refrain from 
partaking in it when on theit circuits; and 
it seems that they chose to hunt their own 
venison, which they annually received from 
Orchard park at the time of the assizes. 
“ I cannot but deem them good judges,” 
says Mr. Chafin, “ for preferring hunted 
venison to that which had been shot.” 


Other Sports of Cranbourn Chase. 

Besides buck-hunting, which certainly 
w'as the principal one, the chase afforded 
other rural amusements to our ancestors in 
former days. “ I am well aware,” Mr. 
Chafin says, in preparing some notices of 
them, “ that there are many young person® 
who are very indifferent and care little 
about what was practised by their ancestors, 
or how they amused themselves; they are 
looking forward, and do not choose to look 
back : but there may be some not so indif¬ 
ferent, and to whom a relation of the sports 
of the field in the last century may not be 
displeasing.” These sports, in addition 


17 










THE TABLE BOOK 


to hunting, were hawking, falconry, and 
cocking. 

Packs of hounds were always kept in 
the neighbourhood of the chase, and hunted 
there in the proper seasons. There were 
three sorts of animals of chase besides deer, 
viz. foxes, hares, and mertincats : the race 
of the latter are r>jnrly extinct; their skins 
jwere too valuable for them to be suffered 
to exist. At that time no hounds were 
kept and used for any particular sort of 
game except the buck-hounds, but they 
hunted casually the first that came in their 
way. 


First Pack of Fox-hounds. 

The first real steady pack of fox-hounds 
established in the western part of England 
was by Thomas Fownes, Esq. of Stepleton, 
in Dorsetshire, about 1730. They were as 
handsome, and fully as complete in every 
respect, as any of the most celebrated packs 
of the present day. The owner was obliged 
to dispose of them, and they were sold to 
l Mr. Bowes, in Yorkshire, the father of the 
' late lady Strathmore, at an immense price. 

; They were taken into Yorkshire by their 
own attendants, and, after having been 
viewed and much admired in their kennel, 
a day was fixed for making trial of them 
in the field, to meet at a famous hare-cover 
near. When the huntsman came with his 
hounds in the morning, he discovered a 
great number of sportsmen, who were riding 
in the cover, and whipping the furzes as for 
a hare; he therefore halted, and informed 
Mr. Bowes that he was unwilling to throw 
off his hounds until the gentlemen had re¬ 
tired, and ceased the slapping of whips, to 
which his hounds were not accustomed, 
and he would engage to find a fox in a few 
minutes if there was one there. The gen¬ 
tlemen sportsmen having obeyed the orders 
given by Mr. Bowes, the huntsman, taking 
the wind of the cover, threw off his hounds, 
which immediately began to feather, and 
..oon got upon a drag into the cover, and 
up to the fox’s kennel, which went off close 
before them, and, after a severe burst over 
a fine country, was killed, to the great sa¬ 
tisfaction of the whole party. They then 
returned to the same cover, not one half of 
it having been drawn, and very soon found 
a second fox, exactly in the same manner 
as before, which broke cover immediately 
over the same fine country : but the chase 
was much longer; and in the course of it, 
the fox made its way to a nobleman’s park. 
It had been customary to stop hounds be¬ 
fore they could enter it, but the best-mount¬ 


ed sportsmen attempted to stay the Dorset-* 
shire hounds in vain. The dogs topped the 
highest fences, dashed through herds of 
deer and a number of hares, without taking 
the least notice of tl em ; and ran in to their 
fox, and killed him some miles beyond the 
park. It was the unanimous opinion of 
the whole hunt, that it was the finest run 
ever known in that country. A collection 
of field-money was made for the huntsman 
much beyond his expectations; and he re¬ 
turned to. Stepleton in better spirits than he 
left it. 

Before this pack was raised in Dorset¬ 
shire, the hounds that hunted Cranbourn 
Chase, hunted all the animals promis¬ 
cuously, except the deer, from which they 
were necessarily kept steady, otherwise they 
would not have been suffered to hunt in the 
chase at all. 


Origin of Cranbourn Chase. 

This royal chase, always called “ The 
King’s Chase,” in the lapse of ages came 
into possession of an earl of Salisbury. It 
is certain that after one of its eight distinct 
walks, called Fernditch Walk, was sold to 
the earl of Pembroke, the entire remainder 
of the chase was alienated to lord Ashley, 
afterwards earl of Shaftesbury. Alderholt 
Walk was the largest and most extensive 
in the whole Chase; it lies in the three 
counties of Hants, Wilts, and Dorset; but 
the lodge and its appurtenances is in the 
parish of Cranbourn, and all the Chase 
courts are held at the manor-house there, 
where was also a prison for offenders 
against the Chase laws. Lord Shaftesbury 
deputed rangers in the different walks in 
the year 1670, and afterwards dismember¬ 
ing it, (though according to old records, it 
appears to have been dismembered long 
before,) by destroying Alderholt Walk; he 
sold the remainder to Mr. Freke, of Shro- 
ton, in Dorsetshire, from whom it lineally 
descended to the present possessor, lord 
Rivers. 


Accounts of Cranbourn Chase can be 
traced to the sera when king John, or some 
other royal personage, had a hunting-seat 
at Tollard Royal, in the county of Wilts. 
Hence the name of “ royal” to that parish 
was certainly derived. There are vestiges 
in and about the old palace, which clearly 
evince that it was once a royal habitation 
and it still bears the name of “ King Johns 
House.” There are large cypress trees 
growing before the house, the relics o 
grand terraces may be easily traced, ano 


18 















TIIE TABLE BOOK 


the remains of a park to which some of 
them lead. A gate at the end of the park 
at the entrance of the Royal Chase, now 
called “ Alarm Gate/’ was the place pro¬ 
bably where the horn was blown to call the 
keepers to their duty in attending their 
lord in his sports. There is also a venera¬ 
ble old wych-elm tree, on the Chase side 
of the “ Alarm Gate,” under which lord 
Arundel, the possessor of Tollard Royal, 
holds a court annually, on the first Monday 
in the month of September. A view of the 
mansion in its ptesent state, is given in the 
“ Gentleman’s Magazine” for September 
1811. 


95arlf|)4»fafe. 

Mr. Sttutt, the indefatigable historian 
of the “ Sports and Pastimes of the People 
of England,” says o^ Barley-break: “ The 
excellency of this sport seems to have con¬ 
sisted in running well, but I know not 
its properties.” Beyond this Mr. Strutt 
merely cites Dr. Johnson’s quotation of 
two lines from sir Philip Sidney, as an au¬ 
thority for the word. Johnson, limited to a 
mere dictionary explanation, calls it “ a 
kind of rural play; a trial of swiftness.” 

Sidney, in his description of the rural 
courtship of Urania by Strephon, conveys a 
sufficient idea of “ Barley-break.” The 
shepherd seeks the society of his mistress 
wherever he thinks it likely to find her. 

Nay ev’n unto her home he oft would go. 

Where bold and hurtless many play he tries; 

Her parents liking well it should be so. 

For simple goodness shined in his eyes ? 

Then did he make her laugh in spite of woe 
So as good thoughts of him in all arise ; 

While into none doubt of his love did sink, 

For not himself to be in love did think. 

This “ sad shepherd ” held himself to¬ 
wards Urania according to the usual cus¬ 
tom and manner of lovers in such cases. 

For glad desire, his late embosom’d guest. 

Yet but a babe, with milk of sight he nurst: 

Desire the more he suckt, more sought the breast 
Like dropsy-folk, still drink to be athirst; 

Till one fair ev’n an hour ere sun did rest. 

Who then in Lion’s cave did enter first. 

By neighbors pray’d, she went abroad thereby 
At Barley-break her sweet swift foot to try. 

Never the earth on his round shoulders bare 
A maid train’d up from high or low degree. 

That b her dcings better could compare 

Mirth with respect, few words with courtesie, 
careless comeliness with comely care. 

Self-guard with mildness, sport with maiesty 


Which made her yield to deck this shepherd’s band • 
And still, believe me, Strephon was at hand. 

Then couples three be straight allotted there, 

They of both ends the middle two do fly; 

The two that in mid-place, Hell,* called were, 

Must strive with waiting foot, ar.d watching eye. 
To catch of them, and them to Hell to bear. 

That they, as well as they, Hell may supply 
Like some which seek to salve their blotted nam 
With other’s blot, till all do taste of shame. 

There you may see, soon as the middle two 
Do coupled towards either couple make. 

They false and fearful do their hands undo, 

Brother his brother, friend doth his friend forsake. 
Heeding himself, cares not how fellow do. 

But of a stranger mutual help doth take : 

As perjured cowards in adversity, 

With sight of fear, from friends to fremb’df doth fly, 

The game being played out with divert 
adventurers 

All to second Barley-break again are bent. 

During the second game, Strephon wa: 
chased by Urania. 

Strephon so chased did seem in milk to swim ; 

He ran, but ran with eye o’er shoulder cast. 

More marking her, than how himself did go. 

Like Numid’s lions by the hunters chased. 

Though they do fly, yet backwardly do glow 
With proud aspect, disdaining greater haste s 
What rage in them, that love in him did show ; 

But God gives them instinct the man to shun. 

And he by law of Barley-break must run. 

Urania caught Strephon, and he was 
sent by the rules of the sport to the con¬ 
demned place, with a shepherdess, named 
Nous, who affirmed 


-it was no right, for his default. 


Who would be caught, that she should go— 

But so she must. And now the third assault 
Of Barley-break. - 

Strephon, in this third game, pursues 
Urania; Klaius, his rival suitor, suddenly 
interposed. 

For with pretence from Strephon herto guard. 

He met her full, but full of warefulness, 

With in-bow’d bosom well for her prepared. 

When Strephon cursing his own backwardness 
Came to her back, and so, with double ward. 
Imprison’d her, who both them did possess 
As heart-bound slaves.- 


* It may be doubted whether in the rude simplicity 
of ancient times, this word in the game of Barley-breaa 
was applied in the same manner that it would be iD 
ours. 

+ Fremeb, ('obsolete,') strange, foreign. Ash. Corrupt 
ed from frernd, which, in Saxon and Gothic, signified a 
stranger, or an enemy. Nares. 


19 

















TiIE table book. 


Her race did not her beauty's beams augment, 

For they were ever in the best degree, 

But yet a setting forth it some way lent. 

As rubies lustre when they rubbed be • 

The dainty dew on face and body went. 

As on sweet flowers, when morning’s drops we see : 
Her breath then short, seem’d loth from home to 
pass, 

Which more it moved, the more it sweeter was. 

Happy, O happy ! if they so might bide 
To see their eyes, with how true humbleness. 

They looked down to triumph over pride; 

With how sweet blame she chid their saucinesa— 

Till she brake from their arms- 

And farewelling the flock, did homeward wend, 

And so, that even, the Barley-break did end. 

This game is mentioned by Burton, in 
his “ Anatomy of Melancholy,” as one of 
our rural sports, and by several of the 
poets, with more or less of description, 
though by none so fully as Sidney, in the 
first eclogue of the “ Arcadia,” from whence 
the preceding passages are taken. 

The late Mr. Gifford, in a note on Mas¬ 
singer, chiefly from the “ Arcadia,” de¬ 
scribes Barley-break thus : “ It was played 
by six people, (three of each sex,) who were 
coupled by lot. A piece of ground was 
then chosen, and divided into three com¬ 
partments, of which the middle one was 
called hell. It was the object of the couple 
condemned to this division to catch the 
others, who advanced from the two ex¬ 
tremities ; in which case a change of situa- 
! tion took place, and hell was filled by the 
couple who were excluded by preoccupa¬ 
tion from the other places : in this catching , 
however, there was some difficulty, as, by 
the regulations of the game, the middle 
couple were not to separate before they 
had succeeded, while the others might 
break hands whenever they found them¬ 
selves hard pressed. When all had been 
taken in turn, the last couple were said to 
be in hell , and the game ended.” 

Within memory, a game called Barley- 
break has been played among stacks of 
corn, in Yorkshire, with some variation from 
the Scottish game mentioned presently. In 
Yorkshire, also, there was another form 
of it, more resembling that in the “Arca¬ 
dia,” which was played in open ground. 
The childish game of “ Tag ” seems derived 
bom it. There was a “ tig,” 
whose touch made a prisoner, 
shire game. 


though differently played. It is termeo 
“ Barla-breikis,” or “ Barley-bracks.” Dr. 
Jamieson says it is generally played by 
young people, in a corn-yard about the 
stacks; and hence called Barla-brachs, 
“ One stack is fixed as the dale or goal 
and one person is appointed to catch the 
rest of the company, who run out from the 
dale. He does not leave it till they are all 
out of his sight. Then he sets out to catch 
them. Any one who is taken, cannot run 
out again with his former associates, being 
accounted a prisoner, but is obliged to 
assist his captor in pursuing the rest 
When all are taken, the game is finished ; 
and he who is first taken, is bound to act 
as catcher in the next game. This inno¬ 
cent sport seems to be almost entirely for¬ 
gotten in the south of Scotland. It is also 
falling into desuetude in the north.”* 


Scraps. 

Plate Tax. 

An order was made in the house of lords 
in May, 1776, “ that the commissioners of 
his majesty’s excise do write circular letters 
to all such persons whom they have reason 
to suspect to have plate, as also to those who 
have not paid regularly the duty on the 
same.” In consequence of this order, the 
accountant-general for household plate sent 
to the celebrated John Wesley a copy of 
the order. John’s answer was laconic:— 

“ Sir, 

“ I have two silver tea-spoons in Lon¬ 
don, and two at Bristol. This is all the 
plate which I have at present; and I shall 
not buy any more while so many round me 
want bread. I am, Sir, 

“ \ our most humble servant, 

“ John Wesley/' 


or 


tag,” 
in the York- 


Barla-breikis. 

In Scotland there is a game nearly the 
same in denomination as “ Barley-b-eak,” 


The Dial. 

This shadow on tho dial’s lace, 

That steals, from day to day. 

With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, 
Moments, and months, and year-, away 
This shadow, which in every clime, 

Since light and motion first began, 
Hath held its course sublime; 

What is it?—Mortal man ! 

It is the scythe of Time. 

—A shadow only to the eye. 

It levels all beneath the sky. 


* Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s Glossary. 


20 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


A chairman late’s a chairman dead. 

And to his grave, by chairman sped, 

They wake him, as they march him through 
The streets of Bath, to public view. 


To the Editor. 

Bath. 

Sir,—I beg leave to transmit for your use 
the following attempt at description of an 
old and singular custom, performed by the 
[chairman of this my native city, which 
perhaps you are not altogether a stranger 
to, and which is still kept up among them as 
often as an opportunity permits for its per¬ 
formance. Its origin I have not been able 
to trace, but its authenticity you may rely 
on, as it is too often seen to be forgotten 
by your Bath readers. I hive also ac¬ 
companied it with the above imperfect 
sketch, as a further illustration of their 
manner of buiving the “ dead, alias, ex¬ 

I 


posing a drunkard of their fraternity. The 
following is the manner in which the “ ob¬ 
sequies ” to the intoxicated are performed . 1 

If a chairman, known to have bien 
“ dead ” drunk over night, does not ap¬ 
pear on his station before ten o’clock on 
the succeeding morning, the “ undertaker,” 
Anglice, his partner, proceeds, with such a 
number of attendants as will suffice for the 
ceremony, to the house of the late unfor 
tunate. If he is found in bed, as is usually 
the case, from the effects of his sacrifice to I 
the “jolly God,’’ they pull him out of lis 
nest, hardly permitting him to dress, ai d 
place him on the “bier,”—a chainnrn* 
horse,—and, throwing a coat over him 


iTlork Jftinrral of a Bath Chairman. 


21 

















































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


which tney designate a “pall,” they per¬ 
ambulate the circuit of his station in the 
following order:— 

1. The sexton—a. man tolling a small 
nand-beli. 

2. Two mutes —each with a black stock¬ 
ing on a stick. 

3. The torch bearer —a man carrying a 
lighted lantern. 

4. The “ corpse ” borne on the “ hearse,” 
carried by two chairmen, covered with the 
aforesaid pall. 

The procession is closed by the “ mourn¬ 
ers” following after, two and two; as many 
joining as choose, from the station to which 
the drunkard belongs. 

After exposing him in this manner to 
the gaze of the admiring crowd that throng 
about, they proceed to the public-house he 
has been in the habit of using, where his 
“ wake ” is celebrated in joviality and 
mirth, with a gallon of ale at his expense. 
It often happens that each will contribute 
a trifle towards a further prolongation of 
the carousal, to entrap others into the same 
deadly snare; and the day is spent in bait¬ 
ing for the chances of the next morning, as 
none are exempt who are not at their post 
before the prescribed hour. 

I am, &c. 

W. G. 


OTtUtam (gtfforti, cCsq. 

On Sunday morning, the 3tst of Decem¬ 
ber, 1826, at twenty minutes before one 
o’clock, died, “ at his house in James- 
street, Buckingham-gate, in the seventy- 
first year of his age, William Gifford, Esq., 
author of the ‘ Baviad and Maeviad,’ trans¬ 
lator of ‘ Juvenal and Persius/ and editor 
of the 4 Quarterly Review/ from its com¬ 
mencement down to the beginning of the 
year just past. To the translation of ‘Ju¬ 
venal’ is prefixed a memoir of himself, 
which is perhaps as modest and pleasant a 
piece of autobiography as ever was writ¬ 
ten.”— The Times , January 1, 1827. 


Interesting 

JWemot'r of iflr. <@tfforti. 

By Himself—verbatim. 

I am about to enter on a very uninteresting 
subject: but all my friends tell me that it is 
necessary to account for the long delay of the 
following work ; and I can only do it by ad¬ 
verting to the circumstances of my life. Will 
this be accepted as an apology? 

I know but little of my familv and that little 


is not very precise: My great-grandfather (the 
most remote of it, that I ever recollect to have 
heard mentioned) possessed considerable pro¬ 
perty at Halsbury, a parish in the neighbour¬ 
hood ot Ashburton ; but whether acquired or in¬ 
herited, I never thought of asking, and do not 
know. 

He was probably a native of Devonshire, for 
there he spent the last years of his life; spent 
them, too, in some sort of consideration, for Mr. 
T. (a very respectable surgeon of Ashburton) 
loved to repeat to me, when I first grew into 
notice, that he bad frequently hunted with his 
hounds.* 

My grandfather was on ill terms with him: I 
believe, not without sufficient reason, for he was 
extravagant and dissipated. My father never 
mentioned his name, but my mother would 
sometimes tell me that he had ruined the family. 
That he spent much, 1 know ; but I am inclined 
to think, that his undutiful conduct occasioned 
my great-grandfather to bequeath a considerable 
part of his property from him 

My father, I fear, revenged in some measure 
the cause of my great-grandfather. He was, as 
I have heard my mother say, “ a very wild 
young man, who could be kept to nothing.” He 
was sent, to the grammar-school at Exeter ; from 
which he made his escape, and entered on 
board a man of war. He was reclaimed from 
this situation by my grandfather, and left his 
school a second time, to wander in some vaga¬ 
bond society.-}- He was now probably given up; 
for he was, on his return from this notable ad¬ 
venture, reduced to article himeelf to a plumber 
and glazier, with whom he luckily staid long 
enough to learn the business. I suppose his 
father was now dead, for he became possessed 
of two small estates, married my mother,J (the 
daughter of a carpenter at Ashburton,) and 
thought himself rich enough to set up for him¬ 
self ; which he did, with some credit, at South 
Molton. Why he chose to fix there, I never in¬ 
quired ; but 1 learned from my mother, that after 
a residence of four or five years, he thoughtlessly 
engaged in a dangerous frolic, which drove 
him otice more to sea: this was an attempt to 
excite a riot in a Methodist chapel ; for which 
his companions w'ere prosecuted, and he fled. 

My father was a good seaman, and was soon 
made second in command in the Lyon, a large 
armed transport in the service of government 
while my mother (then w ith child of me) re¬ 
turned to her native place, Ashburton, where 
was born, in April, 1756. 


* The matter is of no consequence—no, not even 
myself. From my family I derived nothing but a name, 
which is more, perhaps, than I shall leave : but (to 
check the sneers of rude vulgarity) that family was 
among the most ancient and respectable of this part of 
the country, and, not more than three generations from ! 
the present, was counted among the wealthiest.—*««, 

.Hap 1 

t He had gone with Bamfylde Moor Carew, then as 
old man. 

I Her maiden name was Elizabeth Cain. My father’s 
Christian name was Edward. 


22 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Tiie resources of my mother were very scanty. 
They arose from the rent of three or four small 
nelds, which yet remained unsold. With these, 
nowever, she did what she could for me; and as 
soon as I was old enough to be trusted out of her 
sight, sent me to a schoolmistress of the name of 
Parret, from whom I learned in due time to .cad. 

1 cannot boast much of my acquisitions at this 
school; they consisted merely of the contents of 
the “Child’s Spelling Book:” but from my 
mother, who had stored up the literature of a 
country town, which, about half a century ago, 
amounted to little more than what was dissemi¬ 
nated by itinerant ballad-singers, or rather, 
readers, I had acquired much curious knowledge 
of Catskin, and the Golden Bull, and the Bloody 
Gardener, and many other histories equally in¬ 
structive and amusingr. 

My father returned from sea in 1764. He 
had been at the siege of the Havannah ; and 
though he received more than a hundred pounds 
for prize money, and his wages were consider¬ 
able; yet, as he had not acquired any strict 
tabits of economy, he brought home but a tri¬ 
fling sum. Tiie little property yet left was there¬ 
fore turned into money ; a trifle more was got 
by agreeing to renounce all future pretensions to 
an estate at Totness ;* and with this my father 
set up a second time as a glazier and house 
painter. I was now about eight years old, and 
was put to the freeschool, (kept by Hugh Smer- 
don,) to learn to read, and write and cipher. 
Here I continued about three years, making a 
most wretched progress, when my father fell sick 
and died. He had not acquired wisdom from 
his misfortunes, but continued wasting his time 
in unprofitable pursuits, to the great detriment 
of his business. He loved drink for the sake of 
society, and to this he fell a martyr; dying of 
a decayed and ruined constitution before he was 
forty. The town’s-people thought him a shrewd 
and sensible man. and regretted his death. As 
lor me, I never greatly loved him ; I had not 
grown up with him ; and he was too prone to 
repulse my little advances to familiarity, with 
coldness, or anger. He had certainly some 
reason to be displeased with me, for I learns 
little at school, and nothing at home, althc?vt he 
would now and then attempt to give me some 
insight into his business. As impressions of any 
kind are not very strong at the age of eleven or 
twelve, I did not long feel his «oss; nor was it a 
subject of much sorrow to me, that my mother 
was doubtful of her ability to continue me at 
school, though I had by this time acquired a 
love for reading. 

I never knew in w hat circumstances my mothei 
was left: most probably they were inadequate *o 
her support, without some kind of exertion, espe¬ 
cially as she was now burthened with a second 
child about six or eight months old. Untortu- 


• This consisted of several houses, which had been 
thoughtlessly suffered to fall into decay, and of which 
the rents had been so long unclaimed, that they could 
not now be recovered unless by an expensive litigation 


nately she determined tc prosecute my father’s 
business ; for which purpose she engaged a 
couple of journeymen, who, finding her ignorant 
of every part of it, wasted her property, and em¬ 
bezzled her money. What the consequence of 
this double fraud would have been, there was nc 
opportunity of knowing, as, in somewhat less 
than a twelvemonth, my poor mother followed 
my father to the grave. She was an excellent 
woman, bore my father's infirmities with patience 
and good humour, loved her children dearly, and 
died at last, exhausted with anxiety and grief 
more on their account than her own. 

I was not quite thirteen when this happened, 
my little brother was hardly two ; and we had 
not a relation nor a friend in the world. Every 
thing that was left, was seized by a person of the 
name of Cailile, for money advanced to my 
mother. It may be supposed that I could not 
dispute the justice of his claims ; and as no one 
else interfered, he was suffered to do as he liked. 
My little brother was sent to the alms-house, 
whither his nurse followed him out of pure affec¬ 
tion : and I w as taken to the house of the person 
I have just mentioned, who was also my god¬ 
father. Respect for the opinion of the town 
(which, whether correct or not, was, that lie had 
amply repaid himself by the sale of my mother ’3 
effects) induced him to send me again to school, 
where I was more diligent than before, and more 
successful. I grew fond of arithmetic, and my 
master began to distinguish me; but these 
golden days were over in less than three months 
Carlile sickened at the expense; and, as the 
people were now indifferent to my fate, he 
looked round for an opportunity of ridding him¬ 
self of a useless charge. He had previously 
attempted to engage me in the drudgery ol 
husbandry. I drove the plough for one day to 
gratify him ; but 1 left it with a firm resolution 
to do so no more, and in despite of his threats 
and promises, adhered to my determination. In 
this, I was guided no less by necessity than will 
During my father’s life, in attempting to clamber 
up a table, I had fallen backward, and drawn it 
after me : its edge fell upon my breast, and I 
nevei recovered the effects of the blow; oi 
which I was made extremely sensible on any 
extraordinary exertion. Ploughing, therefore, 
was out of Bie question, and, as I have already- 
said, i utterly refused to follow it. 

As 1 could write and cipher, (as the phrase 
is,) Carlile next thought of sending me to New¬ 
foundland, to assist in a storehouse. For this 
purpose he negotiated with a Mr. Holdsworthv 
of Dartmouth, who agreed to fit me out. I left 
Ashburton with little expectation of seeing it 
again, and indeed with little care, and rode with 
my godfather to the dwelling of JMr. Holds- 
wortny. On seeing me, this great man observed 
with a look, of pity and contempt, that I was 
M too small,” and sent me aw'ay sufficiently 
mortified. I expected to be very ill received by 
my godfather, but he said nothing. He dH 
not however choose to take me back himself, 
but sent me in the passage-boat to Totness, from 


23 










THF. TABLE BOOK 


whence I wts to walk home. On the passage, 
the boat was driven by a midnight storm on the 
rocks, and 1 escaped almost by miracle. 

My godfather had now humbler views for me, 
and I had little heart to resist any thing. He 
proposed to send me on board one of the Tor- 
bay fishing-boats ; I ventured, however, to re¬ 
monstrate against this, and the matter was com 
promised by rny consenting to go on board a 
coaster. A coaster was speedily found for me 
at Brixham, and thither 1 went when little moie 
than thirteen. 

My master, whose name was Full, though a 
gross and ignorant, was not an ill-natured, 
man ; at least, not to me : and my mistress used 
me with unvarying kindness , moved perhaps by 
my weakness and tender years. In return, 1 
did what I could to requite her, and my good 
will was not overlooked. 

Our vessel was not very large, nor our crew 
very numerous. On ordinary occasions, such as 
short trips to Dartmouth, Plymouth, &c. it eon- 
sis f ed only of my master, an apprentice nearly 
out of his time, and myself: when we had to go 
further, to Portsmouth for example, an additional 
hand was hired for the voyage. 

In this vessel (the Two Brothers) I continued 
nearly a twelvemonth ; and here I got acquaint¬ 
ed with nautical terms, and contracted a love 
for the sea, which a lapse of thirty years has 
but little diminished. 

It will be easily conceived that my life was a 
Jife of hardship. 1 was not only a “ shipboy on 
the high and giddy mast,” but also in the cabin, 
v here every menial office fell to my lot: yet if 
1 was restless and discontented, l can safely 
say, it was not so much on account of this, as of 
my being precluded from all possibility of read¬ 
ing ; as my master did not possess, nor do I 
recollect seeing during the whole time of my 
abode with him, a single book of any descrip¬ 
tion, except the Coasting Pilot. 

As my lot seemed to be cast, however, I was 
not negligent in seeking such information as 
promised to be useful; and I therefore fre¬ 
quented, at my leisure hours, such vessels as 
dropt into Torbay. On attempting to get on 
board one of these, which I did at midnight, I 
missed my footing, and fell into the sea. The 
floating away of the boat alarmed the man on 
deck, who came to the ship’s side just in time 
to see me sink. He immediately threw out 
several ropes, one of which providentially (for 1 
was unconscious of it) intangled itself about me, 
and I was drawn up to the surface, till a boat 
could be got round. The usual methods were 
taken to recover me, and l awoke in bed the 
next morning,' remembering nothing but the 
horror I felt, when I first found myself unable 
*o cry out for assistance. 

This was not my only escape, but I forbear to 
speak of them. An escape of another kind was 
now preparing for me, which deserves all my 
notice, as it was decisive of my future fate. 

On Christmas day (1770) I was surprised bv 
a message from rny godfather, saying that he had 


sent a man and horse to bring me to A hburton : 
and desiring me to set out without delay. M 
master, as well as myself, supposed it was U 
spend the holydays there ; and he therefoie 
made no objection to my going. We were, 
however, both mistaken 

Since I had lived at Brixham, I had broken 
off all connection wiih Ashburton. I had no re¬ 
lation there but my poor brother,* who was yet 
too young for any kind of correspondence ; and 
the conduct of my godfather towards me, did 
not entitle him to any portion of my gratitude, or 
kind remembrance. I lived therefore in a sort 
of sullen independence on all I had formerly 
known, and thought without regret of being 
abandoned by every one to my fate. But I had 
not been overlooked. The women of Brixham, 
who travelled to Ashburton twice a week with 
fish, and who had known my parents, did not 
see me without kind concern, lunning about ihe 
beach in a ragged jacket and trousers. They 
mentioned this to the people of Ashburton, and 
never without commiserating my change of con¬ 
dition. This tale, often repeated, awakened at 
length the pity ol their auditors, and, as the next 
step, their resentment against the man who had 
reduced me to such a state of wretchedness. In 
a large town, this would have had little effect ; 
but in a place I ke Ashburton, where every re¬ 
port speedily becomes the common property ol 
all the inhabitants, it raised a murmur which my 
godfather found himself either unable or unwill¬ 
ing to encounter : he therefore determined to 
recall me; which he could easily do, as 1 wanted 
some months of fourteen, and was not yet 
bound. 

All this, 1 learned on my arrival; and my 
heart, which had been cruelly shut up, now 
opened to kinder sentiments, and fairer views. 

After the 
pursuit, an 

rapid, that in a few' months I was at the head of 
the school, and qualified to assist my master 
(Mr. E. Furlong) on any extraordinary emer¬ 
gency. As he usually gave me a trifle on those 
occasions, it raised a thought in me, that by en¬ 
gaging w'ith him as a regular assistant, and 
undertaking the instruction of a few evening 
scholars, I might, with a little additional aid, be 
enabled to support myself. God knows, my 


* Of my brother here introduced for the last time, I 
must yet say a few words. He was literally. 

The child of misery baptized in tears ; 

and the short passage of his life did not belie the 
melancholy presage of his infancy. When he was seven 
years old, the parish bound him out to a husbandmar 
of the name of Leman, with whom he endured inernfi 
ble hardships, which I had it nor in mv power to alle 
viate. At nine years of age he brokehis thigh, and i 
took that opportunity to teach him to read and write 
When my own situation was improved. I persuaded hin 
to try the sea ; he did so ; and was taken on hoard the 
Eg merit, on condition that his master should receiv 
his wages. The time was uow fast approaching wher 
1 could serve him, hut he was doomed to know n 
favourable change of fortune: he fell sick, ami died at 
Cork. 


holydays I returned to my darling 
limetic : mv progress was now so 


24 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


ideas of support at this time were of no very 
extravagant nature. I had, besides, another ob¬ 
ject in view. Mr. Hugh Smerdon (inv first 
master) was now grown old and infirm ; it 
seemed unlikely that he should hold out above 
three or four years; and I fondly Mattered my¬ 
self that, notwithstanding my youth. 1 might 
possibly be appointed to succeed him. 1 was in 
my fifteenth year, when I built these castles : a 
j storm, however, was collecting, which unex¬ 
pectedly burst upon me, and swept them all 
away. 

On mentioning my little plan to Carlile, he 
treated it with the utmost contempt; and told 
me, in his turn, that as I had learned enough, 
and more than enough, at school, he must be 
considered as having fairly discharged his duty ; 
(so, indeed, he had;) he added, that he had 
been negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker 
of some respectability, who had liberally agreed 
to take me without a fee, as an appientice. 1 
was so shocked at this intelligence, that I did 
not remonstrate; but went in sullenness and 
silence to my new master, to whom I was soon 
after bound,* till l should attain the age of 
twenty-one. 

The family consisted of four journeymen, two 
sons about my own age, and an apprentice some¬ 
what older. In these there was nothing re¬ 
markable ; but my master himself was the 
strangest creature !—He was a Presbyterian, 
whose reading was entirely confined to the 
small tracts published on the Exeter Contro¬ 
versy. As these (at least his portion of them) 
were all on one side, he entertained no doubt 
of their infallibility, and being noisy anddisputa- 
cious, was sure to silence his opponents ; and be¬ 
came, in consequence of it, int lerably arrogant 
and conceited. He was not, however, indebted 
solely to his knowledge of the subject for hi.s tri¬ 
umph : he was possessed of Fenning’s Dictionary, 
and he made a mo'-t singular use of it. His custom 
was *o fix on any word in common use, and then 
to get by heart the synonym, or periphrasis by 
which it was explained in the book ; this he 
constantly substitu ed for the simple term, and 
as his opponents were commonly ignorant ol his 
meaning, his victory was complete. 

With such a man I was not likely to add 
mnch to mv stock of knowledge, small as it was; 
and, indeed, nothing could well be smaller At 
this period, I had read nothing but a black letter 
romance, called Parismus and Parismenus, and 
a few loose magazines which my mother had 
brought from South Molton. With the Bible, 
indeed, I was well acquainted; it was the 
favourite study of my grandmother, atid reading 
it frequently with her, had impressed it strongly 
on my mind ; these then, with the Imitation of 
I'homas a Kempis, which I med to read to my 
mother on her death-bed, constituted the whole 
of my literary acquisitions. 

As I hated my new profession with a perfect 


* Mv indenture, which now lies before me. is dated 
the 1st of January, 177^- 


hatred, T made no progress in it; and was con¬ 
sequently little regarded in the family, of which 
I sunk by degrees into the common drudge : 
this did not much disquiet me, for my spirits 
were now humbled. I did not however quite 
resign the hope of one day succeeding to Mr. 
Hugh Smerdon, and therefore secretly prose¬ 
cuted my favourite study, at every interval of 
leisure. 

These intervals were not very frequent; and 
when the use I made of them was found out, 
they were rendered still less so. I could not 
guess the motives for this at first; but at length 
I discovered that my master destined his young¬ 
est son for the situation to which I aspired. 

I possessed at this time but one book in the 
world : it was a treatise on algebra, given to me 
by a young woman, who had found it in a 
lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure; 
but it was a treasure locked up ; for it supposed 
the reader to be well acquainted with simple 
equation, and I knew' nothing of the matter. 
My master’s son had purchased Fenning’s Intro¬ 
duction : this w as precisely what I wanted ; but 
he carefully concealed it from me, and I was 
indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his 
hiding-place. I sat up for the greatest part of 
several nights successively, and, Defore he sus¬ 
pected that his treatise was discovered, had 
completely mastered it. I could now' enter 
upon my own ; and that carried me pretty tar 
into the science. 

This was not done without difficulty. I had 
not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me 
one : pen, ink, and paper, therefore, (in de¬ 
spite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford,) 
were, for the most part, as completely out of my 
reach, as a crown and sceptre. There was in¬ 
deed a resource ; but the utmost caution and 1 
secrecy were necessaiy in applying to it. I j 
beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible I 
and wrought my problems on them with a 
blunted awl: fur the rest, my memory was 
tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it, 
to a great extent. 

Hitherto I had not so much as dreamed of 
poetry: indeed I scarcely knew it by name ; 
and, whatever may be said of the force of na¬ 
ture, I certainly never ‘‘ lisp’d in numbers.” I 
recollect the occasion of my first attempt : it is, 
like all the rest of my non-adventures, of so un- | 
important a nature, that I should blush to call 
the attention of the idlest reader to it, but for i 
the reason alleged in the introductory para- ; 
graph. A person, whose name escapes me, had 
undertaken to paint a sign for an ale-house : it 
was to have been a lion, but the unfortunate 
artist produced a dog. On this awkward affair, 
one of my acquaintance wrote a copy of what 
we called verse: 1 liked it ; but fancied ! 
could compose something more to the purpose: 

I made the experiment, and by the unanimous 
suffrage of my shopmates was allowed to have 
succeeded. Notwithstanding this encourage¬ 
ment, 1 thought no more of verse, till anolhe? 
occurrence, as trifling as the former, furnished 


25 
































TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


me with a fresh subject: and thus I w’ent on, 
till I had got together about a dozen of them. 
Certainly, nothing on earth was ever so deplor¬ 
able : such as they were, however, they were 
talked of in my little circle, and I was some- 
' times invited to repeat them, even out of it. I 
1 never committed a line to paper for two reasons; 

! first, because I had no paper; and secondly— 
perhaps I might be excused from going fur¬ 
ther; but in truth I was afraid, as my master 
had already threatened me, for inadvertently 
hitching the name of one of his customers into a 
rhyme. 

The repetitions of which I speak were always 
attended with applause, and sometimes with 
favours more ?ubstantial: little collections were 
now and then made, and I have received six¬ 
pence in an evening/ To one who had long 
lived in the absolute want of money, such a re¬ 
source seemed a Peruvian mine: I furnished 
myself by degrees with paper, &c., and what 
was of more importance, with books of geome¬ 
try, and of the higher branches of algebra, 
which I cautiously concealed. Poetry, even at 
this time, was no amusement of mine : it was 
subservient to other purposes ; and I only had 
recourse to it, when I wanted money for my ma¬ 
thematical pursuits. 

But the clouds were gathering fast. My 
master’s anger was raised to a terrible pitch, by 
my indifference to his concerns, and still more 
by the reports which were daily brought to him 
of my presumptuous attempts at versification. 
I was required to give up my papers, and when 
I refused, my garret was searched, and my 
little hoard of books discovered and removed, 
and all future repetitions prohibited in the 
strictest manner. 

This was a very severe stroke, and I felt it 
most sensibly; it was followed by another se¬ 
verer still ; a stroke which crushed the hopes I 
had so long and so fondly cherished, and re¬ 
signed me at once to despair. Mr. Hugh 
Smerdon, on whose succession I had calculated, 
died, and was succeeded by a person not much 
older than myself, and certainly not so well 
qualified for the situation. 

I look back on that part of my life which im¬ 
mediately followed this event, with little satis¬ 
faction ; it Was a period of gloom, and savage 
unsociability : by degrees I sunk into a kind of 
coporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by 
the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in sple¬ 
netic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the 
few acquaintances whom compassion had yet 
left me. So I crept on in silent discontent, 
unfriended and unp.itied ; indignant at the pre¬ 
sent, careless of the future, an object at once of 
apprehensiou and dislike. 

From this state of abjectness I was raised by 
a young woman of my own class. She was a 
neighbour ; and whenever I took my solitary 
walk, with my Wolfius in my pocket, she usu¬ 
ally came to the door, and by a smile, or a short 
question, put in the friendliest manner, endea¬ 
voured to solicit my attention. My heart had 


been long shut to kindness, but the sentirnen* 
was not dead m me : it revived at the first en¬ 
couraging word ; and the gratitude I felt for it. 
was the first pleasing sensation which I had 
ventured to entertain for many dreary months. 

Together with gratitude, hope, and other pas¬ 
sions still more enlivening, took place of that 
uncomfortable gloominess which so lately pos¬ 
sessed me : I returned to my companions, and 
by every winning art in my power, strove to 
make them forget my former repulsive ways. 
In this I was not unsuccessful; I recovered 
their good will, and by degrees grew to be 
somewhat of a favourite. 

My master still murmured, for the business of 
the shop went on no better than before : I com¬ 
forted myself, however, with the reflection that 
my apprenticeship was drawing to a conclusion, 
when I determined to renounce the employment 
for ever, and io open a private school. 

In this humble and obscure state, poor be¬ 
yond the common lot, yet flattering my ambi¬ 
tion with day-dreams, which, perhaps, would 
never have been realized, I was found in the 
twentieth year of my age by Mr. William 
Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by 
me without veneration. The lamentable dog¬ 
gerel which I have already mentioned, and 
which had passed from mouth to mouth among 
people of my own degree, had by some accident 
or other reached his ear, and given him a cu 
riosity to inquire after the author. 

It was my good fortune to interest his be¬ 
nevolence. My little history was not untinctur¬ 
ed with melancholy, and I laid it fairly before 
him : his first care was to console ; his second, 
which he cherished to the last moment of his 
existence, was to relieve and support me. 

Mr. Cookesley was not rich : his eminence 
in his profession, which was that of a surgeon, 
procured him, indeed, much employment ; but 
in a country town, men of science are not the 
most liberally rewarded : he had, besides, a very 
numerous family, which left him little for the 
purposes of general benevolence : that little, 
however, was cheerfully bestowed, and his ac¬ 
tivity and zeal were always at hand to supply 
the deficiencies of his fortune. 

On examining into the nature of my literary 
attainments, he found them absolutely nothing: 
he heard, however, with equal surprise and 
pleasure, that amidst the grossest ignorance of 
books, I had made a very considerable progress 
in the mathematics. He engaged me to enter 
into the details of this affair , and when he 
learned that I had made it in circumstances of 
peculiar discouragement, he became more 
warmly interested in my favour, as he now saw 
a possibility of serving me. 

The plan that occurred to him was naturally 
that which had so often suggested itself to me. 
There were indeed several obstacles to be over¬ 
come ; 1 had eighteen months yet to serve ; mv 
handwriting was bad, and my language very in¬ 
correct; but nothing could slacken the zeal of 
this excellent man; he procured a few of 


26 











THE TAliLE BOOK. 


poor attempts at rhyme, dispersed them amongst 
ins friends and acquaintance, and when my 
name was become somewhat familiar to them, 
set on foot a subscription for my relidf. I still 
preserve the original paper; its title was not 
very magnificent, though it exceeded the most 
sanguine wishes of my heart: it ran thus, “ A 
! Subscription for purchasing the remainder of 
the time of William Gifford, and for enabling 
him to improve himself in Writing and English 
Grammar.” Few contributed more than five 
shillings, and none went beyond ten-and-six- 
oence: enough, however, was collected to free 
me from my apprenticeship.* and to maintain 
me for a few months, during which I assiduously 
attended the Rev. Thomas Smerdon. 

At the expiration of this period, it was found 
that my progress (for 1 will speak the truth in 
modesty) had been more considerable than my 
patrons expected : I had also written in the in¬ 
terim several little pieces of poetry, less rugged, 

I suppose, than my former ones, and certainly 
with fewer anomalies of language. My precep¬ 
tor, too, spoke favourably of me ; and my bene¬ 
factor, who was now become my father and my 
1 friend, had little difficulty in persuading my pa¬ 
trons to renew their donations, and to continue 
me at school for another year, feuch liberality 
was not lost upon me; I grew anxious to make 
the. best return in my power, and I redoubled 
my diligence. Now, that I am sunk into indo¬ 
lence, I look back with some degree of scep¬ 
ticism to the exertions of that period. 

In two years and two months from the day of 
my emancipation, I was pronounced by Mr. 
Smerdon, fit for the University. The plan of 
opening a writing school had been abandoned 
almost from the first; and Mr. Cookesiey look¬ 
ed round for some one who had interest enough 
to procure me some little office at Oxford. This 
person, who was soon found, was Thomas Tay¬ 
lor, Esq. of Denbury, a gentleman to whom I 
had already been indebted for much liberal and 
friendly support. He procured me the place of 
Bib. Lect. at Exeter College ; and this, with 
such occasional assistance from the country as 
Mr. Cookesiey undertook to provide, was thought 
sufficient to enable me to live, at least, till I had 

taken a degree. , 

During my attendance on Mr. Smerdon 1 had 
written, as I observed before, several tuneful 
trifles, some as exercises, others voluntarily, 
(for poetry was now become my delight,) and 
not a few at the desire of my friends.f When 


I became capable, however, of reading Latin 
and Greek with some degree of facility, that 
gentleman employed all my leisure hours in 
translations from the classics; and indeed 1 
scarcely know a single school-book, of which 1 
did not render some portion into English verse. 
Among others, Juvenal engaged my attention, 
or rather my master’s, and I translated the tenth 
Satire for a holyday task. Mr. Smerdon was 
much pleased with this, (I was not undelighted 
with it myself,) and as 1 was now become fond 
of the author, he easily persuaded me to pro 
ceed with him; and 1 translated in succession 
the third, the fourth, the twelfth, and, I think, 
the eighth Satires. As I had no end in view 
but that of giving a temporary satisfaction to 
my benefactors, I thought little more of these, 
than of many other things of the same nature, 
which I wrote from time to time, and of which 
I never copied a single line. 

On my removing to Exeter College, however, 
my friend, ever attentive to my concerns, advised 
me to copy my translation of the tenth Satire, 
and present it, on my arrival, to the Rev. Dr. 
Stinton, (afterwards Rector,) to whom Mr. Tav 
lor had given me an introductory letter: I di 
so, and it was kindly received. Thus encou 
raged, I took up the first and second Satires, (I 
mention them in the order they were translated,) 
when my friend, who had sedulously watched 
my progress, first started the idea of going 
through “the whole, and publishing it by sub¬ 
scription, as a scheme for increasing my means 
of subsistence. To this I readily acceded, and 
finished the thirteenth, eleventh, and fifteenth 
Satires: the remainder were the work of a 

much later period. , « 

When I had got thus far, we thought it a hi 

time to mention our design; it was very gene¬ 
rally approved of by my friends; and on t e 
first of January, 1781, the subscription was 
opened by Mr. Cookesiey at Ashburton, and by 
myself at Exeter College. < , 

*So bold an undertaking so precipitately an¬ 
nounced, will give the reader, I fear, a higher 
opinion of my conceit than of my talents; nei¬ 
ther the one nor the other, however, had the 
smallest concern with the business, which origi¬ 
nated solely in ignorance: I wrote verses with 
great facility, and I was simple enough tc 
imagine that little more was necessary tor a 
translator of Juvenal 1 I was not, indeed, un¬ 
conscious of my inaccuracies : I knew at e 
were numerous, and that I had need of some 
friendly eye to point them out, and some jude- 
cious hand to rectify or remove them: but for 
these, as well as for every thing else, I looked 
to Mr. Cookesiey, and that worthy man, with 
his usual alacrity of kindness, undertook the 
laborious task of revising the whole translation. 
My friend was no great Latinist, perhaps I was 
the better of the two ; but he had taste are 


* The sum my master received was six pounds. 

+ As 1 have republished one of our old poets, it may 
Ne allowable to mention that my predilection for the 
drama began at an early period Before I left school, 

I had written two tragedies, the Oracle and the Italia . 

My qualifications for this branch of the art may be 
easily appreciated; and, indeed, I cannot think of them 

without a smile.—These rhapsodies were placed by _ _ 

my indulgent friend, who thought well of them, in the- 

ha y nds of two respectable gentlemen, who ^ertook t ^ ^ subsequent events e^bled me to Tene,r 

convey them to the manager of ■ — • 1 a “ them I was ashamed to inquire after what wa» most 

of their fate. The death of Mr. Cookesiey broh> every them ^ of concern. 

link -f my connection with the majority of my subsen prooaoiy 


*27 






































I’HE TABLE BOOK. 


judgment, which l wanted. What advantages 
might have been ultimately derived from them, 
there was unhappily no opportunity ot ascertain¬ 
ing, as it pleased the Almighty to call him to 
himself by a sudden death, before we had quite 
finished the first Satire. He died with a letter 
of mine, unopened, in his hands. 

This event, which took place on the 15th of 
January, 1781, afflicted me beyond measure.* 
1 was not only deprived of a most faithful and 
affectionate friend, but of a zealous and ever 
active protector, on whom I confidently relied 
far support: the sums that were still necessary 
for me, he always collected ; and it was to be 
feared that the assistance which was not solicited 
with warmth, would insensibly cease to be af¬ 
forded. 

In many instances this was actually the case : 
the desertion, however, was not general ; and I 
was encouraged to hope, by the unexpected 
friendship of Servington Savery, a gentleman 
who voluntarily stood forth as my patron, and 
watched over my interests with kindness and 
attention. 

Some time before Mr Cookesley’s death, we 
had agreed that it would be proper to deliver 
out, with the terms of subscription, a specimen 
cf the manner in which the translation was 
executed.f To obviate any idea of selection, a 
sheet was accordingly taken from the beginning 
ol the first Satire. My friend died while it was 
in the press 

After a few melancholy weeks, I resumed the 
translation ; but found myself utterly incapable 
of proceeding. I had been so accustomed to 
connect the name of Mr. Cookesley with every 
part of it, and I laboured with such delight in 
the hope of giving him pleasure, that now, when 
be appeared to have left me in the midst of my 
enterprise, and I was abandoned to my own 
efforts, I seemed to be engaged in a hopeless 
struggle, without motive or end: and bis idea, 
which was perpetually recurring to me, brought 
such bitter anguish with it, that I shut up the 
work with feelings hoi dering on distraction. 

To relieve my mind, I had recourse to other 
] ursuits. I endeavoured to become more inti¬ 
mately acquainted with the classics, and to 
acquire some of the modern languages: by per¬ 
mission too, or ra her recommendation, of the 
Hector and Fellows, I also undertook the care of 
a few pupils: this removed much of my anxiety 
• esoecting my future means of support. I have 


* I began tl is unadorned narrative on the 15th of 
Juroary. 1801: twenty years have therefore elapsed 
since I lost my benefactor and my friend. In the in- 
erval I have wept a thousand times at the recollection 
<>f his goodness; I yet cherish his memory with filial 
espect; and at this distant period, my heart sinks 
within me at every repetition of his name. 

\ Many of these papers were distributed; the terms, 
which I extract from one of them, were these: “ The 
work shall be printed in (juarto, (without notes,) and 
’>e delivered to the .Subscribers in the month of Decem¬ 
ber next. 

“ The price will he sixteen shillings in hoards, half 
to be paid at the time ot subscribing, the remainder on 
delivery of the Vook ” 


a heartfelt pleasure in mentioning this indul- 
genceof my college: it could arise from nothing 
but the liberal desire inherent, I think, in the 
members of both our Universities, to encourage 
eveiy thing that hears even the most distant ie- 
semblance to talents; for I had no claims on 
them from any particular exertions. 

The lapse of many months had now soothed 
and tranquillized my mind, and I once more re¬ 
turned to the translation, to which a wish to 
serve a young man surrounded with difficulties 
had induced a number of respectable characters 
to set their names; but alas, what a mortifica¬ 
tion ! I now discovered, for the first time, that 
my own inexpeiience, and ihe advice of my too, 
too partial friend, had engaged me in a woik, 
for the due execution of which my literary at¬ 
tainments were by no means sufficient. Errors 
and misponcep ions appeared in every page. I 
had, perhaps, caught something of the spirit o 
Juvenal,hut his meaning had frequently escapee 
me, and I saw the necessity of a Jong and pain¬ 
ful revision, which would ca ry me far beyond 
the period fixed for the appearance of the vo¬ 
lume. Alaimed at the prospect, I instantly 
resolved (if not wisely, yet I trust honestly,) to 
renounce the publication lor ihe present. 

In pursuance of this resolution, 1 wrote to mv 
friend in the country, (the Rev. Servington Sa^- 
very,) requesting him to return the subscription 
money in his hands to the subscribers. He did 
not approve of my plan ; nevertheless he pro¬ 
mised, in a letter, which now lies before me to 
comply with it; and, in a subsequent one, added 
that he hod already begun to do so. 

For myself, I also made several repayments; 
and trusted a sum of money to make others, 
with a fellow collegian, who, not long after, fell 
by his own hands in the piesence of his father. 
But there were still some whose abode could not 
be discovered, and others, on whom to press the 
taking hack of eight shillings would neither be 
decent nor respectful: even from these I ventured 
to flatter myself that I should find pardon, when 
on some future day I should present them with 
the Work, (which I was still secretly determined 
to complete,) rendered more worthy of their 
patronage, and increased by notes, w hich I now 
perceived to be absolutely necessary, to mere 
than double its proposed size. 

In the leisure of a country residence, I ima¬ 
gined that this might be done in two years: 
peihaps I was not too sanguine: the experi¬ 
ment, however, was not made, for about this 
tm e a circumstance happened, which changed 
my views, and indeed my wh< le system of life. 

I had contracted an acquaintance with a per¬ 
son of the name of-, recommended to my 

particular notice by a gentleman of Devonshire, 
whom I was proud of an opportunity to oblige! 
This person’s residence at Oxford was not long 
and when he returned to town I maintained a 
correspondence with him by letters. At his 
particular request, these were enclosed in covers 
and sent to Lord Grosvenor: one day I inad¬ 
vertently omitted the direction, and his lordship 


28 
























TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


necessarily supposing the letter to he meant for 
himself, opened and read it. There was some¬ 
thing in it which attracted his notice; and when 
he gave it to my friend, he had the curiosity to 
inquire about nis correspondent at Oxford ; and, 
upon the answer he received, the kindness to 
desire that he might he brought to see him upon 
his coming to town : to this circumstance, purely 
accidental on all sides, and to this alone, I owe 
my introduction to that nobleman. 

On my first visit, he asked me what friends I 
had, and what were my prospects in life ; and I 
told him that I had no friends, and no prospects 
of any kind. He said no more ; but when I 
called to take leave, previous to retuining to 
college, I found that this simple exposure of my 
cir umstances had sunk deep into his mind. At 
parting, he informed me that he charged himself 
with my present support, and future establish¬ 
ment; and that till this last could be effected to 
my wish, I should come and reside with him. 
These were not words, of course : they were 
more than fulfilled in every point. I did go, and 
leside with him ; and 1 experienced a warm and 
cordial reception, a kind and affectionate esteem, 
that has known neither diminution nor interrup- 
t : on from that hour to this, a period of twenty 

f *- 

ears. 

In his lordship's house 1 proceeded with Ju¬ 
venal, till 1 was called upon to accompany his 
son (one of the most amiable and accomplished 
young noblemen that this country, fertile in such 
characters, could ever boast) to the continent. 
With him, in two successive tours, I spent many 
years; years of whch the remembrance will 
always be dear to me, from the recollection that 
a friendship was then contracted, which time 
and a more intimate knowledge of each other, 
have mellowed into a regard that forms at once 
the pride and happiness of my life. 

It is loner since I have been returned and 
settled in the bosom of competence and peace; 
my translation frequently engaged my thoughts, 
but I had lost the ardour and the confidence of 
youth, and was seriously doubtful of my abilities 
to do it justice. I 1 KVe washed a thousand 
times that I could decline it altogether; but the 
ever-recurring idea that there w>ere people of 
the description already mentioned, who had just 
and forcible claims on me for the due perform¬ 
ance of my engagement, forbad the thought; 
and I slowly proceeded towards the completion 
of a wmrk in which I should never have engaged, 
had my friend’s inexperience, or my own, suf¬ 


* I have a melancholy satisfaction in recording that 
this revered friend and patron lived to witness my 
grateful acknowledgment of his kindness. He sur¬ 
vived the appearance of the translation but a very few 
days, and I paid the last sad duty to his memory, by 
attending his remains to the grave. To me—this la¬ 
borious work has not been happy: the same disastrous 
event that marked its commencement, has embittered 
its conclusion ; and frequently forced upon my recol¬ 
lection the calamity of the rebuilder of Jericho, “ He 
1 iid*the foundation thereof in Abiram, his firstborn, 
and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son, Se- 
tr lb.” 1806. 


fered us to suspect for a moment tbe labour, and 

the talents of more than one kind, absolutelv 

• • * 
necessary to its success in any tolerable degree 

Such as I could make it, it is now before the 

public. 

- - majora canamus. 

End of the Memoir. 


Mr. Giiford. 

Having attained an university education 
by private benevolence, and arrived at noble 
and powerful patronage by a circumstance 
purely accidental Mr. Gifford possessed 
advantages which few in humble life dare 
hope, and fewer aspire to achieve. He 
impioved his learned leisure and patrician 
aid, till, in 1802, he published his transla¬ 
tion of Juvenal, with a dedication to earl 
Grosvenor, and the preceding memoir. In 
1806, the work arrived to a second edition, 
and in 1817 to a third ; to the latter he an¬ 
nexed a translation of the Sntnes of Per¬ 
sies, which he likewise dedicated to ear) 
Grosvenor, with “ admiration of his talents 
and virtues.” He had previously distin¬ 
guished himself by the “ Baviad and Mae- 
viad,” a satire unsparingly severe on certain 
fashionable poetry and characters of the 
day; and which may perhaps be referred 
to as the best specimen of his powers and 
inclination. He edited the plays of Mas¬ 
singer, and the works of Ben Jonson, whom 
he ably and successfully defended fron 
charges of illiberal disposition towards 
Shakspeare, and calumnies of a personal 
nature, which bad been repeated and in¬ 
creased by successive commentators. He 
lived to see his edition of Ford’s works 
through the press, and Shirley’s works were 
nearly completed by the pi inter before he 
died. 

When the “ Quarterly Review ” was 

•/ 

projected, Mr. Gifibrd was selected as best 
qualified to conduct the new journal, and 
he remained its editor till within two years 
preceding his death. Besides the private 
emoluments of his pen, Mr. Gifibrd had 
six hundred pounds a year as a comptrollet 
of the lottery, and a salary of three hun¬ 
dred pounds as paymaster of the band of 
gentlemen-pensioners. 


To his friend, Dr. Ireland, the dean of 
Westminster, who was the depositary o! 
Mr. Gifford’s wishes in his last moments, 
iie addressed, during their early career, the 


29 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


following imitation of the “ Otium Divos 
liogat” of Horace.—“ I transcribe it,*' says 
Mr. Gifford, “ for the press, with mingled 
sensations of gratitude and delight, at the 
favourable change of circumstances which 
we have both experienced since it was 
written.” 


manded the sum from his master, and gave 
notice that he would quit his place. The 
master inquired the reason of the man’s 
precipitancy, who told his lordship, “ that 
he and a fellow-servant were about to set 
up a country bank , and they wanted the 
wages for a capital /” 


Wolfe rush’d on death in manhood’s bloom, 
Paulet crept slowly to the tomb ; 

Here breath, there fame was given : 
And that wise Power who weighs our lives, 
B y contras, and by prof, contrives 
To keep the balance even. 

To thee she gave two piercing eyes, 

A body, just of Tydeus’ size, 

A judgment sound, and clear; 

A mind with various science fraught. 

A liberal soul, a threadbare coat. 

And forty pounds a year. 

To me, one eye, not over good ; 

Two sides, that, to their cost, have stood 
A ten years’ hectic cough; 

Aches, stitches, all the numerous ills 
That swell the dev’iish doctors’ bills. 

And sweep poor mortals off. 

A coat more bare than thine; a soul 
That spurns the crowd’s malign controul; 

A fix’d contempt of wrong; 

Spirits above affliction’s pow’r. 

And skill to charm the lonely hour 
With no inglorious song. 


©mniana. 

Advertisement. 

The following is a literal copy of an 
English card, circulated by the master of 
an hotel, at Ghent:— 

“ Mr. Dewit, in the Golden Apple, out 
of the Bruges Gate at Ghent, has the 
honour to prevent the Persons who would 
come at his house, that they shall find there 
always good and spacious Lodging, a Table 
served at their taste, Wine of any quality, 
ect. Besides he hires Horses and Chaises, 
which shall be of a great conveniency for 
the Travellers ; the Bark of Bruges depart 
and arrives every day before his door. He 
dares flatter himself that they shall be 
satisfied; as well with the cheapness ot 
the price, as with the cares such an esta¬ 
blishment requires/’ 


Capital for Banking. 

A nobleman’s footman in Hampshire, to 
whom two years’ wages were due, de¬ 


March of Intellect. 

In “ The Times,” a few days since, ap¬ 
peared the following advertisement :—“ To 
School Assistants. —Wanted, a respect¬ 
able gentleman of good character, capable 
of teaching the classics as far as Homer, i 
and Virgil. Apply, &c. &c. A day or 
two a,fter the above had appeared, the gen¬ 
tleman to whom application was to be 
made received a letter as follows :—“ Sir— 
With reference to an advertisement which 
ivere inserted in The Times newspaper a j 
few days since, respecting a school assist- ! 
ant, I beg to state that I should be happy 
to fill that situation; but as most of my 
frends reside in London, and not knowing 
how far Homer and Virgil is from town, 1 
beg to state that I should not like to engage 
to teach the classics farther than Hammer¬ 
smith or Turnham Green , or at the very ut¬ 
most distance, farther than Brentford. 
Wating your reply, I am, Sir, &c. &c. 

“ John Sparks.” 

The schoolmaster, judging of the clas¬ 
sical abilities of this “ youth of promise,” 
by the wisdom displayed in his letter, con¬ 
sidered him too dull a spark for the situa¬ 
tion, and his letter remained unanswered. 
(This puts us in mind of a person who once 
advertised for a “ strong coal heaver ,” and 
a poor man calling upon him the day after, 
saying, “he had not got such a thing as a 
‘ strong coal heaver ,’ but he had brought 
a ‘ strong coal scuttle ,’ made of the best 
iron ; and if that w r ould answer the purpose, 
he should have it a bargain.”)— -Times, 
January , 1827 


Missing a Style. 

Soon after the publication of Miss Bur¬ 
ney’s novel, called “ Cecilia,” a young lady 
was found reading it. After the general 
topics of praise were exhausted, she was 
asked whether she did not greatly admire 
the style ? Reviewing the incidents in her 
memory, she replied, “ The style ? the 
style ?—Oh! sir, I am not come to that 
vet!” 


30 























THE TABLE BOOK. 



Cl )C flxtusman. 

“ I, that do bring the news.” 

Shahspeare- 

Our calling, however the vulgar may deem, 

Was of old, both on high and below, in esteem , 

E’en the gods were to much curiosity given. 

For Hermes was only the Newsman of heaven. 

Hence with wings to his cap, and his staff, and his heels. 

He depictured appears, vrhich our myst’ry reveals. 

That news flies like wind, to raise sorrow or laughter, 

Whil leaning on Time, Truth comes heavily after. 

Newsmen s Verses, 17^7- 


The newsman is a « lone person/’ His All the year round, and every day in the 
ntsiness, and he, are distinct from all other year, the newsman must rise soon after four ■ 
iccupations, and people o’clock, and be at the newspaper offices to 


31 


D 


























































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


procure a few of the first morning pa¬ 
pers allotted to him, at extra charges, for 
particular orders, and despatch them by the 
** early coaches.” Afterwards, he has to wait 
for his share of the “ regular ” publication 
of each paper, and he allots these as well 
as he can among some of the most urgent of 
his town orders. The next publication at 
| a later hour is devoted to his remaining 
I customers ; and he sends off his boys with 
different portions according to the supply 
he successively receives. Notices frequently 
and necessarily printed in different papers, 
of the hour of final publication the pre¬ 
ceding day, guard the interests of the news¬ 
paper proprietors from the sluggishness of 
ihe indolent, and quicken the diligent 
newsman. Yet, however skilful his arrange¬ 
ments may be, they are subject to unlooked 
for accidents. The late arrival of foreign 
journals, a parliamentary debate unexpect¬ 
edly protracted, or an article of importance 
in one paper exclusively, retard the print¬ 
ing and defer the newsman. His patience, 
well-worn before he gets his “ last papers,” 
must be continued during the whole period 
he is occupied in delivering them. The 
sheet is sometimes half snatched before he 
can draw it from his wrapper; he is often 
chid for delay when he should have been 
praised for speed; his excuse, “ All the 
papers were late this morning,” is better 
heard than admitted, for neither giver nor 
receiver has time to parley ; and before he 
gets home to dinner, he hears at one house 
that “ Master has waited for the paper these 
two hoursat another, “ Master’s gone 
out, and says if you can’t bring the paper 
earlier, he won’t have it all and some 
ill -conditioned “ master,” perchance, leaves 
positive orders, “ Don’t take it in, but tell 
the man to bring the bill; and I’ll pay it 
and have done with him.” 

Besides buyers, every newsman has read¬ 
ers at so much each paper per hour. One 
class stipulates for a journal always at 
breakfast; another, that it is to be deli¬ 
vered exactly at such a time ; a third, at 
any time, so that it is left the full hour; and 
among all of these there are malecontents, 
who permit nothing of “ time or circum¬ 
stance” to interfere with their personal con¬ 
venience. Though the newsman delivers, 
and allows the use of his paper, and fetches 
it, for a stipend not half equal to the lowest 
paid porter’s price for letter-carrying in 
London, yet he finds some, with whom he 
covenanted, objecting, when it is called for, 
—“ I've not had my breakfast,”—“ The 
paper did not come at the proper time,”— 
“ I’ve not had leisure to look at it yet,”— 


“ Jt has not been left an hour,”—or any 
other pretence equally futile or untrue, 
which, were he to allow, would prevent him 
from serving his readers in rotation, or at 
all. If he can get all his morning papers 
from these customers by four o clock, he is 
a happy man. 

Soon after three in the afternoon, the 
newsman and some of his boys must be at 
the offices of the evening papers; but be¬ 
fore he can obtain his requisite numbers, 
he must wait till the newsmen of the Royal 
Exchange have received theirs, for the 
use of the merchants on ’Change. Some 
of the first he gets are hurried off to coffee¬ 
house and tavern keepers. When he has 
procured his full quantity, he supplies the 
remainder of his town customers. These 
disposed of, then comes the hasty folding 
and directing of his reserves for the coun¬ 
try, and the forwarding of them to the 
post-office in Lombard-street, or in parcels 
for the mails, and to other coach-officer. 
The Gazette nights, every Tuesday and 
Friday, add to his labours,—the publi¬ 
cation of second and third editions of the 
evening papers is a super addition. On 
what he calls a “ regular day,” he is fortu¬ 
nate if he find himself settled within his 
own door by seven o’clock, after fifteen 
hours of running to and fro. It is now 
only that he can review ihe business of the 
day, enter his fresh orders, ascertain how 
many of each paper he will require on the 
morrow, arrange his accounts, provide for 
the money he may have occasion for, eat 
the only quiet meal he could reckon upon 
since that of the evening before, and “ steal 
a few hours from the night” for needful 
rest, before he rises the next morning to a 
day of the like incessant occupation: and 
thus from Monday to Saturday he labours 
every day. 

The newsman desires no work but his 
own to prove “ Sunday no Sabbathfor 
on him and his brethren devolves the cir¬ 
culation of upwards of fifty thousand Sun¬ 
day papers in the course of the forenoon. 
His Sunday dinner is the only meal he can 
ensure with his family, and the short re¬ 
mainder of the day the only time he can 
enjoy in their society with certainty, or 
extract something from, for more serious 
duties or social converse. 

The newsman’s is an out-of-door busi¬ 
ness at all seasons, and his life is measured 
out to unceasing toil. In all weathers, 
hail, rain, wind, and snow, he is daily con¬ 
strained to the way and the fare of a way- 
faringman. He walks, or rather runs, to dis¬ 
tribute information concerning all sorts of 


3 2 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


1 


circumstances ana persons, except his own. 
He is unable to allow himself, or others, time 
for intimacy, and therefore, unless he had 
formed friendships before he took to his ser¬ 
vitude, he has not the chance of cultivating 
them, save with persons of the same calling. 
He may be said to have been divorced, and 
to live “separate and apart" from society 
*n general; for, though he mixes with every , 
j body, it is only for a few hurried moments, 
and as strangers do in a crowd. 

Cowper’s familiar description of a news¬ 
paper. with its multiform intelligence, and 
the pleasure of reading it in the country, 
never tires, and in this place is to the pur¬ 
pose. 

This folio of four pages, happy work ! 

Which not ev’n critics criticise; that holds 
Inquisitive Atteniion, while I read. 

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break, 
What is it. but a map of busy life, 

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns? 

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks. 

Births, deaths, and marriages—- 

-The grand debate. 

The popular harangue, the tart re; ly, 

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit. 

And the loud laugh-— 

Cat’racts of declamation thunder here ; 

There forests of no meaning spread the page. 

In which all comprehension wanders lost; 

While fields of pleasantry amuse us there. 

With merry descants on a nation’s woes. 

The rest appears a wilderness of strange 
But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks, 

And lilies for the brows of faded age, 

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 

Heav’n, earth, and ocean, plunder’d of their sweets, 
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, 

Sermons, and city feasts, and fav’rite airs, 
Ethereal iournies, submarine exploits, 

And Katerfelto, with his hair an end 

At his own wonders, wand’ring for his bread. 

’Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retre-.t, 

To peep at such a world; to see the stir 
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates. 

At a safe distance, where the dying sound 
Falls a soft murmur on th’ uninjured ear. 

Thus sitting, and surveying thus, at ease. 

The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 
To some secure and more than mortal height. 

That lib’rates and exempts us from them all. 

This is an agreeable and true picture, 
and, with like felicity, the poet paints the 
bearer of the newspaper. 

Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge. 

That with its wearisome but needful length 
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon 
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; — 

He comee, the herald of a noisy world. 


With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks 
News from all nations lumb’ring at his back 
True to his charge, the close pack’d load behind 
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 
Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn; 

And, having dropp’d th’ expected bag, pass on. 

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch. 

Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 

To him inditf’rent whether grief or joy. 

Methinks, as I have always thought, that 
Cowper here missed the expression of a 
kind feeling, and rather tends to raise an 
ungenerous sentiment towards this poor 
fellow. As the bearer of intelligence, 01 
which he is ignorant, why should it be 

“ To him inditf rent whether grief or joy ?” 

If “cold, and yet cheerful,” he has at¬ 
tained to the “ practical philosophy ” of 
bearing ills with patience. He is a frozen 
creature that “ whistles,” and therefore 
called “light-hearted wretch.” The poet 
refrains to “look with a gentle eye upon 
this irretch ,” but, having obtained the 
newspaper, determines to enjoy himself, 
and cries 

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast. 

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round. 

And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups. 

That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each. 

So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in. 

This done, and the bard surrounded with 
means of enjoyment, he diiects his sole 
attention to the newspaper, nor spares a 
thought in behalf of the wayworn messen¬ 
ger, nor bids him “God speed!” on his 
further forlorn journey through the wintry 
blast. 

In London scarcely any one knows the 
newsman but a newsman. His customers 
know him least of all. Some of them 
seem almost ignorant that he has like 
“ senses, affections, passions,” with them¬ 
selves, or is “ subject to the same diseases, 
healed by the same means, warmed and 
cooled by the same winter and summer.” 
They are indifferent to him in exact ratio 
to their attachment to what he “ serves ” 
them with. Their regard is for the news 
paper, and not the newsman. Should he 
succeed in his occupation, they da not 
hear of it: if he fail, they do not care fo' 
it. If he dies, the servant receives the 
paper from his successor, and says, wher 
she carries it up stairs, “ If you please, tin 
newsman’s dead they scarcely ask where 
he lived, or his fall occasions a pun—“ W 
always said he teas, and now we have 


33 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


proof that he is, the late newsman.’' They 
are almost as unconcerned as if he had been 
the postman. 

Once a year, a printed “ copy of verses ” 
reminds every newspaper reader that the 
hand that bore it is open to a small boon. 
“ The Newsman’s Address to his Customers, 
1826,” deploringly adverts to the general 
distress, patriotically predicts better times, 
and seasonably intimates, that in the height 
of annual festivities he, too, has a heart 
capable of joy. 

-“ although the muse complains 

And sings of woes in melancholy strains. 

Yet Hope, at last, strikes up her trembling wires. 

And bids Despair forsake your glowing fires. 

While, as in olden time, Heaven’s gifts you share. 

And Englishmen enjoy their Christmas fare, 

While at the social board friend joins with friend. 

And smiles and jokes and salutations blend, 

Your Newsman wishes to be social too, 

And would enjoy the opening year with you: 

Grant him your annual gift, he will not fail 
To drink your health once more with Christmas ale: 
Long may you live to share your Christmas cheer. 

And he still wish you many a happy year 1” 

The losses and crosses to which news¬ 
men are subject, and the minutiae of their 
laborious life, would form an instructive 
volume. As a class of able men of busi¬ 
ness, their importance is established by ex¬ 
cellent regulations, adapted to their inter¬ 
ests and well-being; and their numerous 
society includes many individuals of high 
intelligence, integrity, and opulence. 


Che JBrama. 

License for enacting a Play. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—As many of your readers may not 
have had an opportunity of knowing the 
form and manner in which dramatic repre¬ 
sentations were permitted, by the Master 
of the Revels, upon the restoration of the 
Stuarts, I submit a transcript of a licence 
in my possession. It refers to a drama, call¬ 
ed “ Noah’s Flood,” apparently not re¬ 
corded in any dramatic history. It is 
true, Isaac Reed, in the “ Biographia Dra- 
matica,” 1782, vol. ii. p. 255, cites “ Noah’s 
Flood, or the Destruction of the World, 
an opera, 1679, 4to.,” and ascribes it to 
“ Edward Ecclestone,” but it is question¬ 
able whether this was the “ play ” for 
which the license below was obtained, as 
Reed, or perhaps George Steevens, the 
commentator, who assisted the former con¬ 


siderably in the compilation of that work, 
as it appeared in 1782, expressly entitles it 
“ an opera.” 

Reed states his inability to furnish any 
particulars of Ecclestone, and his continua- 
tor, Mr. Stephen Jones, has not added a 
single word. Ecclestone was a comedian, 
though I cannot immediately cite my au¬ 
thority. His opera of “ Noah’s Flood,” 
which is excessively scarce, is said, by 
Reed, to be “ of the same nature with Dry- 
den’s ‘ State of Innocence,’ but falls infi. 
nitely short of the merit of that poem.” 
This may be readily believed; for we are 
informed that the unhappy bookseller, to 
prevent the whole impression rotting on 
his shelves, again obtruded it for public 
patronage, with a new title, “ The Cata- 
clasm, or General Deluge of the World,’ 
1684, 4to.; and again as “The Deluge, or 
Destruction of the World,” 1691, 4to., with 
the addition of sculptures. These attempts 
probably exhausted the stock on hand, as, 
some years afterwards, it was reprinted in 
12mo., with the title of “ Noah’s Flood, or 
the History of the General Deluge,” 1714 
Many plays were reprinted by Meares, 
Feales, and others, at the commencement 
of the last century, as stock-plays; and 
Reed’s assertion, that this was an imposi¬ 
tion, is correct, so far as it came forth as a 
new production, the preface stating that 
the author w r as unknown. 

The license alluded to is on a square 
piece of parchment, eleven inches high, by 
thirteen wide. The office seal, red wax, 
covered by a piece of white paper, is en¬ 
graved in one of the volumes of George 
Chalmers’s “ Apology for the Believers of 
the Shakspeare Papers.” 

The License. 

“ To all Mayors Sheriff's Justices of the 
Peace Bayliffs Constables Headboroughs, 
and all other his Maties. Officers, true 
Leigmen & loueing Subiects, 8c to euery 
of them greeting. Know yee that wheras 
George Bayley of London Musitioner de¬ 
sires of me a Placard to make Shew of a 
Play called Noah’s fflood wth other Seue- 
rall Scenes. These are therfore by vertue 
of his Maties. Lettrs. Pattents made ouer 
vnto me vnder the great Seale of England 
to licence 8c allow the said George Bayley 
wth eight Servants wch are of his Com¬ 
pany to make shew of the said Play called 
Noah s flood wth other Scenes requireine 
you and euery of you in his Maties Name 
to pmitt 8c Suffer the said Persons to shew 
the said Play called Noah's flood, and to 
be aiding 8c assisting them 8c euerv of them 


34 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


if any wrong or iniury be offered vnto him 
or any of them Provided that he and they 
doe not act any thing offensiue against ye 
lawes of God or of the Land, and that he 
& they doe make shew of the said Noah’s 
flood at lawful! times wth Exception of the 
Lords Day or any other Day in the time 
of Devine Service, or on any other day 
prohibited by Proclamation or other law- 
full Authority. And this Licence to con¬ 
tinue for a year and noe longre from the 
day of the date hearof and to Serue through¬ 
out the Kingdome of England Scotland & 
Ireland & all other his Maties. Territories 
8t Dominions the said Geo. Bayly haueing 
giuen me security for his good behauiour 
that hee doe not intrench vpon the lawes 
of the land. Giuen at his Maties. Office of 
the Revills vnder my hand Seale of the 
said Office the fowerteenth day of Aprill 
one thousand six hundred sixty and two 8c 
in the fowerteenth year of the raigne of o’r 
Soueraigne Lord Charles ye Second by the 
grace of God of England Scotland ffrance 
and Ireland King Defender of the faith 8cc. 

J. Poyntz. 

A marginal memorandum, below the seal, 
contains a direction to the persons named 
in this license, thus :— 

“ You are to allow him either Town hall 
Guild hall Schoole house or some other con¬ 
venient place for his use 8c to continue in 
any one place for ye space of florty 
Daies.” 

The above transcript is literal in every 
respect: and trusting that it may be deem¬ 
ed worthy insertion, 

I am, Sir, See. 

Will o’ the Whisp. 


The identical seal of the office of the 
Revels, mentioned in the preceding letter, 
was engraven on wood, and is now in the 
possession of Francis Douce, Esq. F. S. A. 


THOMAS AIRAY, 

The Grassington Manager and his 
Theatrical Company, Craven, York¬ 
shire. 

For the Table Book . 

u Nothing like this in London!'* 

John Reeve in Peregrine Proteus. 

At this season, every thing appears dull 
and lifeless in the neighbourhood of my 
favourite mountain village. In my younger 
days it was otherwise. Christmas was then 


a festival, enlivened oy a round of innocent 
amusements, which the present enlightened 
age has pronounced superstitious or trifling. 
Formerly we had a theatre, at this season, 
and perhaps a few particulars relating to it 
may not be uninteresting. 

Gentle reader! should you ever visit 
Skipton-in-Craven, go on the market-day, 
and stand opposite to the vicarage-house in 
the High-street; there you will see a cart 
with this inscription, “ Thomas Airay, 
Grassington and Skipton carrier.” Keep 
your eye on that cart, and about the hour 
of three in the afternoon you will behold 
approach the owner, a little, fat, old man, 
with reddish whiskers and a jolly face, that 
Liston or John Reeve would not be ashamed 
to possess. In that countenance a mere 
tyro in physiognomy may discover a roguish 
slyness, a latent archness, a hidden mine of 
fun and good humour. Then when Airay 
walks, mark his stately gait, and tell me if 
it does not proclaim that he has worn the 
sock and buskin, and trod the Thespian 
floor: he was the manager of the Grassing¬ 
ton theatre—the “ Delawang” of Craven. 

I fancy some rigid moralist bestowing a 
cold glance on poor Tom, and saying to 
himself, “ Ah, old man, this comes of 
acting; had you, in your youth, followed 
some industrious pursuit, nor joined ar< 
idle strolling company, instead of now 
being a country carrier, you might have 
been blessed with a comfortable indepen¬ 
dence 1” Think not so harshly of Airay; 
though not the manager of a patent theatre, 
nor of one “ by royal authority,” he never 
was a stroller, nor an associate with vaga¬ 
bonds, nor did he ever, during his theatrical 
career, quake under the terrors of magis¬ 
terial harshness, or fear the vagrant act. 

No idle, worthless, wandering man was he. 

But in the dales, of honest parents bred. 

Train’d to a life of honest industry. 

He with the lark in summer left his hed, 

Thro’ the sweet calpi, by morning twilight shed. 
Walking to labour by that cheerful song. 

And, making a pure pleasure of a tread. 

When winter came with nights so dark and long, 

’Twas his, with mimic art, to amuse a village throng i 

Tom Airay’s sole theatre was at Grass¬ 
ington ; and that was only “open for the 
season ”—for a few weeks in the depth or 
winter, when the inclemency of the weather, 
which in these mountainous parts is very 
severe, rendered the agricultural occupa¬ 
tions of himself and companions impossi¬ 
ble to be pursued. They chose rather to 
earn a scanty pittance by acting, than to 
trouble their neighbours for eleemosynary 
support. 


35 









THE TABLE BOOK. 




The corps dramatique of Tom Airay 
consisted chiefly of young men, (they had 
no actresses,) who moved in the same line 
of life as the manager, and whose characters 
were equally respectable with his, which was 
always unassailable; for, setting aside our 
hero’s occasionally getting tipsy at some of 
the neighbouring feasts, nothing can be 
said against him. He is a worthy member 
j of society, has brought up a large family 
I respectably, and, if repott speak truth, has 
! realized about a thousand pounds. 

Few of Tom Airay’s company are living, 
and the names of many have escaped me. 

There was honest Peter VV -, whose face 

peeped from behind the green curtain like 
the full moon. He was accounted a bit of 
: a wag : ever foremost in mischief, he, more 
i than once, almost blew up the stage by gun- 
I powder, half suffocated the audience by 
I assafoetida, and was wont to put hot cin- 
! ders in the boots of his associates. He 
j has “ left the mimic scene to die indeed,” 
j a»d sleeps peacefully under the beautiful 
lime-trees of Kirby Malhamdale church¬ 
yard, undisturbed by the murmur of that 
mountain stream, which, rippling over its 
pebbly channel, hymns, as it were, his re¬ 
quiem. Then there was Isaac G- , the 

fiddler and comic singer : he exists no longer. 
There was Waddilove, and Frankland of 
Hetton, and Bill Cliff, the Skipton poet 
and bailiff—all dead ! There were, also, 
the Hetheringtons, and Jack Solomon the 
besom maker, and Tommy Summersgill the 

i barber and clock maker, and Jack L- 

the politician of Threshfield, who regarded 
J >hn Wilkes as his tutelary saint, and settled 
in the Illinois, from whence he occasionally 
sends a letter to his old friends, informing 
them what a paltry country England is, 
v hat a paradise the new world is, and how 
superior the American rivers are to those 

“ That through our rallies run 

Singing and dancing in the gleams 
Of summer’s cloudless sun.” 

Besides these, there were fifteen or six- 
t< en others from Arncliffe, Litton, Coniston, 
ivilnsay, and the other romantic villages 
that enliven our heath-clad hills. 

The “ Grassington theatre,” or rather 
u playhouse,” for it never received a loftier 
appellation, where (to borrow the phraseolo¬ 
gy of the Coburg) our worthies received their 
“ nightly acclamations of applause,” has 
been pulled down, but I will endeavour to 
i describe it. It was an old limestone “ lathe,* 

I tue Craven word for barn,with huge folding- 
doors, one containing a smaller one, through 
j w hich the audience was admitted to the pit 
I__ 


and gallery, for there were no boxes. Yet 
on particular occasions, such as when the 
duke of Devonshire or earl of Thanet good- 
naturedly deigned to patronise the perform¬ 
ances, a “ box” was fitted up, by railing ofl 
a part of the pit, and covering it, by way, 
of distinction, with brown paper, painted 
to represent drapery. The prices werej 
pit sixpence, and gallery threepence. I be¬ 
lieve they had no half price. The stage 
was lighted by five or six halfpenny can¬ 
dles, and the decorations, considering the 
poverty of the company, were tolerable. 
The scenery was respectable; and though 
sometimes, by sad mishap, the sun or moon 
would take fire, and expose the tallow can¬ 
dle behind it, was very well managed — 
fiequently better than at houses of loftier 
pretension. The dresses, as far as material 
went, were good; though not always in 
character. An outlaw of the forest of 
Arden sometimes appeared in the guise of 
a Craven waggoner, and the holy friar, 
“ whose vesper bell is the bowl, ding dong,” 
would wear a bob wig, cocked hat, and the 
surplice of a modern church dignitary. 
These slight discrepancies passed unre¬ 
garded by the audience; the majority did 
not observe them, and the few who did 
were silent; there were no prying editors i 
to criticise and report. The audience was 
always numerous, (no empty benches there) 
and respectable people often formed a por¬ 
tion. 1 have known the village lawyer, the 
parson of the parish, and the doctor com¬ 
fortably seated together, laughing heartily 
at Tom Airay strutting as Lady Randolph, 
his huge Yorkshire clogs peeping from 
beneath a gown too short to conceal his 
corduroy breeches, and murdering his words 
in a manner that might have provoked 
Fenning and Bailey from their graves, to 
break the manager’s head with their weighty 
publications. All the actors had a bad 
pronunciation. Cicero was called Kikkero y 
(.which, by the by, is probably the correct 
one;) Africa was called Afryka, fatigued 
was fattygewed , and pageantry was always i 
called paggyantry. Well do I remember 
Airay exclaiming, “ What pump, what pag- 
gyantry is there here!” and, on another 
occasion, saying, “ Ye damons o' deeth come 
sattle my sward!" The company would 
have spoken better, hadthey not, on meeting 
with a *' dictionary word,” applied for in¬ 
formation to an old schoolmaster, who con¬ 
stantly misled them, and taught then to 
pronounce in the most barbarous mode he I 
could devise; yet such was the awe where¬ 
with they were accustomed to regard this 
dogmatical personage, and the profound 


36 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


respect they paid to his abilities, that they 
received his deceiving tricks with thankful¬ 
ness. One of them is too good to be 
omitted: Airay, in some play or farce, 
happened to meet with this stage direction, 

| “ they sit dow n and play a game at piquet 
! the manager did not understand the term 
' “ piquet,” and the whole of the corps dra¬ 
matize were equally ignorant—as a dernier 
ressort, application was made to their old 
friend, the knight of the birch, who in¬ 
structed them that “ piquet” was the French 
word for pie-cut, and what they had to do 
was to make a large pie, and sit round a 
table and eat it; and this, on the perform¬ 
ance of the piece, they actually did, to the 
great amusement of the few who were ac- 
1 quainted with the joke. When Tom was 
informed of the trick, he wittily denomi¬ 
nated it a substantial one. 

The plays usually performed at Grassing- 
ton were of the regular drama, the produc¬ 
tions of Shakspeare, Dryden, Otway, or 
Lillo. George Barnwell has many a time 
cav>ed the Craven maids to forget “ Tur¬ 
pin,” and “ Nevison,” and bloody squires, 
and weep at the shocking catastrophe of 
' the grocer’s apprentice. Melodramas were 
| unknown to them, and happy had it been 
for the dramatic talent of this country if 
they had remained unknown elsewhere ; 
for since these innovations, mastiff' dogs, 
monkeys, and polichinellos have followed 
in rapid succession, and what monstrum 
horrendum will next be introduced, is diffi¬ 
cult to conceive. We may say, 

“ Alas, for the drama, its day has gone by.” 

At the time of Airay’s glory, had the 
word melodrama been whispered in his ear, 
he wmuld probably have inquired what sort 
of a beast it was, what country it came 
from, and whether one was in the tower !— 
Grassington being too poor to support a 
printer, the play-bills were written, and by 
way of making the performances better 
; known, the parish bellman was daily em- 
' ployed to cry the play in a couplet com¬ 
posed by the manager. I only remember 
one. 

Guy in his youth, our play we call. 

At six to the hay-mow # hie ye all 1 

This not only apprized the inhabitants of 
the play for the evening, but frequently the 
novelty of the mode induced a passing 
stranger to honour the house with his pre¬ 


sence. It was also preferable to printing, 
for that was an expense the proceeds of the 
house could not afford. 

While thus hastily sketching the pecu¬ 
liarities of Airay and his associates, it 
would be unjust not to state in conclusion,! 
that their performances were always of af 
moral character; if any indelicate senti¬ 
ment or expression occurred in their plays, 
it was omitted; nothing was uttered that 
could raise a blush on the female cheek. 
Nor were the audiences less moral than the 
manager: not an instance can be recorded 
of riot orindeoency. In these respects,Tom 
Airay’s theatre might serve as a model to the 
patent houses in town, wherein it is to be 
feared the original intent of the stage, that 
of improving the mind by inculcating morali¬ 
ty, is perverted. Whenever Airay takes a re¬ 
trospective glance at his theatrical manage¬ 
ment, he can do it with pleasure ; for never 
did he pander to a depraved appetite, or ren¬ 
der his barn a spot wherein the vicious 
would covet to congregate. 

T. Q M. 


2.tterarp ^obrltp. 

“ The Sybil’s Leaves, or a Pee]) into 
Futurity, published by Ackermann, Strand, 
and Lupton Relfe, Cornhill,” consist of sixty 
lithographic verses on as many cards,in a case 
bearing an engraved representation of a 
party in high humour consulting the cards. 
Thirty of them are designed for ladies, 
and as many for gentlemen : a lady is 
to hold the gentleman’s pack, and vice 
versa. From these packs, each lady or 
gentleman wishing to have “ the most im¬ 
portant points infallibly predicted ” is to 
draw a card. 

The idea of telling fortunes at home is 
very pleasant; and the variety of “ the Sy¬ 
bil’s Leaves” assists to as frequent oppor¬ 
tunities of re-consultation as the most 
inveterate craver can desire A lady con¬ 
demned by one of the leaves to “ wither 
on the virgin thorn,” on turning over a new 
leaf may chance to be assured of a delightful 
reverse; and by a like easy process, a 
“ disappointed gentleman ’’ become, at 
last, a “ happy man.” 


• In Craven, the hay is not stacked as in the south, 
but housed in barns, which from this custom are called 
hay-mows. 

i___ 

----- 


37 




























THE TABI.E BOOK. 



CTje ancient a&iber Jfleet at Clerfeeninell. 


Lo ! hither Fleet-ftro&ft came, in former times call'd the Fleet-river, 
Which navies once rode on, in present times hidden for ever. 

Save where water-cresses and sedge mark its oozing and creeping. 

In yonder old meadows, from whence it lags slowly—as weeping 
Its present misgivings, and obsolete use, and renown— 

And bearing its burdens of shame and abuse into town. 

On meeting the buildings sinks into the earth, nor aspires 
To decent-eyed people, till forced to the Thames at Blackfn'rs. 

• 


In 1825, this was the first open view 
nearest London of the ancient River Fleet: 
it was taken during the building of the 
high-arched walls connected with the 
House of Correction, Cold-bath-fields, close 
to which prison the river ran, as here seen. 

! At that time, the newly-erected walls 
communicated a peculiarly picturesque 
effect to the stream flowing within 
their confines. It arrived thither from 
Bagnigge-wells, on its wav to a covered 
channel, whereby it passej between Turn- 
mill-street, and again emerging, crosses 
! Chick-lane, now called West-street, near 
! Field-lane, at the back of which it runs on, 
and continues under Holborn-bridge, Fleet- 
market, and Bridge-street, till it reaches 


the Thames, close to the stairs on the west 
side of Blackfriars-bridge. The bridge, 
whereby boys cross the stream in the 
engraving, is a large iron pipe for convey¬ 
ing water from the New River Company’s 
works, to supply the houses in Grays-inn- 
lane. A few years ago, the New River 
water was conducted across this valley j 
through wooden pipes. Since the drawing 
was made, the Fleet has been diverted 
from the old bed represented in the print, 
through a large barrel drain, into the course 
just mentioned, near Turnmill-street. This 
notice of the deviation, and especially the 
last appearance of the river in its immemo¬ 
rial channel, may be of interest, because 
the Fleet is the only ancient stream runnin 


38 























































































































- 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


into London which is not yet wholly lost 
to sight. 

The River Fleet at its source, in a field 
on the London side of the Hampstead 
ponds, is merely a sedgy ditchling, scarcely 
half a step across, and “ winds its sinuosi¬ 
ties along,” with little increase of width 
or depth, to the road from the Mother Red 
Cap to Kentish Town, beneath which road 
it passes through the pastures to Camden 
Town ; and in one of these pastures, the 
canal, running through the Tunnel at Pen 
tonville to the City-road, is conveyed over 
it by an arch. From this place its width 
increases, till it reaches towards the west 
side of the road leading from Pancras 
Workhouse to Kentish Town. In the rear 
of the houses on that side of the road, it 
Becomes a brook, washing the edge of the 
garden in front of the premises late the 
Stereotype-foundery and printing-offices of 
Mr. Andrew Wilson, which stand back 
from the road ; and, cascading down behind 
the lower road-side houses, it reaches the 
Elephant and Castle, in front of which it 
tunnels to Battle-bridge, and there levels 
out to the eye, and runs sluggishly to Bag- 
nigge-wells, where it is at its greatest 
width, which is about twelve feet across; 
from thence it narrows to the House of Cor¬ 
rection, and widens again near Turnmill- 
street, and goes to the Thames, as above 
described. 

In a parliament held at Carlile, in 35 Ed¬ 
ward I., 1307, Henry Lacy earl of Lincoln 
complained that, in former times, the course 
of water running under Holborn-bridge and 
Fleet-bridge into the Thames, had been of 
such breadth and depth that ten or twelve 
•J ships at once, “ navies with merchandise,” 
were wont to come to Fleet-bridge, and 
some of them to Holborn-bridge; yet that, 
by filth of the tanners and others, and by 
raising of wharfs, and especially by a diver¬ 
sion of the water in the first year of king 
John, 1200, by them of the New Temple, 
for their mills without Baynard’s Castle, 
and by other impediments, the course was 
decayed, and ships could not enter as they 
were used. On the prayer of the earl, the 
constable of the Tower, with the mayor and 
sheriffs of London, were directed to take 
with them honest and discreet men to in¬ 
quire into the former state of the river, 
to leave nothing that might hurt or stop it, 
and to restore it to its wonted condition. 
Upon this, the river was cleansed, the mills 
were removed, and other means taken for 
the preservation of the course; but it was 
not brought to its old depth and breadth, 
and therefore it was no longer termed a 


river, but a brook, called Tutne-mill o» 
Tremill Brook, because mills were erected 
on it. 

After this, it wasc feansed several times; 
and particularly in 1502, the whole course 
of Fleet Dike, as it was then called, was 
scoured down to the Thames, so that 
boats with fish and fuel were rowed to 
Fleet-bridge and Holborn-bridge. 

In 1589, by authority of the common 
council of London, a thousand marks were 
collected to draw several of the springs at 
Hampstead-heath into one head, for the 
service of the City with fresh water where 
wanted, and in order that by such “a fol¬ 
lower,” as it was termed, the channel of 
the brook should be scoured into the 
Thames. After much money spent, the 
effect was not obtained, and in Stow’s time, 
by means of continual encroachments on 
the banks, and the throwing of soil into the 
stream, it became worse clogged than 
ever.* 

After the Fire of London, the channel 
was made navigable for barges to come up, 
by the assistance of the tide from the 
Thames, as far as Holborn-bridge, where 
the Fleet, otherwise Turnmill-brook, fell 
into this, the wider channel; which had 
sides built of stone and brick, with ware* 
houses on each side, running under the 
street, and used for the laying in of coals, 
and other commodities. This channel had 
five feet water, at the lowest tide, at Hoi- ! 
born-bridge, the wharfs on each side the 
channel were thirty feet broad, and rails of 
oak were placed along the sides of the 
ditch to prevent people from falling into it 
at night. There were four bridges of Port¬ 
land stone over it; namely, at Bridewell, 
Fleet-street, Fleet-lane, and Holborn. 

When the citizens proposed to erect a 
mansion-house for their lord mayor, they 
fixed on Stocks-market, where the Man¬ 
sion-house now stands, for its site, and 
proposed to arch the Fleet-ditch, from 
Ilolborn to Fleet-street, and to remove that 
market to the ground they would gain by 
that measure. In 1733, therefore, they re¬ 
presented to the House of Commons, that 
although after the Fire of London the chan¬ 
nel of the Fleet had been made navigable 
from the Thames to Holborn-bridge, yet 
the profits from the navigation had not an- j 
swered the charge; that the part from 
Fleet-bridge to Holborn-bridge, instead ol 
being useful to trade, had become choked 
with mud, and was therefore a nuisance,! 
and that several persons had lost their lives 


• Stow’s Suiyev. 


39 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


by falling iv.to it. For these and other 
causes assigned, an act passed, vesting the 
fee simple of the site referred to in the 
corporation for ever, on condition that 
drains should be made through the channel, 
and that no buildings on it should exceed 
fifteen feet in height. The ditch was ac¬ 
cordingly arched over from Holborn to 
Fleet-bridge, where the present obelisk in 
Bridge-street now stands, and Fleet-market 
was erected on the arched ground, and 
opened with the business of Stocks-market, 
on the 30th of September, 1737. 

In 1765, the building of Blackfriars- 
bridge rendered it requisite to arch over the 
remainder, from Fleet-bridge to the Thames; 
yet a small part remained an open dock 
for a considerable time, owing to the obsti¬ 
nate persistence of a private proprietor.* 
Previous to the first arching of the Fleet, 
Pope, in “ The Dunciad,” imagined the 
votaries of Dulness diving and sporting in 
Fleet-ditch, which he then called 

The king; of dykes ! than whom no sluice of mud 

With deeper sable blots the silver flood. 

“ I recollect,” says Pennant, “ the present 
noble approach to Blackfriars-bridge, the 
I well-built opening of Chatham-place, a 
muddy and genuine ditch.” It has of late 
i been rendered a convenient and capacious 
sewer. 


During the digging of Fleet-ditch, in 
1676, with a view to its improvement after 
the Fire of London, between the Fleet- 
prison and Holborn-bridge, at the depth of 
fifteen feet, several Roman utensils were 
discovered ; and, a little lower, a great 
quantity of Roman coins, of silver, copper, 
brass, and various other metals, but none 
of gold ; and at Holborn-bridge, two brass 
lares, or household gods, of the Romans, 
about four inches in length, were dug out; 
one a Ceres, and the other a Bacchus. The 
great quantity of coins, induces a presump¬ 
tion that they were thrown into this river 
by the Roman inhabitants of the city, on 
the entry of Boadicea, with hei army of en¬ 
raged Britons, who slaughtered their con¬ 
querors, without distinction of age or sex. 
Here also were found arrow-heads, spur- 
, rowels of a hand’s breadth, keys, daggers, 
scales, seals with the proprietors’ names in 
Saxon characters, ship counters with Saxon 
characters, and a considerable number of 
medals, crosses, and crucifixes, of a more 
recent age.f 


• Noorthouek. 
t Maitland. Pennant. 


Sometime before the year 1714, Mr 
John Conyers, an apothecary in Fleet-; 
street, who made it his chief business to 1 
collect antiquities, which about that time 
were daily found in and about London, as 
he was digging in a field near the Fleet 
not far from Battle-bridge, discovered the 
body of an elephant, conjectured to have 
been killed there, by the Britons, in fight 
with the Romans; for, not far from the 
spot, was found an ancient British spear, 
the head of flint fastened into a shaft of 
good length.* From this elephant, the 
public-house near the spot where it was 
discovered, called the Elephant and Castle, 
derives its sign. 

There are no memorials of the extent to 
which the river Fleet was anciently naviga¬ 
ble, though, according to tradition, an 
anchor was found in it as high up as the 
Elephant and Castle, which is immediately 
opposite Pancras workhouse, and at the 
corner of the road leading from thence to 
Kentish-town. Until within these few | 
years, it gave motion tc flour and flatting 
mills at the back of Field-lane, near Hol¬ 
born .+ 

That the Fleet was or\ce a very service¬ 
able stream there can be no doubt, from 
what Stow relates. The level of the ground 
is favourable to the presumption, that its 
current widened and deepened for naviga¬ 
ble purposes to a considerable extent in 
the valley between the Bagnigge-wells- 
road and Gray’s-inn, and that it might have 
had accessions to its waters from other 
sources, besides that in the vicinity of 
Hampstead. Stow speaks of it under the 
name of the “ River of W'els, in the west 
part of the citie, and of old so called of the 
IVels and he tells of its running from 
the moor near the north corner of the wall 
of Cripplegate postern. This assertion, 
Which relates to the reign of William the 
Conqueror, is controverted by Maitland, 
who imagines “ great inattention ” on the 
part of the old chronicler. It is rather to 
be apprehended, that Maitland was less an 
antiquary than an inconsiderate compiler. 
The drainage of the city has effaced proofs 
of many appearances which Stow relates 
as existing in his own time, but which there 
is abundant testimony of a different nature 
to corroborate; and, notwithstanding Mait¬ 
land s objection, there is sufficient reason to 
apprehend that the river of Wells and the 
Fleet river united and flowed, in the same 
channel, to the Thames. 


• Letter from Bagford to Hearne. 
4 Nelson’s History of Islington. 


40 



















THE TA BEE BOOK. 

Copogrnpln), 


SSanuarj). 

If you are ill at this season, there is no 
occasion to send for the doctor—only stop 
eating. Indeed, upon general principles, 
it seems to me to be a mistake for people, 
every time there is any little thing the mat¬ 
ter with them, to be running in such haste 
for the “ doctor because, if you are going 
to die, a doctor can’t help you ; and if you 
are not—there is no occasion for him.* 


Angling in Janua-ry. 

Dark is the ever-flowing stream. 

And snow falls on the lake ; 

For now the noontide sunny beam 
Scarce pierces bower and brake ; 

And flood, or envious frost, destroys 

A portion of the angler’s joys. 

Yet still we’ll talk of sports gone by. 

Of triumphs we have won. 

Of waters we again shall try. 

When sparkling in f he sun ; 

Of favourite haunts, by mead or dell. 

Haunts which the fisher loves so welk 

Of stately Thames, of gentle Lea, 

The merry monarch’s seat; 

Of Ditton’s stream, of Avon’s brae. 

Or Mitcham’s mild retreat; 

Of waters by the meer or mill. 

And all that tries the angler’s skill. 

Annals uf Spurting 


Plough Monday. 

The first Monday after Twelfth-day is so 
denominated, and it is the ploughman s 
holyday. 

! Of late years at this season, in the 
islands of Scilly, the young people exercise a 
sort of gallantry called “ goose-dancing.” 
The maidens are dressed up for young 
men, and the young men for maidens; 
and, thus disguised, they visit their neigh¬ 
bours in companies, where they dance, and 
make jokes upon what has happened in the 
island ; and every one is humorously 
“ told their own,” without offence being 
taken. By this sort of sport, according to 
yearly custom and toleration, there is a 
spirit of wit and drollery kept up among 
the people. The music and dancing done, 
they are treated with liquor, and then they 
go to the next house of entertainment.t 


• Monthly Magazine, January, 1827. 
j Strutt’s Sports, 307- 


Willy-Howe, Yorkshire. 

For the Table Book. 

There is an artificial mount, by the side 
of the road leading from North Burton to 
Wold Newton, near Bridlington, in York¬ 
shire, called “ Wil!y-howe,” much exceed¬ 
ing in size the generality of our “ hows,”! 
of which I have often heard the most pre¬ 
posterous stories related. A cavity or divi¬ 
sion on the summit is pointed out as owing 
its origin to the following circumstance .— 

A person having intimation of a large 
chest of gold being buried therein, dug 
away the earth until it appeared in sight ; j 
he then had a train of horses, extending 
upwards of a quarter of a mile, attached to 
it by strong iron traces; by these means lie 
was just on the point of accomplishing his 
purpose, when he exclaimed— 

** Hop Perry, prow Mark, 

Whether God’s will or not, we’ll have this ark.” 

lie, however, had no sooner pronounced 
this awful blasphemy, than all the traces 
broke, and the chest sunk still deeper in the 
hill, where it yet remains, all his future 
efforts to obtain it being in vain. 

The inhabitants of the neighbourhood 
also speak of the place being peopled with 
fairies, and tell of the many extraordinary 
feats which this diminutive race has per¬ 
formed. A fairy once told a man. to whom 
it appears she was particularly attached, if 
he went to the top of “ Willy-howe ” every 
morning, he would find a guinea; this 
information, however, was given under the j 
injunction that he should not make the cir¬ 
cumstance known to any other person. 
For some time he continued his visit, and 
always successfully; but at length, like our 
first parents, he broke the great command¬ 
ment, and, by taking with him another 
person, not merely suffered the loss of the 
usual guinea, but met with a severe punish¬ 
ment from the fairies for bis presumption. 
Many more are the tales which abound 
here, and which almost seem to have made 
this a consecrated spot ; but how they 
could at first originate,is somewhat singular. 

That “ Hows,” “ Carnedds,” and “ Bar- 
rows,” are sepulchral, we can scarcely en¬ 
tertain a doubt, since in all that have been 
examined, human bones, rings, and other 
remains have been discovered. From the 
coins and urns found in some of them, tin y 
have been supposed the burial-places of 
Roman generals. “ But as hydr< taphia, 
or urn-burial, was the custom among the 
Romans, and interment the practice of the 


41 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Britons, it is reasonable to conjecture, 
where such insignia are discovered, the 
tumuli are the sepulchres of some British 
chieftains, who fell in the Roman service.’ 
The size of each tumulus was in proportion 
to the rank and respect of the deceased ; 

| and the labour requisite to its formation 
was considerably lessened by the number 
employed, each inferior soldier being 
obliged to contribute a certain quantum to 
the general heap. That the one of which 
j we are speaking is the resting-place of a 
great personage may be easily inferred, 
from its magnitude ; its name also indi¬ 
cates the same thing, “ Willy-howe,” 
being the hill of many , or the hill made by 
many: for in Gibson’s Camden we find 
! “ Willy and Vili among the English 
Saxons, as Viele at this day among the 
Germans, signified many. So Williehnus , 
the defender of many. Wilfred , peace to 
many.” Supposing then a distinguished 
British chieftain, who fell in the imperial 
service, to have been here interred, we may 
readily imagine that the Romans and 
i Britons would endeavour to stimulate their 
own party by making his merits appear as 
I conspicuous as possible ; and to impress 
an awe and a dread on the feelings of their 
; enemies, they would not hesitate to prac¬ 
tise what we may call a pardonable fraud, 
in a pretension that the fairies were his 
friends, and continued to work miracles at 
his tomb. At the first glance, this idea 
may seem to require a stretch of fancy, but 
we can more readily reconcile it when we 
consider how firm was the belief that was 
placed in miracles ; how prevalent the love 
that existed, in those dark ages of igno¬ 
rance and superstition, to whatever bore 
that character; and how ready the Romans, 
with their superior sagacity, would be to 
avail themselves of it. The Saxons, when 
they became possessed of the country, 
would hear many strange tales, which a 
species of bigoted or unaccountable attach¬ 
ment to the marvellous would cause to be 
handed down from generation to genera¬ 
tion, each magnifying the first wonder, 
until they reached the climax, whence they 
are now so fast descending. Thus may 
probably have arisen the pnncip*al feature 
in the history of their origin. 

This mode of sepulture appears to be 
very ancient, and that it was very general 
is sufficiently demonstrated by the hills yet 
remaining in distant parts of the world. 
Dr. Clarke, who noticed their existence in 
Siberia and Russian-Tartary, thinks the 
practice is alluded to in the Old Testament 
in these passages : “ They raised a great 


heap of stones on Achan “ and raised 
a great heap of stones on the king of Ai 
“ they laid a heap of stones on Absalom.’* 
In the interior of South Africa, the Rev. 
J. Campbell “ found a large heap of small 
stones, which had been raised by each pas¬ 
senger adding a stone to the heap ; it was 
intended as a monument of respect to the 
memory of a king, from a remote nation, 
who was killed in the vicinity, and whose 
head and hands were interred in that 
spot.” 

The number of these mounds in our own 
country is very considerable ; and I trust 
they will remain the everlasting monu¬ 
ments of their own existence. Their greatest 
enemy is an idle curiosity, that cannot be 
satisfied with what antiquaries relate con¬ 
cerning such as have been examined, but, 
with a vain arrogance, assumes the power 
of digging though them at pleasure. For 
my own part, I must confess, I should like 
to be a witness of what they contain, yet I 
would hold them sacred, so far as not to 
have them touched with the rude hand of 
Ignorance. Whenever I approach these 
venerable relics, my mind is carried back 
to the time when they were young; since 
then, I consider what years have rolled 
over years, what generations have followed 
generations, and feel an interest peculiarly 
and delicately solemn, in the fate of those 
whose dust is here mingled with its kin¬ 
dred dust. 

T. C. 

Bridlington. 


Horn Church in Essex. 

For the Table Book. 

In reply to the inquiry by Ignotus, in the 
Every-Day Book , vol. ii. p. 1650, respect¬ 
ing the origin of affixing horns to a church 
in Essex, I find much ambiguity on the 
subject, and beg leave to refer to that ex¬ 
cellent work, “ Newcourt’s Repertorium,* 
vol. ii. p. 336, who observes, on the au¬ 
thority of Weaver, “The inhabitants here 
say, by tradition, that this church, dedicated 
to St. Andrew, was built by a female con¬ 
vert, to expiate for her former sins, and that 
it was called Hore-church at first, till by a 
certain king, but by whom they are uncer¬ 
tain, who rode that way, it was called 
Horned-church, who caused those horns to 
be put out at the east end of it.” 

The vane, on the top of the spire, is also 
in the form of an ox’s head, with the horns. 
“ The hospital had neither college nor com¬ 
mon seal.” uy 


42 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


Customs. 


iWanntfS. 


The present Boar’s Head Carol. 

For the Table Book. 

Mr. Editor,—In reading your account of 
the “ Boar’s Head Carol,” in your Every- 
Day Book, vol. i. p. 1619, I find the old 
carol, but not the words of the carol as 
sung at present in Queen’s College, Ox¬ 
ford, on Christmas-day. As I think it pos¬ 
sible you may never have seen them, I 
now send you a copy as they were sung, 
or, more properly, chanted, in the hall of 
Queen’s, on Christmas-day, 1810, at which 
time I was a member of the college, and 
assisted at the chant. 

A boar’s head in hand bear I, 

Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary; 

And I pray you, my masters, be merry, 

Quot estis in convivio.— 

Caput, apri defero. 

Reddens laudes Domino. 

The boar’s head, as I understand. 

Is the rarest dish in all this land; 

And when bedeck’d with a gay garland 
Let us servire cantico.— 

Caput apri, &c» 

Our steward hath provided this. 

In honour of the King of bliss; 

Which on this day to be served is 
In reginensi atrio.— 

Caput apri, &c. 

I am, &c. 

A QUONDAM QuEENSMAN 


Beating the Lapstone. 

For the Table Book . 

There is a custom of “ beating the lap- 
stone,” the day after Christmas, at Nettle- 
ton, near Burton. The shoemakers beat 
the lapstone at the houses of all water- 
drinkers, in consequence of a neighbour, 
Thomas Stickler, who had not tasted malt 
liquor for twenty years, having been made 
tipsy by drinking only a half pint of ale 
at his shoemaker’s, at Christmas. When he 
got home, he tottered into his house, and 
his good dame said, “ John, where have 
you been?—why, you are in liquor?”— 
“ No, I am not,” hiccuped John, “ I’ve 
only fell over the lapstone , and that has 
beaten my leg , so as I can t walk quite 
right.” Hence the annual practical joke— 
“ beating the lapstone.” 

P. 


Gambling-houses a Century ago. 

From “ The London Mercury ” of January 13, 1721-2. 

There are, it seems, in the parish of 
Covent-garden, twenty-two such houses, 
some of which clear sometimes 100/., and 
seldom less than 40/. a night. They have 
their proper officers, both civil and military, 
with salaries proportionable to their respec¬ 
tive degrees, and the importance they are 
of in the service, viz. 

A commissioner , or comm is, who is al¬ 
ways a proprietor of the gaming-house: he 
looks in once a night, and the week’s ac¬ 
count is audited by him and two others of 
the proprietors. 

A directory who superintends the room. 

The operator , the dealer at faro. 

Croupees two, who watch the card, and 
gather the money for the bank. 

A puff, one who has money given him 
to play, in order to decoy others. 

A clerk , who is a check upon the puff, to 
see that he sinks none of that money.—A 
squib is a puff of a lower rank, and has halt 
the salary of a puff. J 

A Jlasher, one who sits by to swear how 
often he has seen the bank stript. 

A dunner, waiters. 

An attorney, or solicitor. 

A captain , one who is to fight any man 
that is peevish or out of humour at the loss 
of his money. 

An usher, who takes care that the porter, 
or grenadier at the door, suffers none to come 
in but those he knows. 

A porter, who, at most of the gaming¬ 
houses, is a soldier hired for that purpose. 

A runner , to get intelligence of all the 
meetings of the justices of the peace, and 
when the constables go upon the search. 

Any link-boy, coachman, chairman, 
drawer, or other person, who gives notice 
of the constables being upon the search, 
has half a guinea. 


(Dnimann. 

Taste. 

Taste is the discriminating talisman, en¬ 
abling its owner to see at once the real 
merits of persons and tnings, to ascertain 
at a glance the true from the false, and to 
decide rightly on the value of individuals. 

Nothing escapes him who walks the world 
with his eyes touched by this ointment; 
they are open to all around him—to admire, 


43 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


or to condemn—to gaze with rapture, or to 
turn away with disgust, where another shall 
pass and see nothing to excite the slightest 
emotion. The fair creation of nature, and 
the works of man afford him a wide field of 
continual gratification. The brook, brawl¬ 
ing over its bed of rocks or pebbles, half 
concealed by the overhanging bushes that 
fringe its banks—or the great river flowing, 
in unperturbed majesty, through a wide vale 
of peace and plenty, or forcing its passage 
! through a lofty range of opposing hills— 
the gentle knoll, and the towering moun- 
j tain—the rocky dell, and the awful preci¬ 
pice—the young plantation, and ihe vene¬ 
rable forest, are alike to him objects of 
interest and of admiration. 

So in the works of man, a foot-bridge, 
thrown across a torrent, may be in it as 
gratifying to the man of taste as the finest 
arch, or most wonderful chain-bridge in 
the world ; and a cottage of the humblest 
order may be so beautifully situated, so 
neatly kept, and so tastefully adorned 
with woodbine and jessamine, as to call 
forth his admiration equally with the 
princely residence of the British landholder, 
in all its pride of position, and splendour 
of architecture. 

In short, this faculty is applicable to 
every object; and he who finds any thing 
too lofty or too humble for his admiration, 
does not possess it. It is exercised in the 
every-day affairs of life as much as in the 
higher arts and sciences .—Monthly Maga¬ 
zine. 


Two Ravens, abroad. 

On the quay at Nimeguen, in the United 
Provinces, two ravens are kept at the pub. 
lie expense; they live in a roomy apart¬ 
ment, with a large wooden cage before it, 
which serves them for a balcony. These 
birds are feasted every day with the choic¬ 
est fowls, with as much exactness as if they 
were for a gentleman’s table. The privi¬ 
leges of the city were granted originally 
upon the observance of this strange custom, 
which is continued to this day. 


Two Ravens, at home. 

In a MS. of the late Rev. Mr. Gough, 
of Shrewsbury, it is related, that one Tho¬ 
mas Elkes, of Middle, in Shropshire, being 
guardian to his eldest brother’s child, who 
was young, and stood in his way to a con¬ 
siderable estate, hired a poor boy to entice 
him into a corn field to gather flowers, and 


meeting them, sent the poor boy home, 
took his nephew in his arms, and carried 
him to a pond at the other end of the field, 
into which he put the child, and there left 
him. The child being missed, and inquiiy 
made after him, Elkes fled, and took the 
road to London; the neighbours sent two 
horsemen in pursuit of him, who passing 
along the road near South Mims, in Hert¬ 
fordshire, saw two ravens sitting on acock 
of hay making an unusual noise, and pull¬ 
ing the hay about with their beaks, on 
which they went to the place, and found 
Elkes asleep under the hay. He said, that 
these two ravens had followed him fto:n 
the time he did the fact. He was brought 
to Shrewsbury, tried, condemned, and hung 
in chains on Knockinheath. 


The last Tree of the Forest. 

Whisper, thou tree, thou lonely tree. 

One, wheie a thousand stood! 

Well might proud tales be told by thee. 

Last of the solemn wood ! 

Dwells there no voice amidst thy boughs. 

With leaves yet darkly green? 

Stillness is round, and noontide glows— 

Tell us what thou hast seen! 

“ I have seen the forest-shadows he 
Where now men reap the corn ; 

I have seen the kingly chase rush by. 

Through the deep glades at morn. 

“ With the glance of many a gallant spear, 

And the wave of many a plume, 

And the bounding of a hundred deer 
It hath lit the woodland’s gloom. 

“ I have seen the knight and his train ride past, 
With his banner borne on high ; 

O’er all my leaves there was brightness cast 
From his gleamy panoply. 

“ The pilgrim at my feet hath laid 
His palm-branch ’midst the flowers. 

And told his beads, and meekly pray'd. 
Kneeling at vesper-hours. 

“ And the merry men of wild and glen. 

In the green array they wore. 

Have feasted here with the red wine’s cheer, 
And the hunter-songs of yore. 

“ And the minstrel, resting in my shade. 

Hath made the forest ring 

With the lordly ‘ales of the high crusade, 

Once loved by chief and king. 

“ But now the noble forms are gone. 

That walk’d the earth of old; 

The soft wind hath a mournful tone, 

The sunny light looks iold. 


44 


























TIIR TABLE BOOK. 


** There is no glory left us now 
Like the glory with the dead :— 

I would that where they slumber low, 

My latest leaves were shed.” 

Oh ! thou dark tree, thou lonely tree. 

That mournest for the past! 

A peasant’s home in thy shade I see. 
Embower’d from every blast. 

A lovely and a mirthful sound 
Of laughter meets mine ear ; 

For the poor man's children sport around 
On the turf, with nought tc feav. 

And roses lend that cabin’s wall 
A happy summer-glow. 

And the open door stands free to all, 

For it recks not of a foe. 

And the village-bells are on the breeze 
That stirs thy leaf, dark tree!— 

—How can I mourn, amidst things like these, 
For the stormy past with thee ? 

K H. New Monthly Magazine. 


Miss Polly Baker. 

Towards the end of 1777, the abbe Haynal 
calling on Dr. Franklin found, in company 
with the doctor, their common friend, Silas 
Deane. “ Ah! monsieur l’abbe,” said 
Deane, “ we were just talking of you and 
your works. Do you know that you have 
been very ill served by some of those people 
who have undertaken to give you informa¬ 
tion on American affairs?’ The abbe re¬ 
sisted this attack with some warmth; and 
Deane supported it by citing a variety of 
passages from Raynal s works, which he 
alleged to be incorrect. At last they came 
to the anecdote of “ Polly Baker,” on which 
the abbe had displayed a great deal of 
pathos and sentiment. “ Now here, says 
Deane, “ is a talc in which there is not one 
word of truth.” Raynal fired at this, and 
asserted that he had taken it from an au¬ 
thentic memoir received from America. 
Franklin, who had amused himself hitherto 
with listening to the dispute of his friends, 
at length interposed, “ My dear abbe,” 
said he, “ shall I tell you the truth ? When 
I was a young man, and rather more 
thoughtless than is becoming at our present 
time of life, I was employed in writing for 
a newspaper; and, as it sometimes hap¬ 
pened that I wanted genuine materials to 
fill up my page, I occasionally drew on the 
stores of my imagination for a tale which 
might pass current as a reality now this 
very anecdote of Polly Baker was one of 
my inventions.” 


Bread Seals. 

The new conundrum of “ breaa pats ” 
as the ladies call the epigrammatic im 
impressors that their work-boxes are always 
full of now, pleases me mightily. Nothing 
could be moie stupid than the old style of 
otfiche —an initial—carefully engraved in a 
hand always perfectly unintelligible; or a 
crest—necessarily out of its place, ninei 
times in ten, in female correspondence— 
because nothing could be more un-“ ger¬ 
mane ” than a “ bloody dagger ” alarm¬ 
ing every body it met, on the outside of 
an order for minikin pins ! or a “ fiery 
dragon,” threatening a French mantua- 
ir.aker for some undue degree of tightness 
in the fitting of the sleeve ! and then the 
same emblem, recurring through the whole 
letter-writing of a life, became tedious. But 
now every lady has a selection of axioms 
(in flower and water) always by her, suit¬ 
ed to different occasions. As, “Though 
lost to sight, to memory dear !”—when 
she writes to a friend who has lately hac 
his eye poked out. “ Though absent, un¬ 
forgotten !”—to a female correspondent, 
whom she has not. written to for perhaps 
the three last (twopenny) posts ; or, “ Vous 
Ic meritez /” with the figure of a “ rose ”— 
emblematic of every thing beautiful— 
when she writes to a lover It was receiving 
a note with this last seal to it that put the 
subject of seals into my mind ; and I have 
some notion of getting one engraved with the 
same motto, “ Vous le meritez,” only with 
the personification of a horsewhip under it, 
instead of a “rose’’—for peculiar occa¬ 
sions. And perhaps a second would not 
do amiss, with the same emblem, only with 
the motto, “ Tu l'auras /” as a sort of co¬ 
rollary upon the first, in cases of emer¬ 
gency ! At all events, I patronise the sys 
tem of a variety of “ posies because 
wnere the inside of a letter is likely to be 
stupid, it gives you the chance of a joke 
upon the out.— Monthly Magazine 


Bleeding for our Country. 

It is related of a Lord Radnor in Chester¬ 
field’s time, that, with many good qualities, 
and no inconsiderable share of learning, he 
had a strong desire of being thought skilful 
in physic, and was very expert in bleeding. 
Lord Chesterfield knew his foible, and on a 
particular occasion, wanting his vote, came 
to him, and, after having conversed upon 
indifferent matters, complained of the head- 
ach, and desired his lordship to feel his 
pulse Lord Radnor immediately advised 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


him to lose blood. Chesterfield compliment¬ 
ed his lordship on his chirurgical skill, and 
begged him to try his lancet upon him. 
“ A propos,” said lord Chesterfield, after 
the operation, “ do you go to the house to¬ 
day?’’ Lord Radnor answered, “ I did 
not intend to go, not being sufficiently in¬ 
formed of the question which is to be 
debated ; but you, that have considered it, 
which side will you be of?”—The wily earl 
easily directed his judgment, carried him to 
the house, and got him to vote as he pleased. 
Lord Chesterfield used to say, that none of 
his friends had been as patriotic as himself, 
for he had “ lost his blood for the good of 
his country .” 


Mortal 

A Village New Year. 

For the Table Book. 

“ Almack’s” may be charming,—an as¬ 
sembly at the “ Crown and Anchor,” and a 
hop of country quality at the annual “ Race 
Ball,” or a more popular “ set to” at a 

i fashionable watering-place, may delight__ 

but a lady of city or town cannot conceive 
the emotions enjoyed by a party collected 
in the village to see the “ old year” out and 
the “new year” in. At this time, the 
“ country dance” is of the first importance 
to the young and old, yet not till the week 
has been occupied by abundant provisions 
of meat, fruit tarts, and mince pies, which, 
with made wines, ales, and spirits, are, like 
the blocks for fuel, piled in store for all 
partakers, gentle and simple. Extra best 
beds, stabling, and hay, are made ready,— 
fine celery dug,—the china service and pew¬ 
ter plates examined,—in short, want and 
wish are anticipated, nothing is omitted, 
but every effort used to give proofs of ge¬ 
nuine hospitality. This year, if there is to 
be war in Portugal, many widowed hearts 
and orphan spirits may be diverted from, not 
to, a scene which is witnessed in places 
where peace and plenty abound. However, 
I will not be at war by conjecture, but sup¬ 
pose much of the milk of hum^n kindness 
to be shared with those who look at the 
sunny side of things. 

After tea, at which the civilities of the 
most gallant of the young assist to lighten 
the task of the hostess, the fiddler is an¬ 
nounced, the “ country dance” begins, and 
the lasses are all alive ; their eyes seem lus¬ 
trous and their animal spirits rise to the 
zero of harmonious and beautiful attraction. 


The choosing of partners and tunes with fa¬ 
vourite figures is highly considered. Old 
folks who have a leg left and are desirous 
of repeating the step (though not so light/ 
of fifty years back, join the dance; and the | 
floor, whether of stone or wood, is swept to 
notes till feet are tired. This is pursued 
till suppertime at ten o’clock. Meantime, 
the “ band” (called “ waits” in London) is 
playing before the doors of the great neigh¬ 
bours, and regaled with beer, and chine, 
and pies; the village “ college youths” are 
tuning the handbells, and the admirers ol 
the “ steeple chase” loiter about the church¬ 
yard to hear the clock strike twelve, and 
startle the air by high mettle sounds. Me¬ 
thodist and Moravian dissenters assemble 
at their places of worship to watch out the 
old year, and continue to “ watch” till four 
or five in the new year’s morning. Vil¬ 
lagers, otherwise disposed, follow the church 
plan, and commemorate the vigils in the 
old unreformed way. After a sumptuous 
supper,—at which some maiden’s heart is 
endangered by the roguish eye, or the salute 
and squeeze by stealth, dancing is resumed 
and, according to custom, a change o' 
partners takes place, often to the joy and 
disappointment of love and lovers. At 
every rest—the fiddler makes a squeaking 
of the strings—this is called kiss 'em ! a 
practice well understood by the tulip fan¬ 
ciers. The pipes, tobacco, and substantiate 
are on the qui vive, by the elders in another 
part of the house, and the pint goes often 
to the cellar. 

As the clock strikes a quarter to twelve, 
a bumper is given to the “ old friend,” • 
standing, with three farewells ! and while 
the church bells strike out the departure of 
his existence, another bumper is pledged to 
the “ new infant,” with three standing hip, 
hip, hip—huzzas ! It is further customary 
for the dance to continue all this time, that 
the union of the years should be cemented 
by friendly intercourse. Feasting and 
merriment are carried on until four or five 
o’clock, when, as the works of the kitchen | 
have not been relaxed, a pile of sugar toast 
is prepared, and every guest must partake j 
of its sweetness, and praise it too, before! 
separation. Headaches, lassitude, and pale- 1 
ness, are thought little of, pleasure sup¬ 
presses the sigh, and the spirit of joy keeps 
the undulations of care in proper subjec¬ 
tion—Happy times these !—Joyful opportu- ! 
mties borrowed out of youth to be repaid 
by ripened memory !—snatched, as it were, 
from the wings of Time to be written on hte 
brow with wrinkles hereafter. 

R. P. 


46 














Cfte last likeness of tke 2Buke of ,©otk. 

(NOW FIRST ENGRAVED) 

From the Bust by Behnes, executed for His Royal Highness in 1826 . 

In the rude block aspiring talent sees 
Its patron’s face, and hews it out with ease; 

Ere fail’d the royal breath, the marble breath’d. 

And lives to be by gratitude enwreath’d. 


Towards the close of the year 1825, the 
duke of Yoik commenced to sit for this bust 
at his late residence in the Stable-yard, St. 
James’s ; and, in the summer of 1826, con¬ 
tinued to give sittings, till its final comple¬ 
tion, at the artist’s house, in Dean-street, 
Soho. The marble was then removed, 
cr exhibition, to the Royal Academy, 
and from thence sent home to his royal 
Iiighness. at Rutland-house The duke 


and his royal sister, the princess Sophia, 
were equally delighted with the true and 
spirited likeness, and gratified by its pos¬ 
session, as a work of art. 

The duke of York, on giving his orders 
to Mr. Behnes, left entirely to him the 
arrangement of the figure. With great 
judgment, and »n reference to his roya 
hignness’s distinguished station, the artist 
has placed armour on the body, and thrown 


I'HE TABLE BOOK. 


47 


E 















TIIE TABLE BOOK. 



ft. military cioak over the shoulders. This 
judicious combination of costume imparts 
simplicity and breadth to the bust, and 
assists the manly dignity of the head. The 
duke’s fine open features bear the frank and 
good - natured expression they constantly 
wore in life: the resemblance being minutely 
faithful, is as just to his royal highness’s 
exalted and benevolent character, as it is 
creditable to Mr. Behries’s execution. The 
present engraving is a hasty sketch of its 
general appearance. His royal highness 
kindly permitted Mr. Behnes to take casts 
from the sculpture. Of the many, there¬ 
fore, who experienced the duke of York’s 
friendship or favour, any one who desires 
to hold his royal highness’s person in re¬ 
membrance, has an opportunity of obtaining 
a fac-simile of the original bust, which is as 
'arge as life. 

Mr. Behnes was the last artist to whom 
.he duke sat, and, consequently, this is his 
’ ast likeness. The marble was in the pos¬ 
session of his royal highness during his long 
illness, and to the moment of his death, in 
A r'ington-street. Its final destination will 
be appropriated by those to whom he was 
most attached, and on whom the disposition 
of such a memorial necessarily devolves. 


To the ample accounts of the duke of 
York in the different journals, the Table 
Book brings together a few particulars 
omitted to be collected, preceded by a few 
notices respecting his royal highness’s title, 
a correct list of all the dukes of York from 
their origin, and, first, with an interesting 
paper by a gentleman who favoured the 
Every-Day Book with some valuable gene¬ 
alogical communications. 


SlIAKSPEARE’S DUKES of YORK, &c. 

For the Table Book. 

The elastic buoyancy of spirits, joined 
with the rare affability of disposition, which 
prominently marked the character of the 
prince whose recent loss we deplore, ren¬ 
dered him the enthusiastic admirer and 
steady supporter of the English stage. I 
hope I shall not be taken to task for allud¬ 
ing to a trifling coincidence, on recalling to 
recollection how largely the mighty master 
of this department, our immortal Shak- 
speare, has drawn upon his royal highness’s 
illustrious predecessors in title, in those un¬ 
rivalled dramatic sketches which unite the 
force of genius with the simplicity of 
nature, whilst they impart to the strictly 
accurate annals cf our national history 


some of the most vivid illumirations which 
blaze through the records of our national 
eloquence. 

The touches of a master-hand giving 
vent to the emanations of a mighty mind 
are, perhaps, no where more palpably 
traced, than throughout those scenes of the 
historical play of Richard II., where Ed¬ 
mund of Langley, duke of York, (son of 
king Edward III.,) struggles mentally be¬ 
tween sentiments of allegiance to his weak 
and misguided sovereign on the one hand, 
and, on the other hand, his sense of his other 
nephew Bolingbroke’s grievous wrongs, 
and the injuries inflicted on his country by 
a system of favouritism, profusion, and op¬ 
pression. 

Equal skill and feeling are displayed in 
the delineation of his son Rutland’s devot¬ 
ed attachment to his dethroned benefactor, 
and the adroit detection, at a critical mo¬ 
ment, of the conspiracy, into which he had 
entered for Richard’s restoration. 

In the subsequent play of Henry V., 
(perhaps the most heart-stirring of this in¬ 
teresting series,) we learn how nobly this 
very Rutland (who had succeeded his 
father, Edmund of Langley, as duke of 
York) repaid Henry IV.’s generous and 
unconditional pardon, by his heroic con¬ 
duct in the glorious field of Agincourt, 
where he sealed his devotion to his king 
and country with his blood. 

Shakspeare has rendered familiar to us 
the intricate plans of deep-laid policy, and 
the stormy scenes of domestic desolation, 
through which his nephew and successor, 
Richard, the next duke of York, obtained 
a glimpse of that throne, to which, accord¬ 
ing to strictness, he was legitimately enti¬ 
tled just before 

“ York overlook’d the town of York.” 

The licentious indulgence, the hard¬ 
hearted selfishness, the reckless cruelty, 
which history indelibly stamps as the cha¬ 
racteristics of his son and successor, Ed¬ 
ward, who shortly afterwards seated him¬ 
self firmly on the throne, are presented to 
us in colours equally vivid and authentic. 
The interestingly pathetic detail of the 
premature extinction in infancy of his 
second son, prince Richard, whom he had 
invested ;with the title of York, is brought 
before our eyes in the tragedy of Richard 
III., with a forcible skill and a plaintive 
energy, which set the proudest efforts of 
preceding or following dramatic writers at 
defiance. 

To “bluff king Hal,” (who, during the 
lifetime of his elder brother, Arthur, prince 












48 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


of Wales, had next bone this exclusively 
royal title of duke of York,) ample justice 
is rendered, in every point of view, in that 
production, as emineit for its gorgeous 
pageantry as for its subdued interest, in 
which most of our elder readers must have 
been sufficiently fortunate to witness the 
transcendant merits of Mrs. Siddons, as 
Queen Catherine, surpassing even her own 
accustomed excellence. 

Had, contrary the wonted career of 
the triumph of 1 uman intellect, a Shak- 
speare enraptur d and adorned the next 
! generation, w> at studies would not the 
characters an'* fates of the martyred Charles 
I., and his ;*vsguided son, James II., have 
afforded te ais contemplation. Both these 
sovereigns, during the lives of their respec- 
! five elder brothers, bore the title of duke of 
York. 

The counties of York and Lancaster are 
the only two in England from which the 
titles conferred have been exclusively en¬ 
joyed by princes of the blood royal. It 
may be safely asserted, that neither of these 
designations has ever illustrated an indivi¬ 
dual, who was not either son, brother, 
grandson, or nephew of the sovereign of 


this realm. 

Richard, duke of York, killed at the 
battle of Wakefield, may, at first sight, 
strike the '-eader as an exception to this 
assertion, he being only cousin to Henry 
VI.; but we ought to bear in mind, that 
this Richard was himself entitled to that 
throne, of which his eldest son shortly after¬ 
wards obtained possession, under the title 
of Edward IV. 

By the treaty of Westphalia, concluded 
at Munster, in 1648, which put an end to 
the memorable war that desolated the 
fairest portion of the civilized world during 
thirty years, it was stipulated that the 
bishopric of Osnaburgh, then secularized, 
should be alternately possessed by a prince 
of the catholic house of Bavaria, and the 
protestant house of Brunswick Lunen- 
burgh. It is somewhat remarkable, on the 
score of dates, that the Bavarian family 
enjoyed but one presentation between the 
death of Ernest Augustus, duke of York, 
in 1728, and the presentation of his great, 
great, great nephew, the lamented prince 
whose loss, in 1827, is so deeply and justly 
deplored. 

K W. P. 


OTIIO, EARL OF YORK. 

More than five centuries before a prince 
of the house of Brunswick sat on the 


British throne, there is a name in the 
genealogy of the Guelphs connected with 
the title of York. 

Until the time of Gibbon, the learned 
were inclined to ascribe to Azo, the great 
patriarch of the house of Este, a direct 
male descent from Charlemagne: the bril¬ 
liant result of this able investigator’s re¬ 
searches prove, in Azo’s behalf, four cer¬ 
tain lineal ascents, and two others, highly 
probable, 

“-from the pure well of Italian uudefiled.” 

Azo, marquis or lord of Tuscany, mar¬ 
ried Cunegunda, a daughter of a Guelph, 
who was also sister of a Guelph, and heir¬ 
ess of the last Guelph. The issue of this 
alliance was Guelph I., who, at a time be¬ 
fore titles were well settled, was either 
duke or count of Altdorff. He was suc¬ 
ceeded by his son, Henry the Black, who 
married Wolfhildis, heiress of Lunenburgh, 
and other possessions on the Elbe, which 
descended to their son, Henry the Proud, 
who wedded Gertrude, the heiress of Sax¬ 
ony, Brunswick, and Hanover. These 
large domains centered in their eldest 
son, Henry the Lion, who married Maud, 
daughter of Henry II., king of England, 
and, in the conflicts of the times, lost all 
his possessions, except his allodial territo¬ 
ries of Lunenburgh, Brunswick, and Hano¬ 
ver. The youngest son of this marriage 
was William of Winchester, or Longsword, 
from whom descended the dukes of Bruns¬ 
wick and Lunenburgh, in Germany, pro¬ 
genitors to the house of Hanover. His 
elder brother, Otho, is said to have borne 
the title of York. 

This Otho, duke of Saxony, the eldest 
son of Henry the Lion, and Maud, was 
afterwards emperor of Germany ; but pre¬ 
vious to attaining the imperial dignity, he 
was created earl of York by Richard I.,king 
of England, who, according to some authori¬ 
ties, subsequently exchanged with Otho, 
and gave him the earldom of Poictou foi 
that of York. Otho’s relation to this king¬ 
dom, as earl of York, and grandson of 
Henry II., is as interesting as his foitunes 
were remarkable. 

The emperor, Henry VI., having died, 
and left his son, Frederick, an infant three 
months old, to the care of his brother 
Philip, duke of Suabia; the minority of 
Frederick tempted pope Innocent to divesi 
the house of Suabia of the imperial crown, 
and he prevailed on certain piinces to elect 
Otho, of Saxony, emperor: other princes 
reelected the infant Frederick. The con¬ 
tention continued between the rival candi- 


49 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


dates, with repeated elections. Otho, by 
flattering the clergy, obtained himself to be 
crowned at Rome, and assumed the title of 
Otho IV.; but some of his followers having 
been killed by the Roman citizens he me¬ 
ditated revenge, and instead of returning to 
Germany, reconquered certain possessions 
usurped from the empire by the pope. For 
this violence Otho was excommunicated 
by the holy father, who turned his influ¬ 
ence in behalf of the youthful Frederick, 
and procured him to be elected emperor 
instead. Otho had a quarrel with Philip 
Augustus, king of France, respecting an old 
wager between them. Philip, neither be¬ 
lieving nor wishing that Otho could attain 
the imperial dignity, had wagered the best 
city in his kingdom against whichever he 
should select of Otho’s baggage horses, if 
he carried his point. After Otho had 
achieved it, he seriously demanded the city 
of Paris from Philip, who quite as seriously 
refused to deliver up his capital. War 
ensued, and in the decisive battle of 
Bovines, called the “ battle of the spurs,” 
from the number of knights who perished, 
Philip defeated Otho at the head of two 
hundred thousand Germans. The imperial 
dragon, which the Germans, in their wars, 
were accustomed to plant on a great armed 
chariot with a guard chosen from the 
flower of the army, fell into the hands of 
the victors, and the emperor himself barely 
escaped at the hazard of his life. This 
battle was fought in August, 1215 ; and 
Otho, completely vanquished, retreated 
upon his devotions, and died in 1218, 
without issue.* 

The wager, in its consequences so dis¬ 
astrous to the Germans, and so illustrious 
to the French arms, was made with Philip 
while Otho was passing through France on 
his way from the court of England. Col¬ 
lectors of “ engraved British portraits,” and 
the portraits of persons who “ come into 
England,” should look to this. How many 
illustrated “ Grangers ” are there with a 
portrait of Otho IV., earl of York? 


THE DUKES OF YORK. 

I. 

Edmund Plantagenet, surnamed De 
Langley, from his birth-place, fifth son of 
king Edward III., was first created earl of 
Cambridge by his father, and afterwards 
created duke of York by his nephew, 
Richard II. He was much influenced by 


* Hist, of House of Austria Rapin. Favir.e. 


his brother, the duke of Gloucester; and 
an historian of the period calls him “ a soft 
prince.” It is certain that he had few stir¬ 
ring qualities, and that passive virtues were 
not valued in an age when they were of 
little service to contending parties. Io 
1402, three years after the accession of 
Henry IV., he died at his manor of Lang¬ 
ley, and was interred in the priory there. 

II. 

Edward Plantagenet, second duke of 
York, was son of the first duke, grandson 
to Edward III., and great uncle to Henry 

V. , by whose side he valiantly fought and 
perished, in the field of Agincourt, October 
25, 1415. 

III. 

Richard Plantagenet, third duke of York, 
nephew of the second duke, and son of 
Richard earl of Cambridge, who was exe¬ 
cuted for treason against Henry V., was 
restored to his paternal honours by Henry 

VI. , and allowed to succeed to his uncle’s 
inheritance. As he was one of the most 
illustrious by descent, so he became one of 
the most powerful subjects through his 
dignities and alliances. After the death ot 
the duke of Bedford, the celebrated regent 
of France, he was appointed to succeed 
him, and with the assistance of the valorous 
lord Talbot, afterwards earl of Shrewsbury, 
maintained a footing in the French territo¬ 
ries upwards of five years. The incapacity 
of Henry VI. incited him to urge his claim 
to the crown of England in right of his 
mother, through whom he descended from 
Philippa, only daughter of the duke of 
Clarence, second son to Edward III.; 
whereas the king descended from the 
duke of Lancaster, third son of that mo¬ 
narch. The duke’s superiority of descent, his 
valour and mildness in various high em¬ 
ployments, and his immense possessions, 
derived through numerous successions, gave 
him influence with the nobility, and pro¬ 
cured him formidable connections. He 
levied war against the king, and without 
material loss slew about five thousand of 
the royal forces at St. Alban’s, on the 22d 
of May, 1452. This was the first blood 
spilt in the fierce and fatal quarrel between 
the rival houses of York and Lancaster, 
which lasted thirty years, was signalized by 
twelve pitched battles, cost the lives of 
eighty princes of the blood, and almost 
annihilated the ancient nobility of England 
After this battle, the duke’s irresolution, and 
the heroism of Margaret, queen of Henrv 
VI., caused a suspension of hostilities 


50 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


The leaders on both sides assented to meet 
n London, and be solemnly reconciled. 
The duke of York led the queen in solemn 
procession to St. Paul’s, and the chiefs of 
one party marched hand in hand with the 
chiefs of the other. Tt was a public de¬ 
monstration of peace, with secret mutual 
distrust; and an accident aroused the slum¬ 
bering strife. One of the king’s retinue m- 
, suited one of the earl of Warwick’s; their 
companions fought, and both parties in 
every county flew to arms. The battle of 
Bloreheath, in Staffordshire, 23d Septem¬ 
ber, 1459, was won by the Lancastrians. 
At the battle of Northampton, 10th July, 
1560, the Yorkists had the victory, and the 
king was taken prisoner. A parliament, 
summoned in the king’s name, met at 
Westminster, which the duke of York at¬ 
tended; and, had he then seated himself on 
the throne in the House of Lords, the 
deadly feud might have been ended by his 
being proclaimed king; but his coolness and 
moderation intimidated his friends, and en¬ 
couraged his enemies. His personal cou¬ 
rage was undoubted, but he was deficient 
in political courage. The parliament de¬ 
liberated, and though they declared the 
duke’s title indefeasible, yet they decided 
that Henry should retain the crown during 
life. They provided, however, that till the 
king’s decease the government should be 
administered by the duke, as the true and 
lawful heir of the monarchy; and in this 
arrangement Richard acquiesced. Mean¬ 
while, queen Margaret, with her infant son, 
appealed to the barons of the north against 
the settlement in the south, and collected 
an army with astonishing celerity. The 
duke of York hastened with five thousand 
troops to quell what he imagined to be the 
beginning of an insurrection, and found, 
near Wakefield, a force of twenty thousand 
men. He threw himself into Sandal castle, 
but with characteristic braver^, imagining 
he should be disgraced by remaining be¬ 
tween walls in fear of a female, he descended 
into the plain of Wakefield on the 24th of 
December, and gave battle to the queen, 
who largely outnumbering his little army, 
defeated and slew him; and his son, the 
earl of Rutland, an innocent youth of seven¬ 
teen, having been taken prisoner, was mur¬ 
dered in cold blood by the lord de Clifford. 
Margaret caused the duke’s head to be cut 
off, and fixed on the gates of the city of 
York, with a paper crown on it in derision 
of his claim. He perished in the fiftieth 
year of his age, worthy of a better fate. 

IV. 

Edward Plantagenet, fourth duke of 


York, eldest son of the last, prosecuted his 
father’s pretensions, and defeated the earl 
of Pembroke, half brother to Henry VI., 
at Mortimer’s Cross, in Herefordshire. 
Shortly afterwards, queen Margaret ad¬ 
vanced upon London, and gained a victory 
over the Yorkists under the earl of War¬ 
wick, at the second battle of St. Alban’s, 
and, at the same time, regained possession 
of the person of her weak husband. Pressed 
by the Yorkists, she retreated to the north 
and the youthful duke, remarkable for 
beauty of person, bravery, affability, and 
every popular quality, entered the capital 
amidst the acclamations of the citizens. 
Elated by his success, he resolved to openly 
insist on his claim, and treat his adversaries 
as rebels and traitors. On the 3d of March. 
1460, he caused his army to muster in St. 
John’s Fields, Clerkenwell; and after an 
harangue to the multitude surrounding his 
soldiery, the tumultuary crowd were asked 
whether they would have Henry of Lan¬ 
caster, or Edward, eldest son of the late 
duke of York, for king. Their “ sweet 
voices” were for the latter; and this show 
of popular election was ratified by a great 
number of bishops, lords, magistrates, and 
other persons of distinction, assembled foi 
that purpose at Baynard’s Castle. On the 
morrow, the duke went to St. Paul’s and 
offered, and had Te Deum sung, and was 
with great royalty conveyed to Westmin¬ 
ster, and there in the great hall sat in the 
king’s seat, with St. Edward’s sceptre in 
his hand. On the 29th of March, 1461, ne 
fought the fierce and bloody battle of Tou- 
ton, wherein he issued orders to give no 
quarter, and there were above thirty-six 
thousand slain. This slaughter confirmed 
him king of England, and he reigned up¬ 
wards of twenty years under the title of 
Edward IV., defiling his fame and power 
by effeminacy and cruelty. The title of 
York merged in the royal dignity. 


V. 

Richard Plantagenet, of Shrewsbury, 
fifth duke of York, son of Edward IV., was 
murdered in the tower while young, with 
his elder brother, Edward V., by order of 
their uncle, the duke of Gloucester, after¬ 
wards Richard III. 

VI. 

Henry Tudor, sixth duke of York, wa, 
so created by his father Henry VII., whom 
he succeeded as king, under the title o 4 
Henry VIII., and stained our annals wit 
heartless crimes. 


51 














f~ - - - -- - ■ ■ ■ — ■ - - - — ■ 

* I .1 - - -I . - ■ ■ ■ 

TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


VII. 

Charles Stuart, seventh duke of York, 
was second son of James I., by whom he 
was created to that title in 1604, and whom 
he succeeded in the throne as Charles I. 

VIII. 

James Stuart, a younger son of Charles I., 
was the eighth duke of York. While bear¬ 
ing this title during the reign of his brother 
Charles II., he manifested great personal 
courage as a naval commander, in several 
actions with the Dutch. Under the title of 
James II., he incompetently tilled the 
throne and weakly abdicated it. 

IX. 

Ernest Augustus Guelph, ninth duke of 
York, duke of Albany, earl of Ulster, and 
bishop of Osnaburgh, was brother to George 
Lewis Guelph, elector of Hanover, and 
king of England as George I., by letters 
from whom, in 1716, he was dignified as 
above, and died in 1728, unmarried. 

X. 

Edward Augustus, tenth duke of York, 
duke of Albany, and ea*rl of Ulster, was 
! second son of Frederick prince of Wales, 

{ and brother to king George III., by whom 
he was created to those titles. He died at 
Monaco, in Italy, September 17, 1767, un¬ 
married. 

XI. 

THE LATE DUKE OF YORK. 

Frederick, eleventh Duke of York, was 
brother of His Majesty King George IV., 
and second son of his late Majesty King 
George III , by whom he was advanced to 
the dignities of Duke of the Kingdom of 
Great Britain, and of Earl of the Kingdom 
of Ireland, by the titles of Duke of York 
and of Albany in Great Britain, and of Earl 
of Ulster in Ireland, and presented to the 
Bishopric of Osnaburgh. His Iloyal 
Highness was Commander-in-Chief of all 
the Land Forces of the United Kingdom, 
Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot 
Guards, Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Regi- 
meat of Infantry, Officiating Grand Master 
of the Order of the Bath, High Steward of 
New Windsor, Warden and Keeper of the 
New Forest Hampshire, Knight of the 
Garter, Knight of the Order of the Holy 
Ghost in France, of the Black Eagle in 
Russia, the Red Eagle in Prussia, of St. 
Maria Theresa in Austria, of Charles III. 
in Spain, Doctor of Civil Law, and Fellow 
of the Royal Society. 

The late duke of York was born on the 


16th of August, 1763; he died on the 5th 
of January," 1827. A few miscellaneous 
memoranda are extracted from journals of 
the dates they refer to. 


The duke of York was sent to Germany 
to finish his education. On the 1st of 
August, 1787, his royal highness, after 
having been only five days on the road from 
Hanover to Calais, embarked at that port, 
on board a common packet-boat, for Eng¬ 
land, and arrived at Dover the same after¬ 
noon. He was at St. James’s-palace the 
following day by half-past twelve o’clock ; 
and, on the arrival of the prince of Wales 
at Carlton-house, he was visited by the 
duke, after an absence of four years, which, 
far from cooling, had increased the affection 
of the royal brothers. 


On the 20th of December, in the same 
year, a grand masonic lodge was held at 
the Star and Garter in Pall-mall. The 
duke of Cumberland as grand-master, the 
prince of Wales, and the duke of York, were 
in the new uniform of the Britannic-lodge, 
and the duke of York received another de¬ 
gree in masonry ; he had some time before 
been initiated in the first mysteries of the 
brotherhood. 


On the 5th of February, 1788, the duke 
of York appeared in the Court of King's 
Bench, and was sworn to give evidence 
before the grand jury of Middlesex, on an! 
indictment for fraud, in sending a letter to 
his royal highness, purporting to be a letter 
from captain Morris, requesting the loan of 
forty pounds. The grand jury found the in¬ 
dictment, and the prisoner, whose name 
does not appear, was brought into court by 
the keeper of Tothill-fields Bridewell, and 
pleaded not gudty, whereupon he was re¬ 
manded, and the indictment appointed to 
be tried in the sittings after the following 
term; but there is no account of the trial 
having been had. 


In December of the same year, the duke 
ordered two hundred and sixty sacks o» 
coals to be distributed among the families 
of the married men of his regiment, and 
the same to be continued during the seve¬ 
rity of the weather. 


In 1788, pending the great question of 
the regency, it was contended on that side 
of the House of Commons from whence 


52 













r — 1 _ 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


extension of royal prerogative was least ex¬ 
pected,that from the moment parliament was 
made acquainted with the king’s incapacity, 
a right attached to the prince of Wales to 
exercise the regal functions, in the name of 
nis father. On the 15th of December, the 
duke of York rose in the House of Lords, 
and a profound silence ensued. IIis royal 
nighness said, that though perfectly unused 
as he was to speak in a public assembly, 
vet he could not refrain from offering his 
sentiments to their lordships on a subject 
in which the dearest interests of the country 
were involved. He said, he entirely agreed 
with the noble lords who had expressed 
their wishes to avoid any question which 
tended to induce a discussion on the rights 
of the prince. The fact was plain, that no 
I such claim of right had been made on the 
part of the prince; and he was confident 
that his royal highness understood too well 
the sacred principles which seated the house 
[of Brunswick on the throne of Great Bri¬ 
tain, ever to assume or exercise any power, 

| be his claim tchat it might, not derived from 
the will of the people, expressed by their 
representatives and their lordships in parlia¬ 
ment assembled. On this ground his royal 
highness said, that he must be permitted to 
hope that the wisdom and moderation of all 
considerate men, at a moment when temper 
and unanimity were so peculiarly necessary, 
on account of the dreadful calamity which 
every description of persons must in com¬ 
mon lament, but which he more par¬ 
ticularly felt, would make them wish to 
avoid pressing a decision, which certainly 
was not necessary to the great object ex¬ 
pected from parliament, and which must be 
most painful in the discussion to a family 
already sufficiently agitated and afflicted. 
Ills royal highness concluded with saying, 
that these were the sentiments of an honest 
heart, equally influenced by duty and affec¬ 
tion to his royal father, and attachment to 
the constitutional rights of his subjects ; 
and that he was confident, if his royal bro¬ 
ther were to address them in his place as a 
peer of the realm, that these were the senti¬ 
ments which he would distinctly avow. 

His majesty in council having declared 
his consent, under the great seal, to a con¬ 
tract of matrimony between his royal high¬ 
ness the duke of York and her royal high¬ 
ness the princess Frederique Charlotte 
Ulrique Catherine of Prussia, eldest daugh¬ 
ter of the king of Prussia, on the 29th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1791, the marriage ceremony was 
performed at Berlin. About six o’clock 
in the afternoon all the persons of the blood 


royal assembled in gala, in the apartments 
of the dowager queen, where the diamond 
crown was put on the head of princess 
Frederica. The generals, ministers, ambas¬ 
sadors, and the high nobility, assembled in 
the white hall. At seven o’clock, the duke of 
York, preceded by the gentlemen of the 
chamber, and the court officers of state, led 
the princess his spouse, whose tiain was 
cairied by four ladies of the court, through 
all the paiade apartments; after them went 
the king, w ith the queen dowager, prince 
Lewis of Prussia, w'ith the reigning queen, 
and others of the royal family to the white 
hall, where a canopy was erected of crimson 
velvet, and also a crimson velvet sofa for 
the marriage ceremony. The royal couple 
placed themselves under the canopy, before 
the sofa, the royal family stood round 
them, and the upper counsellor of the con¬ 
sistory, Mr. Sack, made a speech in German. 
This being over, rings w r ere exchanged ; and 
the illustrious couple, kneeling on the 
sofa, were married according to the rites 
of the reformed church. The whole ended 
with a prayer. Twelve guns, placed in the 
garden, fired three rounds, and the bene¬ 
diction was given. The new-married couple 
then received the congratulations of the 
royal family, and returned in the same 
manner to the apartments, where the royal 
family, and all persons present, sat down 
to card-tables ; after which, the w hole 
court, the high nobility, and the ambassa¬ 
dors, sat down to supper, at six tables. 
The first was placed under a canopy of 
crimson velvet, and the victuals served in 
gold dishes and plates. The other five 
Tables, at which sat the generals, ministers, 1 
ambassadors, all the officers of the court, 
and the high nobility, were served in other 
apartments. 

During supper, music continued playing 
in the galleries of the first hall, which im¬ 
mediately began when the company entered 
the hall. At the dessert, the royal table 
was served with a beautiful set of china, 
made in the Berlin manufactory. Supper 
being over, the w'hole assembly repaired to 
the white hall, where the trumpet, timbrel, 
and other music were playing ; and the flam¬ 
beau dance was begun, at which the minis¬ 
ters of state carried the torches With this 
ended the festivity. The ceremony of the 
re-marriage of the duke and duchess ot 
York took place at the Queen s Palace, 
London, on the 23d of November. 

The duchess of York died on the 6th ol 
August, 1820. 


53 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


The Dance of Torches. 

As a note of illustration on this dance at 
the Prussian nuptials of the duke and 
duchess of York, reference may be had to 
a slight mention of the same observance on 
the marriage of the prince royal of Prussia 
with the princess of Bavaria, in the Every- 
Day Book , vol. i. p. 1551. Since that 
article, I find more descriptive particulars 
of it in a letter from baron Bielfeld, 
giving an account of the marriage of the 
prince of Prussia with the princess of 
Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, at Berlin, in 1742. 
The baron was present at the ceremonial. 

“ As soon as their majesties rose from 
table, the whole company returned into the 
white hall; from whence the altar was re¬ 
moved, and the room was illuminated with 
fresh wax lights. The musicians were 
placed on a stage of solid silver. Six lieu¬ 
tenant generals, and six ministers of state, 
stood, each with a white wax torch in his 
hand, ready to be lighted, in conformity to 
a ceremony used in the German courts 
on these occasions, which is called ‘ the 
dance of torches, y in allusion to the torch 
of Hymen. This dance was opened by the 
new married prince and princess, who made 
the tour of the hall, saluting the king and 
the company. Before them went the minis¬ 
ters and the generals, two and tw r o, with 
their lighted torches. The princess then 
gave her hand to the king, and the prince 
to the queen; the king gave his hand to 
the queen mother, and the reigning queen 
to prince Henry; and in this manner all 
the princes and princesses that were pre¬ 
sent, one after the other, and according to 
their rank, led up the dance, making the 
tour of the hall, almost in the step of the 
Polognese. The novelty of this perform¬ 
ance, and the sublime quality of the per¬ 
formers, made it in some degree agreeable. 
Otherwise the extreme gravity of the dance 
itself, with the continual round and forma) 
pace of the dancers, the frequent going out 
of the torches, and the clangour of the 
trumpets that rent the ear, all these I say 
made it too much resemble the dance of 
the Sarmates, those ancient inhabitants of 
the prodigious woods of this country.” 


On the 7th of June, 1794, about four 
o’clock in the morning, a fire broke out at 
the duke of York’s palace at Oatlands. It 
began in the kitchen, and was occasioned 
oy a beam which projected into the chim¬ 
ney, and communicated to the roof. His 
"oyal highness’s armoury was in that wing 
of the building where the fire commenced. 


in which forty pounds of gunpowder being 
deposited, a number of most curious war¬ 
like instruments, which his royal highness 
had collected on the continent, were de- 
stroyed. Many of the guns and other 
weapons were presented from the king 
of Prussia, and German officers of dis¬ 
tinction, and to each piece was attached its 
history. By the seasonable exertions of ihe 
neighbourhood, the flames were prevented 
from spreading to the main part of the 
building. The duchess was at Oatlands a* 
the time, and beheld the conflagration from 
her sleeping apartment, in the centre of the 
mansion, from which the flames were pre¬ 
vented communicating by destroying a gate¬ 
way, over the wing that adjoined to the 
house. Her royal highness gave her orders 
with perfect composure, directed abundant 
refreshment to the people who were extin¬ 
guishing the flames, and then retired to the 
rooms of the servants at the stables, which 
are considerably detached from the palace. 
His majesty rode over from Windsor-castle 
to visit her royal highness, and staid with 
her a considerable time. 


On the 8th of April, 1808, whilst the 
duke of York was riding for an airing along 
the King’s-road towards Fulham, a droveF’s 
dog crossed, and barked in front of the 
horse. The animal, suddenly rearing, fell 
backwards, with the duke under him ; and 
the horse rising, with the duke’s foot in the 
stirrup, dragged him along, and did him 
further injury. When extricated, the duke, 
with great cheerfulness, denied he was 
much hurt, yet two of his ribs were broken, 
the back of his head and face contused, and 
one of his legs and arms much bruised. A 
gentleman in a hack chaise immediately 
alighted, and the duke was conveyed in it 
to York-house, Piccadilly, where his royal 
highness was put to bed, and in due time 
recovered to the performance of his active 
duties. 


On the 6th of August, 1815, the duke of 
York, on coming out of a shower-bath, at 
Oatlands, fell, from the slippery state of the 
oilcloth, and broke the large bone of his 
left arm, half way between the shoulder 
and the elbow-joint. His royal highness’s 
excellent constitution at that time assisted 
the surgeons, and in a fortnight he age in 
attended to business. 


On the 11 th of October, in the same 
year, his royal highness’s library, at his! 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


office in the Ilorse-guards consisting of the 
best military authors, and a very extensive 
collection of maps, were removed to his 
new library (late her majesty’s) in the 
Green-park. The assemblage is the most 
perfect collection of works on military 
affairs in the kingdom. 


It appears, from the report of the com¬ 
missioners of woods, forests, and land 
revenues, in 1816, that the duke of York 
purchased of the commissioners the follow¬ 
ing estates: 1. The manor of Byfleet and 
Weybridge, with Byfleet or Weybridge- 
park, and a capital messuage and offices, 
and other messuages and buildings there. 
2. The manor of Walton Leigh, and divers 
messuages and lands therein. 3. A capital 
messuage called Brooklands, with offices, 

! gardens, and several parcels of land, situat¬ 
ed at Weybridge. 4. A farm-house, and 
divers lands, called Brooklands-farm, at 
Weybridge. 5. A messuage and lands, 
called Childs, near Weybiidge. 6. Two 
rabbit-warrens within the manor of Byfleet 
and Weybridge. To this property was to 
be added all lands and premises allotted to 
the preceding by virtue of any act of enclo¬ 
sure. The sale was made to his royal 
highness in May, 1809, at the price of 
£74,459. 3s.; but the money was permitted 
to remain at the interest of 3£ per cent, till 
the 10th of June, 1815, when the principal 
and interest (amounting, after the deduc¬ 
tion of property-tax, and of the rents, which, 
during the interval, had been paid to the 
crown, to £85,135. 5s. 9 d.) were paid into 
the Bank of England, to the account of the 
commissioners for the new street. His 
royal highness also purchased about twenty 
acres of land in Walton, at the price of 
£1294. 2s. 3d. 


While the duke was in his last illness, 
members on both sides of the House of 
Commons bore spontaneous testimony to 
his royal highness’s impartial administration 
of his high office as commander-in-chief; 
and united in one general expression, that 
no political distinction ever interfered to 
prevent the promotion of a deserving officer. 

A statement in bishop Watson’s Me¬ 
moirs, is a tribute to his royal highness’s 
reputation. 

“ On the marriage of my son in August, 
1805, I wrote,” says the bishop, “ to the 
duke of York, requesting his royal high¬ 
ness to give him his protection. I felt a 
consciousness of having, through life, che¬ 
rished a warm attachment to the house of 


Brunswick, and to those principles which 
had placed it on the throne, and of having 
on all occasions acted an independent and 
honourable part towards the government of 
the country, and I therefore thought myself 
justified in concluding my letter in the fol¬ 
lowing terms :—‘ I know not in what esti¬ 
mation your royal highness may hold my 
repeated endeavours, in moments of dan¬ 
ger, to support the religion and the consti¬ 
tution of the country; but if I am fortunate 
enough to have any merit with you on that 
score, I earnestly request your protection 
for my son. I am a bad courtier, and know 
little of the manner of soliciting favours 
through the intervention of others, but I 
feel that I shall never know how to forget 
them, when done to myself; and, under 
that consciousness, I beg leave to submit 
myself 

* Your Royal Highness’s 

‘ Most grateful servant, 

‘ R. Landaff. 

“ I received a very obliging answer by the 
return of the post, and in about two months 
my son was promoted, without purchase, 
from a majority to a lieutenant-colonelcy 
in the Third Dragoon Guards. After hav¬ 
ing experienced, for above twenty-four 
years, the neglect of his majesty’s ministers, 
I received great satisfaction from this at¬ 
tention of his son, and shall carry with me 
to my grave a most grateful memory of his 
goodness. I could not at the time forbear 
expressing my acknowledgment in the 
following letter, nor can I now forbear in¬ 
serting it in these anecdotes. The whole 
transaction will do his royal highness no 
discredit with posterity, and I shall ever 
consider it as an honourable testimony of 
his approbation of my public conduct. 

* Calgarth Park , Nov. 9 , 1805 .’ 

- . ■ ‘ Do, my lord of Canterbury, 

But one good turn, and he’s your friend for ever.’ 

* Thus Shakspeare makes Henry VIII. 
speak of Cranmer ; and from the bottom of 
my heart, I humbly entreat your royal 
highness to believe, that the sentiment is 
as applicable to the bishop of Landaff as it 
was to Cranmer. 

‘ The bis dat qui cito dat has been most 
kindly thought of in this promotion of my 
son; and I know not which is most dear 
to my feelings, the matter of the obligation, 
or the noble manner of its being conferred. 
I sincerely hope your royal highness will 
pardon this my intrusion, in thus expressing 
my most grateful acknowledgments for 
them both 

* R. Landaff.’ ” 


55 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


iHr. Cbarlra 2.atnb. 

To the Editor. 

Dear Sir, 

It is not unknown to you, that about 
sixteen years since I published “ Speci¬ 
mens of English Dramatic Poets, who 
lived about the Time of Shakspeare.” For 
the scarcer Plays I had recourse to the 
( ollection bequeathed to the British Mu¬ 
seum by Mr. Garrick. But my time was 
but short, and my subsequent leisure has 
discovered in it a treasure rich and ex¬ 
haustless beyond what I then imagined. 
In it is to be found almost every production 
in the shape of a Play that has appeared in 
print, from the time of the old Mysteries 
and Moralities to the days of Crown and 
D’Urfey. Imagine the luxury to one like 
me, who, above every other form of Poetry, 
have ever preferred the Dramatic, of sitting 
in the princely apartments, for such they 
are, of poor condemned Montagu House, 
which T’predict will not speedily be fol¬ 
lowed by a handsomer, and culling at will 
the flower of* some thousand Dramas. It is 
like having the range of a Nobleman’s Li¬ 
brary with the Librarian to your friend. 
Nothing can exceed the courteousness and 
attentions of the Gentleman who has the 
chief direction of the Reading Rooms here; 
and you have scarce to ask for a volume, 
before it is laid before you. If the occa¬ 
sional Extracts, which I have been tempted 
to bring aWay, may find an appropriate 
}>lace in your Table Book , some of them 
are weekly at your service. By those who 
remember the “ Specimens,’’ these must be 
considered as mere after-gleanings, supple¬ 
mentary to that work, only comprising a 
lunger oeriod. You must be content with 
sometimes a scene, sometimes a song; a 
speech, or passage, or a poetical image, as 
they happen to strike me. I read without 
order of time; Tam a poor hand at dates ; 
find for any biography of the Dramatists, 

1 must rtTfer to writers who are more skil¬ 
ful in such matters. My business is with 
their poetry only. 

Your well-wisher, 

C. La mb'; 

January , 27, 1827. 


(Samrfe Blaps. 

No. I. 

[ From “ King John and Matilda,” a Tra- 1 
gedy by Robert Davenport, acted in 
1651.j 

k—- - - - — — 


John, not being able to bring Matilda, 
the chaste daughter of the old Baron Fitz- 
water, to compliance with his wishes 
causes her to be poisoned in a nunnery. 

Scene. John. The Barons : they being 
as yet ignorant of the murder, and 
having just come to composition with 
the King after tedious wars. Matilda’ 
hearse is brought in by Hubert. 

John. Hubert, interpret this apparition. 

Hubert. Behold, sir, 

A sad-wri t Tragedy, so feelingly 
Languaged, and cast; with such a crafty cruelty 
Contrived, and acted; that wild savages 
Would weep to lay their ears to, and (admiring 
To see themselves outdone) they would conceive 
Their wildness mildness to this deed, and call 
Men more than savage, themselves rational. 

And thou, Fitzwater, reflect upon thy name * 

And turn the Son of Tcarb. Oh, forget 
That Cupid ever spent a dart upon thee ; 

That Hymen ever coupled thee; or that ever 
The hasty, happy, willing messenger 
Told thee thou had’st a daughter. Oh look here 
Look here. King John, and with a trembling eye 
Read your sad act, Matilda’s tragedy. 

Barons. Matilda! 

Fitzwater. By the laboring soul of a much-injured 
man. 

It is my child Matilda! 

BruCe. Sweet niece 1 
Leicester. Chaste soul! 

John. Do I stir, Chester ? 

Good Oxford, do I move? stand I not still 

To watch when the griev’d friends of wrong’d Matilda 

Will with a thousand stabs turn me to dust, 

That in a thousand prayers they might be happy ? 

Will no one do it? then give a mourner room, 

A man of tears. Oh immaculate Matilda, 

These shed but sailing heat-drops, misling showers 
The faint dews of a doubtful April morning; 

But from mine eyes ship-sinking cataracts, 

Whole clouds of waters, wealthy exhalations, 

Shall fall into the sea of my affliction, 

Till it amaze the mourners. 

Hubert. Unmatch’d Matilda ; 

Celestial soldier, that kept a fort of chastity 
’Gainst all temptations. 

Fitzwater. Not to be a Queen, 

Would she break her chaste vow. Truth Crowns your 
reed ; 

UnwatcA’d Matilda was her name indeed. 


* Fitzwater ? son of water. A striking instance of 
the compatibility of the serious pun with the expression 
of the profoundest sorrows. Grief, as well as joy, tinds 
ease in thus playing with a word Old John of Gaunt 
in Shakspeare thus descants on his name: “ Gaunt, and 
gaunt indeed;” to a long string of conceits, which no 
one has ever yet felt as ridiculous. The poet Wither 
thus, in a mournful review of the declining estate ©I 
his family, says with deepest nature:— 

The very name of Wither shows decay. 


56 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


John. O take into your spirit-piercing praise 
My scene of sorrow. I Lave weil-c lad woes, 

Pathetic epithets to illustrate passion. 

And steal true tears so sweetly from all these. 

Shall touch the soul, and at once nierce and please. 

[Peruses the Motto and Emblems on the hearse. | 
** To Piety and Purity"—and “ Lillies mix’d with 
Roses”— 

How well you have apparell’d woe ! this Pendant, 
l’o Piety and Purity directed. 

Insinuates a chaste soul in a clean body, 

Virtue’s white Virgin, Chastity’s red Martyr! 

Suffer me then with this well-suited wreath 
To make our griefs ingenious. Let all be dumb, 
Whilst the king speaks her Kpicedium. 

Chester. His very soul speaks sorrow. 

Oxford. And it becomes him sweetly. 

John. Hail Maid and Martyr ! lo on thy breast. 
Devotion’s altar, chaste Truth’s nest, 

1 offer (as my guilt imposes) 

Thy merit’s laurel, Lillies and Reses ; 

Lillies, intimating plain 

Thy immaculate life, stuck with no stain ; 

Roses red and sweet, to tell 
How sweet, red sacrifices smell. 

Hang round then, as you walk about this hearse, 

The songs of holy hearts, sweet virtuous verse. 

Eitzwater. Bring Persian silks, to deck her monu¬ 
ment ; 

John. Arabian spices, quick’ning by their scent; 
Eitzwater. Numidian marble, to preserve her praise, 
John. Corinthian ivory, her shape to praise : 
Eitzwater. And write in gold upon it, In this brsast 
Virtue sate mistress. Passion but a guest. 

John. Virtue is sweet; and, since griefs bitter be, 
Strew her with roses, and give rue to me. 

Bruce. My noble brother, I’ve lost a wife and son ;• 
You a sweet daughter. Look on the king’s penitenc.; 
His promise for the public peace. Prefer 
A public benefit.f When it shall please. 

Let Heaven question him. Let us secure 
And quit the land of Lewis.} 

Fitzwater. Do any thing ; 

Do all things that are honorable; and the Great King 
Make you a good king, sir! and when your soul 
Shall at any time reflect upon your follies. 

Good King John, weep, weep very heartily ; 

It will become you sweetly. At your eyes 
Your sin stole in ; there pay your sacrifice. 

John. Back unto Dunmow Abbey. There we’ll pa) 
To sweet Matilda’s memory, and her sufferings, 

A monthly obsequy, which (sweet’ned by 
The wealthy woes of a tear-troubled eye) 

Shall by those sharp afflictions of my face 
Court mercy, and make grief arrive at grace. 


Bonq. 

Matilda, now go tase thy bed 
In the dark dwellings of the dead; 

And rise in the great waking day 
Sweet as incence, fresh as May. 

Rest there, chaste soul, fix’d in thy proper sphere. 
Amongst Heaven’s fair ones; all are fair ones there. 
Rest there, chaste soul, whilst we here troubled say ; 
Time gives us griefs. Death takes our joys away. 

This scene has much passion and poetry 
in it, if I mistake not. The last words of 
Fitzwater are an instance of noble tempe¬ 
rament ; but to understand him, the cha¬ 
racter throughout of this mad, merry, feel¬ 
ing, insensible-seeming lord, should be 
read. That the venomous John could have 
even counterfeited repentance so well, is 
out of nature; but supposing the possi¬ 
bility, nothing is truer than the way in 
which it is managed. These old play¬ 
wrights invested their bad characters with 
notions of good, which could by no pos 
sibility have coexisted with their actions 
Without a soul of goodness in himself, how 
could Shakspeare’s Richaid the Third have 
lit upon those sweet phrases and induce¬ 
ments by which he attempts to win over 
the dowager queen to let him wed her 
daughter. It is not Nature’s nature, but 
Imagination’s substituted nature, which 
does almost as well in a fiction. 

(To be continued.) 


literature. 

Glances at New Books on my Table. 

“Constable’s Miscellany of original 
and selected Publications" is proposed to 
consist of various works on important and i 
popular subjects, with the view of supply¬ 
ing certain chasms in the existing stock of 
useful knowledge ; and each author or sub¬ 
ject is to be kept separate, so as to enable 
purchasers to acquire all the numbers, or 
volumes, of each book, distinct from the 
others. The undertaking commenced in 
the first week of the new year, 1827, with the 
first number of Captain Basil Hall’s voyage 
to Loo-Choo, and the complete volume o 
that work was published at the same time. 


• Also cruelly slain by the poisoning John, 
t i. e. of peace; which this monstrous act of John s 
.n this plav comes to counteract, m the same way as 
rhe discovered Death of Prince Arthur is like to break 
the composition of the King with his Barons in Bhak- 

speares^ of France . w hom they had called in, 

as in Shakspeare’s Play 


“ Eakly Metrical Tales , including the 
History of Sir Egeir, Sir Gryrne, and Sir 
Gray-Steill.” Edinb. 1826. sm. 8vo. 9s. 
(175 copies printed.) The most remarkuble 
poem in this elegant volume is the rare 
Scottish romance, named in the title-page, 
which, according to its present editor 
“would seein, along with the poems of sii 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


David Lindsay, and the histories of Robert 
the Bruce, and of sir William Wallace, to 
have formed the standard productions of 
the vernacular literature of the country.” 
In proof of this he adduces several au¬ 
thorities ; “ and yet it is remarkable enough, 
that every ancient copy should have hitherto 
eluded the most active and unremitting 
research.” The earliest printed edition is 
presumed to have issued fiom the press of 
Thomas Bassandyne, “ the first printer of 
the sacred Scriptures in Scotland.” An 
inventory of his goods, dated 18th October, 

11577, contains an item of three hundred 
“ Gray Steillis,” valued at the “ pece vief. 
surnma £vn. x. o.” Its editor would 
willingly give the sum-total of these three 
hundred copies for “ one of the said Gray- 
Steillis, were he so fortunate as to meet 
with it.” He instances subsequent editions, 
but the only copy he could discover was 
printed at Aberdeen in 1711, by James 
. Nicol, printer to the town and university ; 
and respecting this, which, though of so 
recent date, is at present unique, “ the 
editor’s best acknowledgments are due to 
his friend, Mr. Douce, for the kind manner 
in which he favoured him with the loan of 
the volume, for the purpose of repub¬ 
lication.” On the 17th of April, 1497, when 
James IV. was at Stirling : there is an entry 
in the treasurer’s accounts, “ Item, that 
samyn day to twa Sachelaris that sang Gray 
Steil to the King, ixs.” In MS. collec¬ 
tions made at Aberdeen in 1627, called a 
“ Booke for the Lute,” by Robert Gordon, 
is the air of “ Gray-Steeland a satirical 
poem in Scottish rhyme on the marquis of 
Argyle, printed in 1686, is “appointed to 
be sung according- io the tune of old Gray 
Steel.” These evidences that the poem 
was sung, manifest its popularity. There 
are conjectures as to who the person de¬ 
nominated Sir Gray Steel really was, but 
the point is undetermined. 

In this volume there are thirteen poems. 
1. Sir Gray-Steill above spoken of. 2. 
The Tales of the Priests of Peblis, wherein 
the three priests of Peebles, having met to 
regale on St. Bride’s day, agree, each in 
turn, to relate a story. 3. Ane Godlie 
Dreame , by lady Culross. 4. History of 
a Lord and his three Sons, much resembling 
the story of Fortunatus. 5. The Ring of 
the Roy Robert, the printed copies of 
which have been modernized and cor¬ 
rupted. 6. King Estmere, an old romantic 
tale. 7. The Battle of Harlaiv , considered 
by its present editor “ as the original of 
rather a numerous class of Scotish histo¬ 
rical ballads.” 8. Lichtoun's Dreme , 


printed for the first time from the Ban- 
natyne MS. 1568. 9. The Murning 

Maiden, a poem “ written in the Augustan | 
age of Scotish poetry.” 10. The Epistill i 
of the Hermeit of Alareit, a satire on the 
Grey Friers, by Alexander earl of Glencairn. 
11. Rosivall and Lillian, a “ pleasant his¬ 
tory,” (chanted even of late in Edinburgh,) 
from the earliest edition discovered, printed 
in 1663, of which the only copy known is 
in the Advocates’ Library, from the Rox- 
burghe sale. 12. Poem by Glassinberry, 
a name for the first time introduced into 
the list of early Scotish poets, and the 
poem itself printed from “ Gray’s MS.” 
13. Sir John Barleycorn , from a stall-copy 
printed in 1781, with a few corrections, 
concerning which piece it is remarked, that 
Burns’s version “ cannot be said to have 
greatly improved it.” There is a vignette 
to this ballad, “ designed and etched by 
the ingenious young artist, W. Geikie,” of 
Edinburgh, from whence I taice the liberty 
to cut a figure, not for the purpose of convey^ 
ing an idea of this “ Allan-a-Maut,’’ who 
is surrounded with like “ good” company 
by Mr. Geikie’s meritorious pencil, but to 
extend the knowledge of Mr. Geikie’s name, 
who is perfectly unknown to me, except 
through the single print I refer to, which 
compels me to express warm admiration of 
his correct feeling, and assured talent. 



Besides Mr. Geikie’s beautiful etching, 
there is a frontispiece by W. H. Lizars 
from a design by Mr. C. Kirkpatrick 
Sharpe, and a portrait of Alexander earl oi 
Eglintoune 1670, also by Mr. Lizars, from 
a curiously illuminated parchment in the 
possession of the present earl. 


58 























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


SAYING NOT MEANING. 

By William Basil Wake. 

For the Table Book. 

Two gentlemen their appetite had fed, 

When, opening his toothpick-case, one said, 

“ It was not until lately that I knew 
That anchovies on terra firmd grew.” 

“ Grew I” cried the other, “ yes, they grow , indeed. 
Like other fish, but not upon the land; 

You might as well say grapes grow on a reed. 

Or in the Strand 1” 

“ Why, sir,” return’d the irritated other, 

“ My brother. 

When at Calcutta, 

Beheld them bond fide growing; 

He wouldn’t utter 
A lie for love or money, sir; so in 
This matter you are thoroughly mistaken.” 

“ Nonsense, sir 1 nonsense 1 I can give no credit 
To the assertion—none e’er saw or read it; 

Your brother, like his evidence, should be shaken.” 

“ Be shaken, sir '. let me observe, you are 
Perverse—in short—” 

“ Sir,” said the other, sucking his cigar. 

And then his port— 

“ If you will say impossibles are true, 

You may affirm just any thing you please— 

That swans are quadrupeds, and lions blue, 

And elephants inhabit Stilton cheese 1 
Only you m-i * *mt force me to believe 
What’s propagated merely to deceive.” 

“ Then you force me to say, sir, you’re a fool,” 
Return’d the bragger. 

Language like this no man can suffer cool; 

It made the listener stagger; 

So, thunder-stricken, he at once replied, 

“ The traveller lied 
Who had the impudence to tell it you.” 

“ Zounds ! then d’ye mean to swear before my face 
That anchovies don’t grow like cloves and mace ?” 

“ I do 1” 

Disputants often after hot debates 
Leave the contention as they found it—bone. 

And take to duelling, or thumping tetes; 

Thinking, by strength of artery, to atone 
For strength of argument; and he who winces 
From force of words, with force of arms convinces! 

With pistols, powder, bullets, surgeons, lint, 

Seconds, and smelling-bottles, and foreboding, 

Our friends advanced; and now portentous loading 
Their hearts already loaded) serv’d to show 
It might be better they shook hands—but no; 

When each opines himself, though frighten’d, right. 
Each is, in courtesy, oblig’d to fight! 

And they did fight: from six full measured paces 
The unbeliever pull’d his trigger first; 

And fearing, from the braggart’s ugly faces, 

'The whizzing lead had whizz’d its very worst. 


Ran up, and with a duelistic tear, 

(His ire evanishing like morning vapours,,/ 
Vound him possess’d of one remaining ear, 

Who, in a manner sudden and uncouth. 

Had given, not lent, the-other ear to truth : 

For, while the surgeon was applying lint. 

He, wriggling, cried—“ The deuce is in’t— 

Sir! I meant —capers I” 


Cbarartrrsf. 

THE OLD GENTLEMAN. 

Our old gentleman, in order to be ex¬ 
clusively himself, must be either a widower 
or a bachelor. Suppose the former. We 
do not mention his precise age, which would 
be invidious;—nor whether he wears his 
own hair or a wig ; which would be want¬ 
ing in universality. If a wig, it is a com¬ 
promise between the more modern scratch 
and the departed glory of the toupee. If 
his own hair, it is white, in spite of his 
favourite grandson, who used to get on the 
chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs 
out, ten years ago. If he is bald at top, 
the hair-dresser, hovering and breathing 
about him like a second youth, takes care 
to give the bald place as much powder as 
the covered; in order that he may convey, 
to the sensorium within, a pleasing indis¬ 
tinctness of idea respecting the exact limits 
of skin and hair. He is very clean and 
neat; and in warm weather is proud of 
opening his waistcoat half way down, and 
letting so much of his frill be seen; in 
order to show his hardiness as well as taste. 
His watch and shirt-buttons are of the 
best; and he does not care if he has two 
rings on a finger. If his watch ever failed 
him at the club or coffee-house, he would 
take a walk every day to the nearest clock 
of good character, purely to keep it right. 
He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, 
on finding it out of fashion with his elderly 
juniors. He has a small cocked hat for 
gala days, which he lifts higher from his 
head than the round one, when made a bow 
to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs, 
(one for the neck at night-time,) his spec¬ 
tacles, and his pocket-book. The pocket- 
book, among other things, contains a re¬ 
ceipt for a cough, and some verses cut out 
of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the 
lovely duchess of A., beginning— 

When beauteous Mira walks the plain. 

He intends this for a common-place book 
which he keeps, consisting of passages in 
verse and prose cut out of newspapers and 
magazines, and pasted in columns ; som< 


59 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


of th<; r ti rather gay. His principal other 
books are Shakspeare’s Plays and Milton’s 
Paradise Lost; the Spectator., the History 
of England; the works of Lady M. W. 
Montague, Pope, and Churchill; Middle¬ 
ton’s Geogiaphy, the Gentleman’s Maga¬ 
zine; Sir John Sinclair on Longevity; 
several plays with portraits in character; 
Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs 
of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amuse¬ 
ments at Bath-Easton, Blair’s Works, Ele¬ 
gant Extracts ; Junius as originally pub¬ 
lished; a few pamphlets on the American 
War and Lord George Gordon, &c. and 
one on the French Revolution. In his 
sitting rooms are some engravings from 
Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an engraved por¬ 
trait of the Marquis of Granby ; ditto of 
M. le Comte de Grasse surrendering to 
Admiral Rodney ; a humorous piece after 
Penny ; and a portrait of himself, painted 
by Sir Joshua. His wife’s portrait is in his 
chamber, looking upon his bed. She is a 
little girl, stepping forward with a smile 
and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. 
He lost her when she was sixty. 

The Old Gentleman is an early riser, 
because he intends to live at least twenty 
years longer. He continues to take tea for 
breakfast, in spite of what is said against 
its nervous effects; having been satisfied 
on that point some years ago by Dr John¬ 
son’s criticism on Hanway, and a great 
liking for tea previously. His china cups 
and saucers have been broken since his 
wife’s death, all but one, which is religi¬ 
ously kept for his use. He passes his 
mort ing in walking or riding, looking in at 
auctions, looking after his India bonds or 
some such money securities, furthering 
some subscription set on foot by his excel- 
1 nt friend sir John, or cheapening a new 
old print for his portfolio. He also hears 
of the newspapers ; not caring to see them 
till after dinner at the coffee-house. He 
may also cheapen a fish or so; the fish¬ 
monger soliciting his doubting eye as he 
passes, with a profound bow of recognition. 
He eats a pear before dinner. 

His dinner at the coffee-house is served 
up to him at the accustomed hour, in the 
old accustomed way, and by the accustomed 
waiter. If William did not bring it, the 
fish would be sure to be stale, and the flesh 
new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures 
on a little, takes cheese with it. You might 
as soon attempt to persuade him out of his 
se.tses, as that cheese is not good for diges¬ 
tion. He takes port; and if he has drank 
mote than usual, and in a more private 
place, may be induced by some respectful 


inquiries respecting the old style of music, 
to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or 
Mr. Lampe, such as— 

Chloe, by that borrowed kiss, 

or 

Come, gentle god of soft repose; 
or his wife’s favourite ballad, beginning— 

At Upton on the Hill 

There lived a happy pair. 

Of course, no such exploit can take place 
in the coffee-room ; but he will canvass the 
theory of that matter there with you, or 
discuss the weather, or the markets, or the 
theatres, or the merits of ft my. lord North” 
or “ my lord Rockingham ;’’ for he rarely 
says simply, lord; it is generally “ my 
lord,” trippingly and genteelly off the 
tongue. If alone after dinner, his great 
delight is the newspaper; which he pre¬ 
pares to read by wiping his spectacles, 
carefully adjusting them on his eyes, and 
drawing the candle close to him, so as to 
stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim and 
the small type. He then holds the paper at 
arm’s length, and dropping his eyelids half 
down and his mouth half open, takes cog¬ 
nizance of the day’s information. If he 
leaves off, it is only when the door is open¬ 
ed by a new comer, or when he suspects 
somebody is over-anxious to get the paper 
out of his hand. On these occasions, he 
gives an important hem! or so; and re¬ 
sumes. 

In the evening, our Old Gentleman is 
fond of going to the theatre, or of having a 
game of cards. If he enjoy the latter at 
his own house or lodgings, he likes to play 
with some friends whom he has known for 
many years; but an elderly stranger may 
be introduced, if quiet and scientific; and 
the privilege is extended to younger men 
of letters; who, if ill players, are good 
losers. Not that he is a miser; but to win 
money at cards is like proving his victory 
by getting the baggage ; and to win of a 
younger man is a substitute for his not 
being able to beat him at rackets. He 
breaks up early, whether at home or 
abroad. 

At the theatre, he likes a front row in the 
pit. He comes early, if he can do so with¬ 
out getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently 
waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, 
with his hands placidly lying one over the 
other on the top of his stick. He gene¬ 
rously admires some of the best performers, 
but thinks them far inferior to Garrick 
Woodward, and Clive. During splendic 1 
scenes, he is anxious that the little boy 
should see. 


60 




















THE TABLE BOOK. 


He has been induced to look in atVaux- 
hall again, but likes it still less than he did 
years back, and cannot bear it in comparison 
with Ranelagh. He thinks every thing 
looks poor, flaring, and jaded. “ Ah!” 
says he, with a sort of triumphant sigh, 
“ Ranelagh was a noble place ! Such taste, 
such elegance, such beauty ! There was the 
duchess of A. the finest woman in England, 
sir; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine creature; 
and lady Susan what’s her name, that had 
that unfortunate affair with sir Charles. 
Sir, they came swimming by you like the 
wans.” 

The Old Gentleman is very particular in 
having his slippers ready for him at the fire, 
when he comes home. He is also extremely 
choice in his snuff, and delights to get a 
fresh box-full at Gliddon’s, in King-street, in 
his way to the theatre. His box is a curiosity 
from India. He calls favourite young ladies 
by their Christian names, however slightly 
acquainted with them ; and has a privilege 
also of saluting all brides, mothers, and 
indeed every species of lady on the least 
holiday occasion. If the husband for in¬ 
stance has met with a piece of luck, he 
instantly moves forward, and gravely kisses 
the wife on the cheek. The wife then says, 
‘‘ My niece, sir, from the country;” and he 
kisses the niece. The niece, seeing her 
cousin biting her lips at the joke, says, 
“ My cousin Harriet, sir;” and he kisses 
the cousin. He never recollects such wea¬ 
ther, except during the great frost, or when 
he rode down with Jack Skrimshire to New¬ 
market. He grows young again in his little 
erand-children, especially the one which he 
thinks most like himself; which is the 
handsomest. Yet he likes best perhaps the 
one most resembling his wife; and will sit 
with him on his lap, holding his hand in 
silence, for a quarter of an hour together. 
He plays most tricks with the former, and 
makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in 
general who was the father of Zebedee’s 
children. If his grandsons are at school, 
he often goes to see them; and makes them 
blush by telling the master or the upper- 
scholars, that they are fine boys, and of a 
precocious genius. He is much struck 
when an old acquaintance dies, but adds 
that he lived too fast; and that poor Bob 
was a sad dog in his youth; “ a very sad 
dog, sir, mightily set upon a short life and 
a merry one.” 

When he gets very old indeed, he will 
sit for whole evenings, and say little or 
nothing; but informs you, that there is 
Mrs. Jones (the housekeeper),— “ She'll 
ilk.”— Indicator. 


A HAPPY MEETING. 

And doth not a meeting like this make amends 
For all the long years I’ve been wand'ring away. 

To see thus around me my youth’s early friends. 

As smiling and kind as in that happy day ! 

Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine 
The snow-fall of time may be stealing—what the* 
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, 

We’ll wear the gay tinge of youth’s roses again. 

r What soften’d remembrances come o’er the heart. 

In gazing on those we’ve been lost to so long ! 

The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part 
Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng 
As letters some hand hath invisibly traced, 

When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, 
So many a feeling, that long seem’d effaced. 

The warmth of a meeting like this brings to light. 

And thus, as in memory’s bark, we shall glide 
To visit the scenes pf our boyhood anew, 

Tho* oft we may see, looking down pn the tide. 

The wreck of full many a hope shining through— 
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers 
That once made a garden of all the gay shore. 
Deceiv’d for a moment, we’ll think thena still ours, 
And breath the fresh air of life’s naorning once more 

So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the paost, 

Is all we can have of the few we hold dear ; 

And oft even joy is unheeded and lost. 

For want of some heart that could echo it near. 

Ah! well may we hope, when this short life is gone. 
To meet in some world of more permanent bliss. 

For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hast’ping on, 

Is all we enjoy of each other in this. 

But come—the more rare such delights to the heart, 
The more we should welcome, and bless them tli< 
more— 

They’re ours when we meet—they’re lost when we part, 
Like birds that bring summer, and fly when ’tis oV, 
Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink. 

Let Sympathy pledge us, thro’ pleasure thro* pain. 
That fast as a feeling but touches one link. 

Her magic shall send it direct through the chain. 


Lines to his Cousin 
ON THE NEW YEAR, 
By a Westminster Boy. 

Time rolls away! another year 
Has rolled off with him; hence ’tis clear 
His lordship keeps his carriage • 

A single man, no doubt;—and thus 
Enjoys himself without the fuss 
And great expense of marriage. 

His wheel still rolls (and like the river 
Which Horace mentions) still for ever 
Volvitur el volrctur. 


61 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ia vain yon run against him;' place 
Voor fleetest filly in the race,— 

Here's ten to one he’ll beat her. 

Of all he sees, he takes a tithe. 

With that tremendous sweeping scy.he, 

Which he keeps always going ; 

While every step he takes, alas 1 
Too plainly proves that flesh is grass, 

When he sets out a mowing. 

And though his hungry ravenous maw 
Is crammed with food, both dress’d and raw. 
I’ll wager any betting. 

His appetite has ever been 

Just ’’ke his scythe, sharp-set and keen, 

Which never wanted whetting. 

Could you but see the mighty treat 
Prepared, when he sits down to eat 
His breakfast or his dinner,—ah, 

Not vegetable—flesh,—alone, 

But timber, houses, iron, stoae, 

He eats the very china. 

When maidens pray that he will spare 
Their teeth, complexion, or their hair. 

Alas 1 he’ll never hear ’em; 

Grey locks and wrinkles hourly show, 

What Ovid told us years ago, 

Ut Tempos edax rerum l 

In vain, my dearest girl, you choose 
(Your face to wash) Olympic dews; 

In vain you paint or rouge it; 

He’ll play such havoc with your you’h, 

That ten years hence you’ll say with truth 
Ah Edward I— Tempos fugit l 

The glass he carries in his hand 
Has ruin in each grain of sand; 

But what I most deplore is, 

He breaks the links of friendship’s chain, 

And barters youthful love for gain: 

Oh, Tempora! oh, Mores I 

One sole exception you shall find, 

( Unius generis of its kind,) 

Wherever fate may steer us; 

Tho’ wide his universal range, 

Time has no power the heart to change 
Of your Amicus Vekus. 

Bath Herald. 


GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 

Germany, which embraces a population 
of thirty-six millions of people, has twenty- 
two universities. The following table con¬ 
tains their names according to the order of 
their foundation, and the number of pro¬ 
cessors and students: 


Universities. 

When 

founded. 

Number of 
Professors. 

Number 

of 

Students. | 

Prague. 

1348 

55 

1449 

Vienna. 

1365 

77 

1688 

Heidelberg . . 

1368 

55 

626 

Warsbourg. . . 

1403 

31 

660 

Leipsig . . . . 

1409 

81 

1384 

Rostock .... 

1419 

34 

201 

Fribourg. . . . 

1450 

35 

556 

Griefswald. . . 

1456 

30 

227 

Bale. 

1460 

24 

214 

Tubingen . . . 

1477 

44 

827 

Marbourg . . . 

1527 

38 

304 

Kcenisberg. . . 

1544 

23 

303 

Jena. 

1558 

51 

432 

Giessen .... 

1607 

39 

371 

Kiel. 

1665 

26 

238 

Halle. 

1694 

64 

1119 

Breslau .... 

1702 

49 

710 

Goettengen. . . 

1734 

89 

1545 

Erlangen. . . . 

1743 

34 

498 

Landshut . . . 

1803 

48 

623 

Berlin. 

1810 

86 

1245 

Bonn. 

1818 

42 

526 


Of this number six belong to Prussia, three 
to Bavaria, two to the Austrian States, two 
to the Grand Duchy of Baden, two to the 
Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, and one to each 
of the following states—Saxony, Wurtem- 
berg Denmark, Hanover, the Grand 
Duchies of Mecklenbergh-Schweren and of 
Saxe-Weimar, and Switzerland. The total 
number of professors is 1055, embracing 
not only the ordinary and extraordinary pro¬ 
fessors, but also the private lecturers, whose 
courses of reading are announced in the 
half-yearly programmes. Catholic Ger¬ 
many, which reckons nineteen millions of 
inhabitants, has only six universities; while 
Protestant Germany, for seventeen millions 
of inhabitants, has seventeen. Of the stu- 
d< ‘s there are 149 for every 250,000 in 
tn. Protestant states, while there are only 
68 tor the same number in the Catholic 
states. It must, however, be mentioned, 
that this estimate does not take in those 
Catholic ecclesiastics who do not pursue 
their studies in the universities, but in 
private seminaries.—The universities of 
i aderborn and Munster, both belonging to 
Piussia, and which had only two faculties 
those of theology and philosophy, were 
suppressed; the first in 1818, and the 
second in 1819; but that of Munster has 
been reestablished, with the three faculties 
of theology, philosophy, and medicine., 


62, 















































THE TABLE BOOK. 



Co Ilf p Cibber’s poungest Daughter. 

Last of her sire in dotage—she was used 
By him, as children use a fav’rite toy ; 

Indulg’d, neglected, fondled, and abus’d. 

As quick affection of capricious joy, 

Or sudden humour of dislike dictated: 


Thoughtlessly rear’d, she led a thoughtless life ; 

And she so well beloved became most hated: 

A helpless mother, and a wife unblest, 

She pass’d precocious womanhood in stfiVe; 

Or, in strange hiding-places, wi-hout rest; 

Or, wani’ring in disquietude for bread: 

Her father’s curse—himself first cause of all 
That caused his ban—sunk her in deeper t brail, 

Stifling her heart, till sorrow and herself were dead. 


“The Life of Mrs-Charlotte Charice, 
youngest daughter of Colley Cibber , Etq., 
written by herself,” is a carious narrative 
of remarkable vicissitudes. She dedicates 
it to herself, and aptly concludes her dedi¬ 
cation by saying, “Permit me, madam, to 
subscribe myself, for the future, what I 
ought to have been some years ago, your 


real friend, and humble servant, Jhar- 

LOTTE CHARICE.” 

In the “Introduction ” to the recent re¬ 
print of this singular work, it is well 
observed, that “her Life will serve to show 
what very strange creatures may exist, and 
the endless diversity of habits, tastes, and 
inclinations, which may spring up spon- 


n. 


63 


F 
























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


-aneously, like weeds, in the hot-bed of 
corrupt civilization.” She was born when 
Mrs. Cibber was forty-five years old, and 
when both her father and mother had 
ceased to expect an addition to their family : 
the result was that Charlotte Cibber was a 
spoiled child. She married Mr. Richard 
Charke, an eminent violin player, of disso¬ 
lute habits ; and, after a course of levities, 
consequent upon the early recklessness of 
her parents, she was repudiated by her 
father. When she wrote her life, she was 
in great penury : it was published in eight 
numbers, at three-pence each. In the last, 
which appeared on the 19th of April, 1755, 
she feelingly deplores the failure of her 
attempts to obtain forgiveness of her father, 
and says, “ I cannot recollect any crime I 
have been guilty of that is unpardonable.” 
After intimating a design to open an orato¬ 
rical academy, for the instruction of persons 
going on the stage, she mentions her inten¬ 
tion to publish “ Mr. Dumont’s history, 
the first number of which will shortly make 
its appearance.” This was a novel she was 
then writing, which a bookseller treated 
with her for, in company with Mr. Samuel 
Whyte of Dublin, who thus describes her 
distressed situation :— 

4 Cibber the elder had a daughter named 
Charlotte, who also took to the stage; her 
subsequent life was one continued series 
of misfortune, afflictions, and distress, which 
she sometimes contrived a little to alleviate 
try the productions of her pen. About the 
vear I 755, she had worked up a novel for 
die press, which the writer accompanied 
his friend the bookseller to hear read; she 
was at this time a widow, having been 
married to one Charke a musician, long 
since dead. Her habitation was a wretched 
thatched hovel, situated on the way to 
Islington in the purlieus of Clerkenwell 
Bridewell, not very distant from the New 
River Head, where at that time it was usual 
for the scavengers to leave the cleansings 
of the streets, &c. The night preceding 
a heavy rain had fallen, which rendered 
this extraordinary seat of the muses almost 
inaccessible, so that in our approach we 
got our white stockings enveloped with mud 
up to the very calves, which furnished an 
appearance much in the present fashionable 
style of half-boots. We knocked at the 
door, (not attempting to pull the latch 
string,) which was opened by a tall, meagre, 
ragged figure, with a blue apron, indicating, 
what else we might have doubted, the 
feminine gender,—a perfect model foi the 
copper captain’s tattered landlady; that 
deplorable exhibition of the fair sex, in the 


comedy of Rule-a-Wife. She with a torpid 
voice and hungry smile desired us to 
walk in. The first object that presented 
itself was a dresser, clean, it must be con¬ 
fessed, and furnished with three or four 
coarse delf plates, two brown platters, and 
underneath an earthen pipkin and a black 
pitcher with a snip out of it. To the right 
we perceived and bowed to the mistress of 
the mansion sitting on a maimed chair 
under the mantle-piece, by a fire, merely 
sufficient to put us in mind of starving. On 
one hob sat a monkey, which by way of 
welcome chattered at our going in ; on the 
other a tabby cat, of melancholy aspect! 
and at our author’s feet on the iiounce of 
her dingy petticoat reclined a dog, almost 
a skeleton ! he raised his shagged head, and, 
eagerly staring with his bleared eyes, sa¬ 
luted us with a snarl. 4 Have done, Fidele ! 
these are friends.’ The tone of her voice 
was not harsh; it had something in it 
humbled and disconsolate; a mingled effort 
of authority and pleasure.— Poor soul ! few 
were her visitors of that description—no 
wonder the creature barked !.—A magpie 
perched on the top ring of her chair, not an 
uncomely ornament! and on her lap was 
placed a mutilated pair of bellows, the pipe 
was gone, an advantage in their present 
office, they served as a succedaneum for a 
writing-desk, on which lay displayed her 
hopes and treasure, the manuscript of her 
novel. Her ink-stand w r as a broken tea¬ 
cup, the pen worn to a stump; she had 
but one! a iough deal board with three 
hobbling supporters was brought for our 
convenience, on which, without farther 
ceremony, we contrived to sit down and 
entered upon business;—the work was read, 
remarks made, alterations agreed to, and 
thirty guineas demanded for the copy. The 
squalid handmaiden, who had been an at¬ 
tentive listener, stretched forward her tawny 
length of neck with an eye of anxious ex¬ 
pectation !—The bookseller offered five!— 
Our authoress did not appear hurt; disap¬ 
pointments had rendered her mind callous; 
however, some altercation ensued. This 
was the writer’s first initiation into the 
mysteries of bibliopolism and the state of 
authorcraft. He, seeing both sides perti¬ 
nacious, at length interposed, and at his 
instance the wary haberdasher of literature 
doubled his first proposal, with this saving 
proviso, that his friend present would pay 
a moiety and run one half the risk ; which 
was agreed to. Thus matters were accom 
modated, seemingly to the satisfaction o? 
all parties ; the lady’s original stipulation 
of fifty copies for herself being previously 


64 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


acceded to. Such is the story of the once- 
admired daughter of Colley Cibber, Poet 
Laureate and patentee of Drury-lane, who 
was born in affluence and educated with 
care and tenderness, her servants in livery, 
and a splendid equipage at her command, 
with swarms of time-serving sycophants 
officiously buzzing in her train ; yet, un¬ 
mindful of her advantages and improvident 
in her pursuits, she finished the career of 
her miserable existence on a dunghill.” 1 * 
Mr. Whyte’s account of the “ read¬ 
ing the manuscript,” a subject worthy 
of Wilkie’s pencil, is designed to be 
illustrated by the engraving at the head 
of this article. Of Mrs. Charke, after that 
interview, nothing further is known, except 
that she kept a public-house, at Islington, 
and is said to have died on the 6th of 
April, 1760.f Her brother Theophilus was 
wrecked, and perished on his way to Dublin, 
in October, 1758 ; her father died on the 
12th of December, in the year preceding. 
Her singular “Narrative” is printed ver¬ 
batim in the seventh volume of “ Auto¬ 
biography,” with the life of the late “ Mary 
Robinson,” who was also an actress, and 
also wrote her own “ Memoirs.” 


AN INEDITED BALLAD. 

To the Editor. 

Dear Sir,—A friend of mine, who resided 
for some years on the borders, used to 
amuse himself by collecting old ballads, 
printed on halfpenny sheets, and hawked 
up and down by itinerant minstrels. In 
his common-place book I found one, en¬ 
titled “The Outlandish Knight,” evidently, 
from the style, of considerable antiquity, 
which appears to have escaped the notice 
of Percy, and other collectors. Since then 
I have met with a printed one, from the 
popular press of Mr. Pitts, the six-yards- 
for-a-penny song-publisher, who informs 
me that he has printed it “ ever since he 
was a printer, and that Mr. Marshall, his 
predecessor, printed it before him.’ I be 
ballad has not improved by circulating 
amongst Mr. Pitts’s friends ; for the heroine, 
who has no name given her in my friend s 
copy, is in Mr. Pitts’s called “ Polly and 
there are expressions contra bonos mores. 
These I have expunged ; and, to render the 
ballad more complete, added a few stanzas, 
wherein 1 have endeavoured to preserve 


* Whyte’s Collection of Poems, second edition. 

Dublin, 1792. 

+ Biog Dram. 


the simplicity of the original, of which 1 
doubt if a correct copy could now be ob¬ 
tained. As it is, it is at the service of your 
Table Book. 

The hero of the ballad appears to be 
of somewhat the same class as the hero ot 
the German ballad, the “ Water King ’ 
and in some particulars resembles thr 
ballad of the “ Overcourteous Knight,” in 
Percy’s Reliques. 

I am, dear sir, See. 

Grange-road, Bermondsey , Jan. 8, 1827. 
The Outlandish Knight. 

---“ Six go true, 

Th e seventh askew.” 

Dcr Froischutx Travestie. 

An out! vii dish knight from the north lands came, 

And he came a wooing to me , 

He told me he’d take me unto the north lands, 

And I should his fair bride be. 

A broad, broad shield did this strange knight wield, 
Whereon did the red-cross shine. 

Yet never, I ween, had that strange knight been 
In the fields of Palestine. 

And out and spake this strange knight, 

This knight of the north countrie, 

O, maiden fair, with the raven hair, 

Thou shalt at my bidding be. 

Thy sire he is from home, ladye. 

For he hath a journey gone. 

And his shaggy blood-hound is sleeping sound. 

Beside the postern stone. 

Go, bring me some of thy father’s gold, 

And some of thy mother’s fee, 

And steeds twain of the best, in the stalls that rest 
Where they stand thirty and three. 

m * * * * 

She mounted her on her milk-white steed. 

And he on a dapple grey. 

And they forward did ride, till they reach’d the sea-sic!f 
Three hours before it was day. 

Then out and spake this strange knight. 

This knight of the north countrie, 

0, maiden fair, with the raven harr, 

Do thou at my bidding be. 

Alight thee, maid, from thy milk-white steed, 

And deliver it unto me; 

Six maids have I drown’d, where the billows sound, 
An l the seventh one thou shalt be. 

But firs! poll off thy kirtle fine, 

And delivei it unto me ; 

Thy ku tie of green is too rich, I ween. 

To rot ii the salt, salt sea. 


65 







TI1E TABLE BOOK. 


Pull off, pull off thy silken shoon. 

And deliver them unto me ; 

Methinks that they are too fine and gay 
To rot in the salt, salt sea. 

Pull off, pull off thy bonnie green plaid. 

That floats in the breeze so free ; 

It is woven fine with the silver twine. 

And comely it is to see. 

If I must pull off my bonnie green plaid, 

0 turn thy back to me ; 

And gaze on the sun which has just begun 
To peer o’er the salt, salt sea. 

He turn’d his back on the damoselle 
And gaz’d on the bright sunbeam— 

She grasp’d him tight with her arms so white. 

And plung’d him into the stream. 

Lie there, sir knight, thou false-hearted wight, 

Lie there instead of me; 

Six damsels fair thou hast drown’d there, 

But the seventh has drowned thee. 

That ocean wave was the false one’s grave, 

For he sunk right hastily; 

Though with dying voice faint, he pray’d to his saint, 
And utter’d an Ave Marie. 

No mass was said for that false knight dead. 

No convent bell did toll; 

But he went to his rest, unshriv’d and unblest— 
Heaven’s mercy on his soul 1 

She mounted her on her dapple-grey steed, 

And led the steed milk-white; 

She rode till she reach’d her father’s hall. 

Three hours before the night. 

The parrot, hung in the lattice so high. 

To the lady then did say, 

Some ruffian, I fear, has led thee from home, 

For thou hast been long away. 

Do no£ prattle, my pretty bird, 

Do not tell tales of me ; 

A.nd thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, 
Instead of the greenwood tree. 

The earl as he sat in his turret high. 

On hearing the parrot did say. 

What ails thee, what ails thee, my pretty bird ? 
Thou hast prattled the live-long day. 

Well may I prattle, the parrot replied. 

And call, brave earl, on thee ; 

For the cat has well nigh reach’d the lattice so high. 
And her eyes are fix’d on me. 

Well turn’d, well turn’d, my pretty bird, 

Well turn’d, well turn’d for me; 

Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, 
Instead of the greenwood tree. 


PRIDE AND GOOD-WILL. 

It is related of a certain class of French 
nobility, who, in their winter residence at 
Aix, were objects of dislike from their 
arrogance and self-importance, that they 
were beloved and esteemed for their kind¬ 
ness and benevolence by the dependants 
around their chateaus in the country. Many 
instances might be cited to show that the 
respect paid them was no more than they 
deserved; and one is particularly strik¬ 
ing :— 

A seigneur, when he resided in the 
country, used to distribute among the wo¬ 
men and children, and the old men who 
were unable to work in the field, raw wool, 
and flax, which they spun and wove into 
cloth or stuff at their pleasure : every week 
they were paid wages according to the 
quantity of work done, and had a fresh 
supply of raw materials whenever it was 
wanted. At the end of the year, a general 
feast was given by the seigneur to the 
whole village, when all who had been 
occupied in spinning and weaving brought 
in their work, and a prize of a hundred 
livres was given to each person who had 
spun the best skein, and woven the best 
web. They had a dinner in a field adjoin¬ 
ing to the chateau, at which the seigneur 
himself presided, and on each side of him 
sat those who had gained the prizes. The 
evening was concluded with a dance. The 
victors, besides the hundred livres, had 
their work given them: the rest were allow¬ 
ed to purchase theirs at a very moderate 
price, and the money resulting from it was 
laid by to distribute among any persons of 
the village who wanted relief on account of 
sickness, or who had suffered from unavoid¬ 
able accident, either in their persons or 
property. At the death of this excellent 
man, who unfortunately left no immediate 
heirs to follow his good example, the vil¬ 
lage presented a scene of the bitterest 
lamentation and distress: the peasants as¬ 
sembled round the body, and it was almost 
forced away from them for interment. 
They brought their shuttles, their distaffs, 
their skeins of thread and worsted, their 
pieces of linen and stuff, and strewed them 
upon his grave, saying that now they had 
lost their patron and benefactor, they could 
no longer be of use to them. If this man 
felt the pride of conscious superiority, it 
was scarcely to be condemned when accom¬ 
panied with such laudable exertions to 
render himself, through that superiority, a 
benefactor to society.* 

• Miss Plumtree. 













THE TABLE BOOK 


#arrtcft pinps. 

No. II. 

[From the “ Parliament of Bees,” a 
Masque, by John Day, printed 1607. 
Whether this singular production, in 
which the Characters are all Bees, was 
ever acted, I have no information to 
determine. It is at least as capable of 
representation, as we can conceive the 
“ Birds ” of Aristophanes to have 
been.] 

Ulania, a female Bee, confesses her pas¬ 
sion for Meletus, who loves Arethusa. 

- not a village Fly, nor meadow Bee, 

That trafficks daily on the neighbour plain, 

But will report, how all the Winged Train 
Have sued to me for Love ; when we have flown 
In swarms out to discover fields new blown. 

Happy was he could find the forward’st tree. 

And cull the choicest blossoms out for me ; 

Of all their labours they allow’d me some 
And (like my champions) mann’d me out, and home : 
Yet loved I none of them. Philon, a Bee 
Well-skill’d in verse and amorous poetry. 

As we have sate at work, both of one Rose,* 

Has humm’d sweet Canzons, both in verse and prose. 
Which I ne’er minded. Astrophel, a Bee 
(Although not so poetical as he) 

Yet in his full invention quick and ripe. 

In summer evenings, on his well-tuned pipe, 

Upon a woodbine blossom in the sun, 

(Our hive being clean-swept, and our day’s work doni/, 
Would play me twenty several tunes ; yet I 
Nor minded Astrophel, nor his melody. 

Then there’s Amniter, for whose love fair Leade 
(That pretty Bee) flies up and down the mead 
With rivers in her eyes ; without deserving 
Sent me trim Acorn bowls of his own carving, 

To drink May dews and mead in. Yet none of these, 
My hive-born Playfellows and fellow Bees, 

Could I affect, until this strange Bee came ; 

And him I love with such an ardent flame, 

Discretion cannot quench.— 

He labours and toils. 

Extracts more honey out of barren soils 
Than twenty lazy Drones. I have heard my Father, 
Steward of the Hive, profess that he had rather 
Lose half the Swarm than him. If a Bee, poor or weak. 
Grows faint on his way, or by misfortune break 
A wing or leg against a twig; alive, 

Or dead, he’ll bring into the Master’s Hive 
Him and his burthen. But the other day, 

On the next plain there grew a fatal fray 


• Prettily pilfered from the sweet passage in the 
Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Helena recounts to 
Hermia their school-days’ friendship: 

We, Hermia, like two artificial Gods, 

Created with our needles both one flower, 

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion. 


Betwixt the Wasps and us; the wind grew nigh. 

And a rough storm raged so impetuously, 

Our Bees could scarce keep wihg; then fell such ratn, 
It made our Colony forsake the plain, 

And fly to garrison : yet still He stood, 

And ’gainst the whole swarm made his party good. 
And at each blow he gave, cried out His Vow, 

His Vow , and Arethusa 1 —On each bough 
And tender blossom he engraves her name 
With his sharp sting. To Arethusa’s fame 
He consecrates his actions; all his worth 
Is only spent to character her forth. 

On damask roses, and the leaves of pines, 

I have seen him write such amorous moving lines 
In Arethusa’s praise, as my poor heart 
Has, when I read them, envied her desert; 

And wept and sigh’d to think that he should be 
To her so constant, yet not pity me. 

* * * 

Porrex, Vice Roy of Bees under King 
Oberon, describes his large prerogative. 

To Us (who, warranted by Oberon’s love, 

Write Ourself Master Bee'), both field and grove, 
Garden and orchard, lawns and flowery meads, 

(Where the amorous wind plays with the golden heads 
Of wanton cowslips, daisies in their prime. 

Sun-loving marigolds ; the blossom’d thyme, 

The blue-vein’d violets and the damask rose; 

The stately lily, Mistress of all those); 

Are allow’d and giv’n, by Oberon’s free areed. 

Future for me, and all my swarms to feed. 


-the doings, 

The births, the wars, the wooings, 

of these pretty little winged creatures 
are with continued liveliness portrayed 
throughout the whole of this curious 
old Drama, in words which Bees would 
talk with, could they talk; the very air 
seems replete with humming and buzzing 
melodies, while we read them. Surely 
Bees were never so be-rhymed before. 

C. L. 


astograpbual iWemoraitba. 

John Scot, a Fasting Fanatic. 

In the year 1539, there lived in Scotland 
one John Scot, no way commended for his 
learning, for he had none, nor for his good 
qualities, which were as few. This man, 
being overthrown in a suit of law, and 
knowing himself unable to pay that wherein 
he was adjudged, took sanctuary in the 
abbey of Holyrood-house; where, out of 
discontent, he abstained from all meat and 
drink, by the space of thirty or forty days 
together. 

Fame having spread this abroad % the 


67 












f ." ■ . . - ■ ■■ - ■■ ■ ■ ■■ — — ■ ■ -■ .. - . 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


King would have it put to trial, and to that 
effect shut him up in a private room within 
the castle of Edinburgh, whereunto no 
man had access. He caused a little water 
and bread to be set by him, which he was 
found not to have diminished in the end of 
thirty days and two. Upon this he v\as 
dismissed, and, after a short time, he went 
to Rome, where he gave the like proof of 
his fasting to pope Clement VIE; from 
whence he went to Venice, carrying with 
him a testimony of his long fasting under 
the pope’s seal: and there also he gave the 
like proof thereof. After long time, return¬ 
ing into England, he went up into the 
pulpit in St. Paul’s Church-yard, where he 
gave forth many speeches against the 
divorce of king Henry VIII. from his queen 
Katherine, inveighing bitterly against him 
for his defection from the see of Rome; 

I whereupon he was thrust into prison, where 
j he continued fasting for the space of fifty 
d^ys : what his end was I read not.— Spots - 
wood , fyc. . 

Hart the Astrologer. 

There lived in Iloundsditch, about the 
year 1632, one Alexander Hart, who had 
l been a soldier formerly, a comely old man, 
of good aspect, he professed questionary 
astrology and a little of physic; his greatest 
skill was to elect young gentlemen fit times 
to play at dice, that they might win or get 
money. Lilly relates that “ he went unto 
him for resolutions for three questions at 
several times, and he erred in every one.” 
He says, that to speak soberly of him he 
was but a cheat, as appeared suddenly 
after; for a rustical fellow of the city, 
desirous of knowledge, contracted with 
llart, to assist for a conference with a 
spirit, and paid him twenty pounds of thirty 
pounds the contract. At last, after many 
delays, and no spirit appearing, nor money 
returned, the young man indicted him for a 
cheat at the Old Bailey in London. The 
jury found the bill, and at the hearing of 
the cause this jest happened : some of the 
bench inquired what Hart did ? “ He sat 
like an alderman in his gown,” quoth the 
fellow; at which the court fell into a laugh¬ 
ter, most of the court being aldermen. He 
was to have been set upon the pillory for 
this cheat; but John Taylor the water 
poet being his great friend, got the lord 
chief justice R ichardson to bail him, ere he 
stood upon the pillory, and so Hart tied 
presently into Holland, where he ended his 
days.* 


• Aufc'biofciaphy. vol. i>. Lilly’:. Life 


REV. THOMAS COOKE. 

The verses at the end of the following 
letter may excuse the insertion of a query, 
which would otherwise be out of place in a 
publication not designed to be a channeJ 
of inquiry. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—I should feel much obliged, if the 
Table Book can supply some account of a 
clergyman of the name of Thomas Cooke, 
who, it is supposed, resided in Shropshire, 
and was the author of a very beautiful 
poem, in folio, (published by subscription, 
about ninety years since,) entitled “ The 
Immortality of the Soul.” I have a verv 
imperfect copy of this work, and am de 
sirous of ascertaining, from any of your 
multifarious readers, whether or not the 
poem ever became public, and where it is 
probable I could obtain a glimpse of a per¬ 
fect impression. Mine has no title-page, 
and about one moiety of the work has 
been destroyed by the sacrilegious hands of 
some worthless animal on two legs ! 

The list of subscribers plainly proves 
that Mr. Cooke must have been a man of 
good family, and exalted conections. On 
one of the blank leaves in my copy, the 
following lines appear, written by Mr. 
Cooke himself; and, considering the tram¬ 
mels by which he was confined, l think the 
verses are not without merit ; at any rate, 
the subject of them appears to have been a 
beautiful creature. 

By giving this article a place in the 
Table Book, you will much oblige 

Your subscriber and admirer, 

G. J. D 

Islington-green . 

An Acrostic 

On a most beautiful and accomplished 
young Lady. London, 1748. 

M eekness—good-humour—each transcendent grace 
I s seen conspicuous on thy joyous face ; 

S weet’s the carnation to the rambling bee, 

S o art thou. Charlotte ! always sweet to me ! 

C an aught compare successfully with those 
H igh beauties which thy countenance compose, 

A 11 doubly heighten’d by that gentle mind. 

R enowm’d on earth, and prais'd by ev’ry wind? 

L ov’d object! no—then let it be thy care 
O f fawning friends, at all tunes, to beware— 

T o shun this world’s delusions and disguise, 

T he knave’s soft speeches, and the flatt’rer’s lies, 

E steeming virtue, and dieearding vicel 


68 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


o where I may, howe’er remote the clime, 
here’er my feet may stray, thy charms sublime, 
llu9trious maid! approv’d and prais’d by all, 
ike some enchantment shall my soul enthrall— 

L ight ev’ry path—illuminate my mind— 

I nspire my pen with sentiments refin’d— 

A ad teach my tongue on this fond pray’r to dwell, 

* M ay Heav’n preserve the maid it loves so well 1” 

Thomas Cooke. 


©arietifS. 

CURIOUS PLAY BILL. 

The following remarkable theatrical an¬ 
nouncement is a mixed appeal of vanity 
and poveity to the taste and feelings of the 
inhabitants of a town in Sussex. 

( Copy.) 

At the old theatre in East Grinstead, on 
Saturday, May, 1758, will be represented 
(by particular desire, and for the benefit of 
Mrs. P.) the deep and affecting Tragedy 
of Theodosius, or the Force of Love, with 
magnificent scenes, dresses, 8cc. 

Varanes, by Mr. P., who will strive, as 
far as possible, to support the character of 
this fiery Persian Prince, in which he was 
so much admired and applauded at Hast¬ 
ings, Arundel, Petworth, Midworth, Lewes, 
&c. 

Theodosius, by a young gentleman from 
the University of Oxford, who never ap¬ 
peared on any stage. 

Athenais, by Mrs. P. Though her pre¬ 
sent condition will not permit her to wait 
on gentlemen and ladies out of the town 
with tickets, she hopes, as on former occa¬ 
sions, for their liberality and support. 

Nothing in Italy can exceed the altar, in 
the first scene of the play. Nevertheless, 
should any of the Nobility or Gentry wish 
to see it ornamented with flowers, the 
bearer will bring away as many as they 
choose to favour him with. 

As the coronation of Athenais, to be in¬ 
troduced in the fifth act, contains a number 
of personages, more than sufficient to fill 
all the dressing-rooms, &c., it is hoped no 
gentlemen and ladies will be offended at 
being refused admission behind the scenes. 

N. B. The great yard dog, that made 
so much noise on Thursday night, during 
the last act of King Richard the Third, 
will be sent to a neighbour’s over the way; 
and on account of the prodigious demand 
for places, part of the stable will be laid 
»nto the boxes on one side, and the granary 
be open for the same purpose on the other. 

Vivat Rex * 


• Hoaden’s Life of Mrs Siddons. 


It’s never too late to mend 

At Chester, in the beginning of the yeai 
1790, a reputable farmer, on the evening ol 
a market-day, called at the shop of Mr. 
Poole, bookseller, and, desiring to speak 
with him at the door, put a shilling into 
his hand, telling him, “ he had owed it to 
him many years.” The latter asked, for 
what ? To which the farmer replied, that 
“ When a boy, in buying a book-almanac 
at his shop, he had stolen another—the re¬ 
flection of which had frequently given him 
much uneasiness.” If any one who sees 
this ever wronged his neighbour, let him be 
encouraged by the courage of the farmer of 
Chester, to make reparation in like manner, 
and so make clean his conscience. 


Conscience. 

-There is no power iu holy men. 

Nor charm in prayer—nor purifying form 
Of penitence—nor outward look—nor fast— 
Nor agony—nor, greater than all these. 

The innate tortures of that deep despair. 

Which is remorse without the fear of hell. 

But all in all sufficient to itself 

Would make a hell of heaven—can exorcise 

From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense 

Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge 

Upon itself; there is no future pang 

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn’d 

He deals on his own soul. Byron. 


Epitaph by Dr. Lowth, late bishop of 
London, on a monument in the church of 
C’udesden, Oxfordshire, to the memory of 
his daughter, translated from the Latin :— 

Dear as thou didst in modest worth excel, 

More dear than in a daughter’s name—farewell I 
Farewell, dear Mary—but the hour is nigh 
When, if I’m worthy, we shall meet on high : 

Then shall I say, triumphant from the tomb, 

“ Come, to thy father’s arms, dear Mary, come 1” 


INSCRIPTION 

From the book at Rigi, in Switzerland. 

Nine weary up-hill miles we sped 
The setting sun to see; 

Sulky and grim he went to bed. 

Sulky and grim went we. 

Seven sleepless hours we past, and then. 

The rising sun to see, 

Sulky and grim we rose again. 

Sulky and grim rose he. 














THE TABLE BOOK. 



Antiquarian ®all, alias OTfll. stHfll-bMo, of 2.gnn, 


A goose-herd in the fen-lands; next, he 
Be-doctor’d Norfolk cows ; much vext, he 
Turn’d bookseller, and poetaster, 

And was a tolerable master 
Of title-pages, but his rhymes 
Were shocking, at the best of times. 
However, he was very honest,' 

And now, poor fellow, he is--** non at.” 


For the Table Book. 

William Hall, or as he used to style 
himself, “Antiquarian Hall,” “Will. WiU- 
be-so,” and “ Low-Fen-Bill-Hall,” or, as .ie 
was more generally termed by the public, 
“ Old Hall,” died at Lynn, in Norfolk, on 
the 24th of 4 January, 1825. From some 
curious autobiographical sketches in rhyme, 
published by himself, in the decline of life, 
it appears that he was born on June 1, O. S. 
!748, at Willow Booth, a small island in 
the fens of Lincolnshire, near Heckington 
Ease, in the parish of South Kyme. 

“ Kyme, God knows, 

Where no corn grows, 

Nothing but a little hay ; 

And the water comes. 

And takes it all away,’* 

His ancestors on the father’s side were 
ail “ fen slodgers,” having lived there for 
many generations; his mother was 

—. “ a half Yorkshire 

The other half was Heckington, 

Vulgar a ulace as and one.' 


When about four)ears old, he narrowly 
escaped drowning; for, in his own words, 
he 

-“ overstretching took a slip. 

And popp’d beneath a merchant’s ship ;* 

No soul at hand but me and mother; 

Nor could I call for one or other.” 

She, however, at the hazard of her own hie, 
succeeded in saving her son’s. At eleven 
years old, he went to school, in Brothertoft 
chapel, for about six months, in which time 
he derived all the education he ever re¬ 
ceived. His love of reading was so great, 
that as soon as he could manage a gunning- 
boat, he used to employ his Sundays either 
in seeking for water-birds’ eggs, or to 

- shouve the boat 

A catching fish, to make a groat. 

And sometimes with a snare or hook; 

Well, what was’t for ?—to buy a book, 
Propensity so in him lay.” 

Before he arrived at man’s estate, he lost 
his mother, and soon afterwards his fathe* 

* A coal-lighter. 


70 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


married again Wil.. himself, on arriving 
at man’s estate, married “ Suke Holmes,” 
and became a “ gozzard,” or gooseherd ; 
that is, a keeper and breeder of geese, for 
which the fens were, at that time, famous 
throughout the kingdom, supplying the 
London markets with fowls, and the ware¬ 
houses with feathers and quills. In these 
parts, the small leathers are plucked from 
the live geese five times a year, at Lady-tide, 
Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and 
Martinmas, and the larger feathers and 
quills are pulled twice. Goslings even are 
not spared, for it is thought that early 
plucking tends to increase the succeeding 
feathers. It is said that the mere plucking 
hurts the fowl very little, as the owners are 
careful not to pull until the feathers are 
ripe: those plucked after the geese are 
dead, are affirmed not to be so good. The 
number of geese kept by Will, must have 
been very great, for his “ brood geese,” 
alone, required five coombs of corn for 
daily consumption. 

The inundations to which the fens were 
then liable, from breaches, or overflowing 
of the banks, overwhelmed him with difficul¬ 
ties, and ruined his prospects. 

The poor old geese away were floated. 

Till some high lands got lit’rally coated ; 

Nor did most peasants think it dnty 
Them to preserve, but made their booty; 

And these who were * not worth a goose , 1 
Cn other people’s liv’d profuse.” 

After many vicissitudes and changes of 
residence, he settled at Marshland, in Nor¬ 
folk, where his wife practised phlebotomy 
and midwifery, while he officiated as an 
auctioneeer, cowleech, &c. &c. Indeed he 
appeared to have been almost bred to the 
doctoring profession, for his own mother 
was 

■-“ a good cow-doctor. 

And always doctor’d all her own, 

Being cowleech both in flesh and bone.” 

His mother-in-law was no less skilful, 
for in Will.’s words 

* She in live stock had took her care, 

And of recipes had ample share, 

Which I retain unto this day.” 

His father-in-law was an equally eminent 
practitioner; when, says Will., 

“ I married Sukey Holmes, her father 
Did more than them put altogether; 

Imparted all his skill to me, 

Farrier, cowleech, and surgery, 

All which he practised with success.” 

Wil). tells of a remarkable and surprising 
accident, which closed his career as a cow- 
<»ech. 


“ The rheumatism, (dreadful charm. 

Had fix’d so close in my left arm, 

So violent throbb’d, that without stroke 
To touch—it absolutely broke ! 

Went with a spring, made a report, 

And hence in cowleech spoil’d my sport; 
Remain’d so tender, weak, and sore, 

I never dare attempt it more.” 

Thus disqualified, he removed to Lynr. 
and opening a shop in Ferry-street, com¬ 
menced his operations as a purchaser and 
vender of old books, odds and ends, and 
old articles of various descriptions; from 
whence he obtained the popular appella¬ 
tion of “ Old Hall.” On a board over the 
door, he designated this shop the 

“ Antiquarian Eibrain,” 

and thus quaintly announced his establish 
ment to the public : 

-“ In Lynn, Ferry-street, 

Where, should a stranger set his feet. 

Just cast an eye, read ‘ Antiquary !’ 

Turn in, and but one hour tarry. 

Depend upon’t, to his surprise, sir. 

He would turn out somewhat the wiser.” 

He had great opportunity to indulge in 
u Bibliomania,” for he acquired an exten¬ 
sive collection of scarce, curious, and valu¬ 
able books, and became, in fact, the only 
dealer in “ old literature ” at Lynn. He 
versified on almost every occasion that 
seemed opportune for giving himself and 
his verses publicity; and, in one of his 
rhyming advertisements, he alphabetised 
the names of ancient and modern authors, 
by way of catalogue. In addition to his 
bookselling business, he continued to prac¬ 
tise as an auctioneer. He regularly kept 
a book-stall, See. in Lynn Tuesday-market, 
from whence he occasionally knocked down 
his articles to the best bidder; and he an¬ 
nounced his sales in his usual whimsical 
style. His hand-bill, on one of these occa¬ 
sions, runs thus : 

“ Lynn, 19th September, 1810. 

" First Tuesday in the next October, 

Now do not doubt but we’ll be sober I 
If Providence permits us action, 

You may depend upon 

AN AUCTION, 

At the stall 

That’s occupied by WILLIAM HALL. 

To enumerate a task would be. 

So best way is to come and see; 

But not to come too vague an errant. 

We’ll give a sketch which we will warrant. 

“ About one hundred, books, in due lots. 

And pretty near the same in shoe-lasis : 


71 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Coats, waistcoats, breeches, shining buttons, 
Perhaps ten thousand leather cuttings. 

Sold at per pound, your lot but ask it. 

Shall be weigh’d to you in a basket; 

Some lots of tools, to make a try on, 

About one hundred weight o f iron; 

Scales, earthenware, arm-chairs, a tea-usm, ^ 
Tea-chests, a herring-tub, and so on ; 

With various more, that’s our intention, 

Which are too tedious here to mention. 

“ N. B. To undeceive, ’fore you come mgher, 
The duty charg’d upon the buyer ; 

And, should we find we’re not perplext, 

We'll keep it up the Tuesday next.” 

During repeated visits to his surviving 
relatives in his native fens, lie observed the 
altered appearance of the scene from the 
improved method of drainage. It had be¬ 
come like “ another world,” and he re¬ 
solved 

- “ to try 

His talent for posterity;” 

and “ make a book,” under the title of 
” The Low Fen Journal,” to comprise <( a 
chain of Incidents relating to the State of 
the Fens, from the earliest Account to the 
resent Time.” As a specimen of the work 
e published, in the summer of 1812 , an 
octavo pamphlet of twenty-four pages, 
called a “ Sketch of Local History,” by 
” Will. Will-be-sOy ’ announcing 

“ If two hundred subscribers will give in their aid, 
The whole of this journal is meant to be laid 
Under public view." 

This curious pamphlet of odds and ends 
in prose and rhyme, without order or ar¬ 
rangement, contained a “ caution to the 
buyer.” 

“ Bet any read that will not soil or rend it. 

But should they ask to borrow, pray don't lend it I 
Advise them, ‘ Oo and buy i' ’twill better suit 
My purpose; and with you prevent dispute. 

With me a maxim 'tis, he that won’t buy 

Does seldom well regard his neighbour’s property; 

And did you chew the bit, so much as I do 

From lending books, I think ’twould make you shy too." 

In the course of the tract, he presented 
to “ the critics ” the following admonitory 
address. 

'* Pray, sirs, consider, had you been 
Bred where whole winters nothing’s seen 
But naked flood for miles and miles, 

Except a boat the eye beguiles; 

Or coots, in clouds, by buzzards teaz’d, 

Your ear with seeming thunder seiz’d 
From rais’d decoy,—there ducks on flight, 

By tens of thousands darken light; 

None to assist in greatest need, 

Parents but very br*ly r «ad - 


No conversation strike the mind. 

But of the lowest, vulgar kind; 

Five miles from either church or school. 

No coming there, but cross a pool; 

Kept twenty years upon that station. 

With only six months’ education; 

Traverse the scene, then weigh it well. 

Say, could you better write or spell t" 

One extract, in prose, is an example of 
the disposition and powers of his almost 
untutored mind, viz. 

** No animation without generation seems 
a standing axiom in philosophy: but upor 
tasting the berry of a plant greatly resem 
bling brooklime, but with a narrower leaf, 
I found it attended with a loose fulsome¬ 
ness, very different from any thing I had 
ever tasted; and on splitting one of them 
with my nail, out sprang a fluttering mag¬ 
got, which put me upon minute examina¬ 
tion. The result of which was, that every 
berry, according to its degree of maturity, 
contained a proportionate maggot, up to 
the full ripe shell, where a door was plainly 
discerned, and the insect had taken its 
flight. I h&ve ever since carefully inspected 
the herb, and the result is always the same, 
vk. if you split ten thousand of the berries, 
you discover nothing but an animated germ. 
It grows in shallow water, and is frequently 
accompanied with the water plantain. Its 
berry is about the size of a red currant, and 
comes on progressively, after the manner 
of juniper in the berry: the germ is first 
discoverable about the middle of July, and 
continues till the frost subdues it. And my 
conjectures lead me to say, that one luxu¬ 
rious plant shall be the mother of many 
scores of flies. I call it the fly berry 
plant." 

Thus far the “ Sketch.” He seems to 
have caught the notion of his “ Low Fen 
Journal ” from a former fen genius, whose 
works are become of great price, though it 
must be acknowledged, more for their 
quaintness and rarity, than their intrinsic 
merit. Will, refers to him in the following 
apologetical lines. 

“ Well, on the earth he knows of none, 

With a full turn just like his mind ; 

Nor only one that’s dead and gone. 

Whose genius stood as his inclin’d : 

No doubt the public wish to know it, 

John Taylor, call’d the water poet. 

Who near two centuries ago 
Wrote much such nonsense as I do.” 

The sale of the “ Sketch” not answering 
his expectations, no further symptoms of 
the “ Journal ” made their appearance at 
that time. 


72 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


In the summer of 1815, after forty-three 
years’ practice as an auctioneer, he an¬ 
nounced his retirement by the following 
laconic farewell. 

“ Rap Senior's given it up at last. 

With thanks for ev’ry favour past; 

Alias • Antiquarian Hall’ 

Will never more he heard to brawl; 

As auctioneer no more will lie, 

But’s thrown his wicked hammer by. 

Should you prefer him to appraise. 

He’s licensed for future days; 

Or still employ him on commission. 

He'll always treat on fair condition. 

For goods brought to him at his stand 
Or at your home, to sell by hand ; 

Or should you want his pen's assistance, 

He’ll wait on you at any distance, 

To lot, collect, in place of clerk, 

Or prevent moving goods i’ th’ dark; 

In short, for help or counsel’s aid, 

You need not of him be afraid.” 

The harvest of 1816 proved w'et and un¬ 
favourable, and he thought “ it almost ex- 
reeded anv thing in his memory where- 
;ore tne world was favoured with “ Reflec¬ 
tions upon Times, and Times and Times ! 
or a more than Sixty Years’ Tour of the 
Mind,” by “ Low-Fen-Bill-Hall." This 
was an octavo pamphlet of sixteen pages, 
in prose, quite as confused as his other- 
productions, “ transmitting to posterity, 
as the results of sixty years’ experience, 
that “ the frequency of thunderstorms in 
the spring,’’—“ the repeated appearance ot 
water-spouts,”—“ an innumerable quantity 
of black snails,”—“ an unusual number of 
held mice,”—and “ the great many snakes 
to be seen about,” are certain “ indications 
of a wet harvest ” To these observations, 
intermingled with digression upon digres¬ 
sion, he prefixed as one of the mottoes, an 
f extremely appropriate quotation from Dent. 
c. 32. v. 29, “ O that they were wise, that 
they understood this!” 

In the spring of 1818, when in his 
seventieth year, or, as he says, “ David s 
gage being near complete,” he determined 
on an attempt to publish his “ Low Fen 
Journal,” in numbers; the first of which 
ae thus announced : 

“ A Lincolnshire rais'd medley pie. 

An original miscellany, 

Mot meant as canting, puzzling mystny, 

But for a general true Fen history, 

Such as design’d some time ago, 

By him ’yclept fVill. TVAl-he-so ; 

Here’s Number ONE for publication, 

If meet the public’s approbation. 


Low-Fen-Bill-Hall his word engages 
To send about two hundred pages, 

• Collected by his gleaning pains, 

Mix’d with the fruit of his own brains ” 

This specimen of the work was as un¬ 
intelligible as the before-mentioned intro¬ 
ductory “ Sketch,” partaking of the same 
autobiographical, historical, and religious 
character, with acrostic, elegiac, obituarian, 
and other extraneous pieces in prose and 
rhyme. His life had been passed in vicis¬ 
situde and hardship, “ oft’ pining for a bit 
of bread ;” and from experience, he was 
well adapted to 

-» tell. 

To whom most extra lots befell ; 

Who liv’d for months on stage of planks, 

Midst captain Flood’s most swelling pranks, 
Five miles from any food to have. 

Yea often risk’d a wat’ry giave;” 

yet his facts and style were so incongruous 
that speaking of the “ Sketch,” he says, 
when he 

——-“ sent it out. 

Good lack! to know what ’twas about ? 

He might as well have sent it muzzled, 

For half the folks seem'd really puzzled. 
Soliciting for patronage, 

He might have spent n.ar half an age; 

From all endeavours undertook, 

He could not get it to a book.” 

Though the only “ historical” part of the 
first number of his “ Fen Journal,” in 
twenty-four pages, consisted of prosaic 
fragments of his grandfather’s “ poaching,” 
his mother’s “ groaning,” his father’s “fish¬ 
ing,” and his own “ conjecturesyet he 
tells the public, that 

“ Protected by kind Providence, 

I mean in less than twelve months hence, 

Push’d by no very common sense, 

To give six times as much as here is, 

And hope there’s none will think it dear is, 
Consid’ring th’ matter rather queer is.” 

In prosecution of his intentions, ?<lo 2 
shortly followed ; and, as it was alike hete¬ 
rogeneous and unintelligible, he says he 
had “ caught the Swiftiama, in running 
digression on digression,” with as many 
whimseys as “ Peter, Martin, and John 
had in twisting their father’s will.” He ex¬ 
pected that this “ gallimaufry ” and himself 
would be consecrated to posterity, for he 
says, 

“ ’Tis not for lucre that I write. 

But something lasting,—to indite 
What may redound to purpose good. 

Clfhap’ly can be understood ;) 

And as time passes o’eT bis stages 
Transmit my mind to future ages." 


73 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


On concluding his second number, he 
“ gratefully acknowledges the liberality of 
his subscribers, and is apprehensive the 
Interlope will find a very partial acceptance; 
but it being so congenial an interlude to 
the improvement of Low Fen and Billing- 
hay Dale manners, to be hereafter shown, 
he hopes it will not be considered detri¬ 
mental, should his work continue.” Such, 
however, was not the case, for his literary 
project terminated: unforeseen events re¬ 
duced his finances, and he had not 


“ Pecune 


Enough, to keep his harp in tune.” 

The care of a large family of orphan 
grandchildren, in indigent circumstances, 
having devolved upon him, he became per¬ 
plexed with extreme difficulties, and again 
experienced the truth of his own observa¬ 
tion, that 

“ If two steps forward, oft’ three back. 

Through life had been hi* constant track.” 

Attracted by the “ bodies of divinity,” 
and other theological works, which his 
“ antiquarian library ” contained, his atten¬ 
tion was particularly directed to the funda¬ 
mental truths of religion, and the doctrines 
of “ the various denominations of the 
Christian world.” The result was, that 
without joining any, he imbibed such por¬ 
tions of the tenets of each sect, that his 
opinions on this subject were as singular as 
on every other. Above all sectaries, yet 
not entirely agreeing even with them, he 
“ loved and venerated ” the “ Moravians or 
United Brethren,’’for their meek,unassuming 
demeanour, their ceaseless perseverance in 
propagating the gospel, and their bound¬ 
less love towards the whole human race. 
Of his own particular notions, he thus says, 

A 

If I on doctrines have right view, 

Here’s this for me, and that for you; 

Another gives my neighbour comfort, 

A stranger comes with one of some son . 

When after candid scrutinizing. 

We find them equally worth prizing; 

’Cause all in gospel love imparted. 

Nor is there any one perverted; 

Only as they may seem unlike. 

Nor can on other’s fancy strike; 

Whereas from due conformity, 

O ! what a spread of harmony. 

Each with each, bearing and forbearing. 

All wishing for a better hearing. 

Would in due time, then full improve 
Into one family of love : 

Instead of shyness on each other. 

My fellow-christian, sister, brother 


And each in candour thus impart. 

You have my fellowship and heart; 

Let this but be the root o’ th’ sense, 

Jesus the Christ , my confidence, 

As given in the Father’s love, 

No other system I approve.” 

After a short illness, towards the con¬ 
clusion of his seventy-eighth year, death 
closed his mortal career. Notwithstanding 
his eccentricity, he was “ devoid of guile,” 
plain and sincere in all transactions, and 
his memory is universally respected.— 
“ Peace to his ashes ”—(to use his own 
expressions,) 


“ Let all the wox-ld say worst they can. 
He was an upright, honest man.” 


K. 


Ml inter. 

For the Table Book. 

Winter ! I love thee, for thou com’st to me 
Laden with joys congenial to my mind. 

Books that with bards and solitude agree, 

And all those virtues which adorn mankind. 

What though the meadows, and the neighb’ring hills, 
That rear their cloudy summits in the skies— 

What though the woodland brooks, and lowland rills. 

That charm’d our ears, and gratified our eyes. 

In thy forlorn habiliments appear ? 

What though the zephyrs of the summer tide, 

And all the softer beauties of the year 
Are fled and gone, kind Heav’n has not denied 
Our books and studies, music, convert Hon, 

And ev’ning parties for our re. . m; 

And these suffice, for seasons snatch’d away, 

Till Spring leads forth the slowly-length’ning day. 

B. W. R. 

A WINTER’S DAY. 

For the Table Book. 

The horizontal sun, like an orb of molten 
gold, casts “ a dim religious light” upon 
the surpliced world: the beams, reflected 
from the dazzling snow, fall upon the 
purple mists, which extend round the earth 
like a zone, and in the midst the planet 
appears a fixed stud, surpassing the ruby in 
brilliancy. 

Now trees and shrubs are borne down 
with sparkling congelations, and the coral 
clusters of the hawthorn and holly are more 
splendid, and offer a cold conserve to the 
wandering schoolboy. The huntsman is 
seen riding to covert in his scarlet livery, 
the gunner is heard at intervals in the up¬ 
lands, and the courser comes galloping 
down the hill side, with his hounds in full 


74 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


chase before him. The farmer’s boy, who 
is forced from his warm bed, to milk cows 
in a cold meadow, complains it’s a “ burn¬ 
ing” shame that he should be obliged to go 
starving by himself, while “ their wench” 
has nothing else to do but make a fire, and 
boil the tea-kettle. Now, Mrs. Jeremy 
Bellclack, properly so called, inasmuch as 
ihe unmentionables are amongst her pecu¬ 
liar attributes, waked by the mail-coach 
horn, sounding an Introit to the day, orders 
her husband, poor fellow, to “just get up 
and look what sort of a morning it is 
and he, shivering at the bare idea, affects to 
be fast asleep, till a second summons, ac¬ 
companied by the contact of his wife’s 
heavy hand, obliges him to paddle across 
the ice-cold plaster floor; and the trees and 
church-steeples, stars, spears, and saws, 
which form an elegant tapestry over the 
windows, seem to authorize the excuse that 
he “ can’t see,” while, shivering over the 
dressing-table, he pours a stream of visible 
breath on the frozen pane. 

After breakfast, Dicky, “ with shining 
morning face,” appears in the street, on 
his way to school, with his Latin grammar 
in one hand, and a slice of bread and but¬ 
ter in the other, to either of which he pays 
his devoirs, and “ slides and looks, and 
slides and looks,” all the way till he arrives 
at “ the house of bondage,” when his fin¬ 
gers are so benumbed, that he is obliged to 
warm his slate, and even then they refuse 
to cast up figures, “ of their own accord.” 
In another part of the school, Joe Lazy finds 
it “ so ’nation cold,” that he is quite unable 
to learn the two first lines of his lesson,— 
and he plays at “ cocks and dollars” with 
Jem Slack in a corner. The master 
stands before the fire, like the Colossus of 
Rhodes, all the morning, to the utter dis¬ 
comfiture of the boys, who grumble at the 
monopoly, and secretly tell one another, 
that they pay for the fire, and ought to have 
the benefit of it. At length he says, “ You 
may go, boys ;” whereupon ensues such a 
pattering of feet, shutting of boxes, and 
scrambling for hats, as beats Milton’s 
“ busy hum of men” all to nothing, till they 
reach their wonted slide in the yard, where 
they suddenly stop on discovering that 
“ that skinny old creature, Bet Fifty, the 
cook,” has bestrewed it from end to end 
with sand and cinders. Frost-stricken as 
it were, they stare at one another, and look 
unnutterable things at the aforesaid “ skin¬ 
ny old creature;” till Jack Turbulent, ring¬ 
leader-general of all their riots and rebel¬ 
lions, execrates “ old Betty, cook,” with 
the fluency of a parlour boarder, and hurls 


a well-wrought snowball at the Gorgon, 
who turns round in a passion to discover 
the delinquent, when her pattens, unused 
to such quick rotatory motion, slip from 
under her feet, and “ down topples she,” 
to the delight of the urchins around her, 
who drown her cries and threats in reite¬ 
rated bursts of laughter 

Now, the Comet stage-coach, bowling 
along the russet-coloured road, with a long 
train of vapour from the horses’ nostrils, 
looks really like a comet. At the same 
time, Lubin, who has been sent to town by 
his mistress with a letter for the post-office, 
and a strict injunction to return speedily, 
finds it impossible to pass the blacksmith’s 
shop, where the bright sparks fly from the 
forge; and he determines “just*’ to stop and 
look at the blaze “ a bit,” which, as he 
says, “ raly does one’s eyes good of a win¬ 
ter’s morning;” and then, he just blows 
the bellows a bit, and finds it so pleasant 
to listen to the strokes of Vulcan’s wit, and 
his sledge-hammer, alternately, that he con¬ 
tinues blowing up the fire, till, at length, 
he recollects what a “ blowing up” he shall 
have from his “ Missis” when he gets home, 
and forswears the clang of horse-shoes 
and plough-irons, and leaves the temple of 
the Cyclops, but not without a “ longing, 
ling’ring look behind” at Messrs. Blaze 
and Company. 

From the frozen surface of the pond or 
lake, men with besoms busily clear away 
the drift, for which they are amply remu¬ 
nerated by voluntary contributions from 
every fresh-arriving skater; and black ice is 
discovered between banks of snow, and 
ramified into numerous transverse, oblique, 
semicircular, or elliptical branches. Here 
and there, the snow appears in large heaps, 
like rocks or islands, and round these the 
proficients in the art 

“ Come and trip it as they go 
On the light, fantastic toe,” 

winding and sailing, one amongst an¬ 
other, like the smooth-winged swallows, 
which so lately occupied the same surface. 
While these are describing innumerable 
circles , the sliding fraternity in another 
part form parallel lines; each, of each class, 
vies with the other in feats of activity, all 
enjoy the exhilarating pastime, and every 
face is illumined with cheerfulness. The 
philosophic skater, big with theory, con¬ 
vinced, as he tells evesy one he meets, that 
the whole art consists “ merely in trans¬ 
ferring the centre of gravity from one foot 
to the other,” boldly essays a demonstra¬ 
tion, and instantly transfers it frcm both 


75 






========= 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


t»o as to honour the frozen element with 
a sudden salute from that part of the body 
which usually gravitates on a chair; 
and the wits compliment him on the 
superior knowledge by which- he has 
“ broken the ice,” and the little lads run 
to see “ what a big star the gentleman has 
made !” and think it must have hurt him 
“ above a bit!” 

It is now that the different canals are 
frozen up, and goods are conveyed by 
the stage-waggon, and “ it’s a capital time 
for the turnpikes;” and those who can get 
brandy, drink it; and those who can’t, 
drink ale; and those who are unable to 
procure either, do much better without 
them. And now, ladies have red noses, 
and the robin, with his little head turned 
knowingly on one side, presents hi« burning 
breast at the parlour window, and seems to 
crave a dinner from the noontide breakfast 
In such a day, the “ son and heir” of the 
“ gentleman retired from business” bedi¬ 
zens the drawing-room with heavy loads of 
prickly evergreen; and bronze candle- 
1 earers, porcelain figures, and elegant 
chimney ornaments, look like prince 
Malcolm's soldiers at “ Birnam wood,” or 
chorister boys on a holy Thursday; and 
his “ Ma” nearly falls into hysterics on 
discovering the mischief; and his “Pa” 
begins to scold him for being so naughty ; 
and the budding wit asks, as he runs out 
of the room, “ Why, don’t you know that 
these are the holly days?” and his father 
relates the astonishing instance of early 
genius at every club, card-party, or vestry¬ 
meeting for a month to come. Now, all the 
pumps are frozen, old men tumble down 
on the flags, and ladies “ look blue” at their 
lovers. Now, the merry-growing bacchanal 
begins to thaw himself with frequent po¬ 
tations of wine ; bottle after bottle is sacri¬ 
ficed to the health of his various friends, 
though his own health is sacrificed in the 
ceremony ; and the glass that quaffs “ the 
prosperity of the British constitution,” 
ruins his own. 

And now, dandies, in rough great coats 
and fur collars, look like Esquimaux In¬ 
dians; and the fashionables of the fair sex, 
n white veils and swans-down muffs and 
1 ippets, have (begging their pardons) 
very much the appearance of polar bears. 
Now, Miss Enigmaria Conundrina Riddle, 
poring over her new pocket-book, lisps 
out, “ Why are ladies in winter like tea¬ 
kettles ?” to which old Mr. Riddle, pouring 
forth a dense ringlet of tobacco-smoke, re¬ 
plies, “ Because they dance and sing;” 
out master Augustus Adolphus Riddle, 


who has heard it before, corrects him by 
saying, “ No, Pa, that’s not it—it’s because 
they are furred up.” Now, unless their 
horses are turned up, the riders are very 
likely to be turned down ; and deep wens 
are dry, and poor old women, with a 
“ well-a-day !” are obliged to boil down 
snow and icicles to make their tea with. 
Now, an old oak-tree, with only one branch, 
looks like a man with a rifle to his shoulder, 
and the night-lorn traveller trembles at the 
prospect of having his head and his pockets 
rifled together. Now, sedan-chairs, and 
servants with lanterns, are “ flitting across 
the night,” to fetch home their masters and 
mistresses from oyster-eatings, and qua¬ 
drille parties. And now, a young lady, 
who had retreated from the heat of the ball¬ 
room, to take the benefit of the north wind, 
and caught a severe cold, calls in the 
doctor, who is quite convinced of the cor¬ 
rectness of the old adage, “ It’s an ill wind 
that blows nobody good.” 

Now, the sultana of the night reigns on 
her throne of stars, in the blue zenith, and 
young ladies and gentlemen, who had 
shivered all day by the parlour fire, and 
found themselves in danger of annihilation 
when the door by chance had been left a little 
way open, are quite warm enough to walk 
together by moonlight, though every thing 
around them is actually petrified by the 
frost. 

Now, in my chamber, the last ember 
falls, and seems to warn us as it descends, 
that though we, like it, may shine among 
the brilliant, and be cherished by the great 
(grate,) we must mingle our ashes. The 
wasted candle, too, is going the way of all 
flesh, and the writer of these “ night 
thoughts,” duly impressed with the im¬ 
portance of his own mortality, takes his 
farewell of his anti-critical readers in the 
language of the old song,— 

“ Gude night, an’ joy be wi’ you all!” 

Lichfield. J. H. 


TAKE NOTICE. 

A correspondent who has seen the origi 
nal of the following notice, written at Bath 
says, it would have been placed on a boanl 
in a garden there, had not a friend advised 
its author to the contrary: 

“Any person trespace here 

SHALL BE PROSTICUTF.D 
ACCORDING TO LAW.” 


76 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


THE BAZAAR. 
For the Table Book. 


The Bazaar in Soho 
Is completely the go.— (Song.j 

Put it down in the bill 
Is the fountain of ill, — 

This has every shopkeeper undone— 

Bazaars never trust, so down with your dust, 
And help us to diddle all London. (Song.) 


Dear madam, give me leave to ask 
You,—how your husband is ?— 

Why, Mr. Snooks has lost his looks. 
He’s got the rheumatiz I 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you ? 

How dear the things all are I" 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say. 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 


Oh how I’ve wish’d for some time back 
To ride to the Bazaar, 

And I declare the day looks fair 
Nnw won’t you go, mamma? 

For there our friends we’re sure to meet, 

So let us haste away. 

My cousins, too, last night told you. 

They’d all be there to-day. 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you ? 

How dear the things all are 1" 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say. 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 

Some look at this thing, then at that, 

But vow they’re all too high ; 

How much is this?”—" Two guineas, miss! 
“ Oh. I don’t want to buy I" 

,,ook at these pretty books, my love, 

I think it soon will rain ; 

There’s Mrs. Howe, I saw her bow, 

Whv don’t you bow again? 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you ? 

How dear the things all arel" 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say. 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 

Just see that picture on the box. 

How beautifully donel 
“ It isn’t high, ma’am, won’t you buy ? 

It’s only one pound one.” 

How pretty all these bonnets look 
With red and yellow strings; 

Some here, my dear, don’t go too near, 

You mustn’t touch the things. 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you ? 

How dear the things all are 1” 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say. 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 

Miss Muggins, have yon seen enough ? 

I’m sorry I can’t stay; 

There’s Mrs. Snooks, how fat she looks 
She’s coming on this wav • 


“ Tom ! see that girl, how well she walks 
But faith, I must confess, 

I never saw a girl before 
In such a style of dress." 

“ Why, really, Jack, I think you’re right. 

Just let me look a while ; 

(looking through his glase) 
I like her gait at any rate. 

But don’t quite like her style." 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How ai e you ? 

How dear the things all are J" 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say, 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 


“ That vulgar lady’s standing there 
That every one may view her ;’ — 

** Sir, that's my daughter“No, not her; 

I mean the next one to her 
“ Oh, that’s my niece,”—•“ Oh no, not her,”-* 
“ You seem, sir. quite amused 
“ Dear ma’am,—heyday !—what shall 1 say l 
I'm really quite confused.” 

With a “ How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you ? 

How dear the things all are 1” 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say. 

At fam’d Soho Bazaar. 


Thus beaux and belle* together meet, 
And thus they spend the day ; 

And walk and talk, and talk and walk. 

And then they walk away. 

If you have half an hour to spare, 

The better way by far 
Is here to lounge it, with a friend. 

In the Soho Bazaar. 

With a "How do you do. 

Ma’am ?” “ How are you l 
How dear the things all V 
Throughout the day 
You hear them say, 

At fam’d Soho Bi.ra.ar 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


<&mmana* 

THE SEASON OUT OF TOWN. 
For the Table Book. 

The banks are partly green; hedges and trees 
Are black and shrouded, and the keen wind roars. 

Like dismal music wand’ring over seas. 

And wailing to the agitated shores. 

The fields are dotted with manure—the sheep 
In unshorn wool, streak’d with the shepherd’s red. 

Their undivided peace and friendship keep, 

Shaking their bells, like children to their bed. 

The roads are white and miry—waters run 
With violence through their tracks—and sheds, that 
flowers 

In summer graced, are open to the sun. 

Which shines in noonday’s horizontal hours. 

Frost claims the night; and morning, like a bride, 
Forth from her chamber glides; mist spreads her 
vest; 

The sunbeams ride the clouds till eventide. 

And the wind rolls them to ethereal rest. 

Sleet, shine, cold, fog, in portions fill the time ; 

Like hope, the prospect cheers; like breath it fades; 

Life grows in seasons to returning prime, 

And beauty rises from departing shades. 

January, 1827. P. 


THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE. 

Addressed to the Admirers of Alliteration, 
and the Advocates of Noisy Numbers. 

Ardentem aspicio atque arrectia auribis asto.— Virgil. 

An Austrian army awfully arrayed. 

Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade: 

Cossack commanders cannonading come, 

Dealing destruction’s devastating doom; 

Every endeavour engineers essay. 

For fame, for fortune fighting—furious fray! 
Generals ’gainst generals grapple, gracious G—d I 
How honours heaven heroi^ hardihood 1 
Infuriate—indiscriminate in ill— 

Kinsmen kill kindred—kindred kinsmen kill : 
Labour low levels loftiest, longest lines, 

Men march ’mid mounds, ’mid moles, ’mid murder¬ 
ous mines: 

Now noisy noxious numbers notice nought 
Of outward obstacles, opposing ought,— 

Poor patriots!—partly purchased—partly press’d. 
Quite quaking, quickly, “ Quarter I quarter I” quest; 
Reason returns, religious right redounds, 

Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. 

Truce to thee, Turkey, triumph to thy train 
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine! 

Vanish, vain victory! vanish, victory vain ! 

Why wish we warfare ? Wherefore welcome were 


Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xav.ere 

Yield, yield, ye youths! ye yeomen, yield your yt’l, 

Zeno’s, Zampatee’s, Zoroaster’s zeal, 

Attracting all, arms against acts appeal l 


NAMES OF PLACES. 

For the Table Book. 

The names of towns, cities, or villages, 
which terminate in ter, such as Chester, 
Caster, Cester, show that the Romans, in 
their stay among us, made fortifications 
about the places where they are now situ¬ 
ated. In the Latin tongue Castra is the 
name of these fortifications—such are Cas¬ 
tor, Chester, Doncaster, Leicester: Don 
signifies a mountain, and Ley, or Lei, 
ground widely overgrown. 

In our ancient tongue wich, or ivick, 
means a place of refuge, and is the termi¬ 
nation of Warwick, Sandwich, Greenwich, 
Woolwich, &c. 

Thorp, before the word village was bor¬ 
rowed from the French, was used in its 
stead, and is found at the end of many 
towns’ names. 

Bury, Burgh, or Berry, signifies, meta¬ 
phorically, a town having a wall about it, 
sometimes a high, or chief place. 

Wold means a plain open country. 

Combe, a valley between two hills 

Knock , a hill. 

Hurst, a woody place. 

Magh, a field. 

Innes, an island. 

IForth, a place situated between two 
rivers. 

lug, a tract of meadows. 

Minster is a contraction of monastery. 

Sam Sam’s Son. 


SONNET 

For the Table Book. 

The snowdrop, rising to its infant height, 

Looks like a sickly child upon the spot 
Of young nativity, regarding not 
The air’s caress of melody and light 
Beam’d from the east, and soften’d by the bright 
Effusive flash of goldthe willow stoops 
And muses, like a bride without her love, 

On her own shade, which lies on waves, and droops 
Beside the natal trunk, nor looks above:— 

The precipice, that torrents cannot move, 

Leans o’er the sea, and steadfast as a rock. 

Of dash and cloud unconscious, bears the rude 
Continuous surge, the sounds and echoes mock: 
Thus Mental Thought enduring, wears in solitude. 
1827. *. • P 


78 










Cl)e Jfont of Jtarrohi Clnirrl). 

___thus saved 

From guardian-hands which eise had more depraved. 


Some years ago, the fine old font of the 
ancient parish church of Harrow-on-the 
hill was torn from that edifice, by the 
i “ gentlemen of the parish,” and given out 
to mend the roads with. The feelings of 
one parishioner (to the honour of the sex, a 
female) were outraged by this act of paro¬ 
chial Vandalism ; and she was allowed to 
preserve it from destruction, and place it in 
a walled nook, at the garden front of her 
house, where it still remains. By her 
obliging permission, a drawing of it was 
made the summer before last, and is 
engraved above. 

On the exclusion of Harrow font from 
fhe church, the parish officers put up the 
marble wash - hand-basin-stand - looking- 
fhing, which now occupies its place, in¬ 
scribed with the names of the church¬ 


wardens during whose reign venality ot 
stupidity effected the removal of its pro¬ 
cessor. If there be any persons in that 
parish who either venerate antiquity, or de¬ 
sire to see “ right things in right places,” 
it is possible that, by a spirited representa¬ 
tion, they may arouse the indifferent, and 
shame the ignorant to an interchange. and 
force an expression of public thanks to the 
lady whose good taste and care enabled it 
to be effected. The relative situation and 
misappropriation of each font is a stain on 
the parish, easily removable, by employing 
a few men and a few pounds to clap the 
paltry usurper under the spout of the good 
lady’s house, and restore the noble original 
from that degrading destination, to its 
rightful dignity in the church 


THE TABLE BOOK, 


79 


G 


















TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


; 

®amcfe Slaps. 

No. III. 

[From the “ Rewards of Virtue,” a Comedy, 
by John Fountain, printed 1661.J 

Success in Battle not always attributable to the General. 

■■-■■■■ Generals oftimes famous grow 
By valiant friends, or cowardly enemies ; 

Or, what is worse, by some mean piece of chance* 
Truth is, ’tis pretty to observe 
How little Princes and great Generals 
Contribute oftentimes to the fame they win. 

How oft hath it been found, that noblest minds 
With two short arms, have fought with fatal stars ; 
And have endeavour’d with their dearest blood 
To mollify those diamonds, where dwell 
The fate of kingdoms; and at last have fain 
By vulgar hands, unable now to do 
More for their cause than die ; and have been lost 
Among the sacrifices of their swords ; 

No more remember’d than poor villagers. 

Whose ashes sleep among the common flowers. 

That every meadow wears : whilst other men 
With trembling hands have caught a victory, 

And on pale foreheads wear triumphant bays. 

Besides, I have thought 
A thousand times ; in times of war, when we 
Lift up our hands to heaven for victory ; 

Suppose some virgin Shepherdess, whose soul 
Is chaste and clean as the cold spring, where she 
Quenches all thirsts, being told of enemies. 

That seek to f right the long-enjoyed Peace 
Of our Arcadia hence with sound of drums. 

And with hoarse trumpets’ warlike airs to drown 
The harmless music of her oaten reeds , 

Should in the passion of her troubled sprite 
Repair to some small fane ('such as the Gods 
Hear poor folks from), and there on humble knees 
Lift up her trembling hands to holy Pan, 

And beg his helps: ’tis possible to think, 

ThatHeav’n, which holds the purest vows most rich. 
May not permit her still to weep in vain. 

But grant her wish, (for, would the Gods not hear 
The prayers of poor folks, they’d ne’er bid them pray); 
And so, in the next action, happeneth out 
(The Gods still using means) the Enemy 
May be defeated. The glory of all this 
Is attributed to the General, 

And none but he’s spoke loud of for the act; 

"While she, from whose so unaffected tears 
His laurel sprung, for ever dwells unknown.* 


* Is it possible that Cowper might have remembered 
this sentiment in his description of the advantages 
which the world, that scorns him, may derive from the 
noiseless hours of the contemplative man ? 

Perhaps she owes 

Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 
And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, 
A'hen, Isaac-like, the solitary saint 
Walks forth to meditate at eventide, 

And think on her, wno tninks not on herself. 

Task. 


Unlawful Solicitings. 

When I first 
Mention’d the business to her all alone. 

Poor Soul, she blush’d, as if already she 
Had done some harm by hearing of me speak , 
Whilst from her pretty eyes two fountains ran 
So true, so native, down her fairest cheeks ; 

As if she thought herself obliged to cry, 

•’Cause all the world was not so good as she. 


Proportion in Pity. 

There must be some proportion still to pity 
Between ourselves and what we moan : ’tis hard 
For Men to be ought sensible, how Moats 
Press Flies to death. Should the Lion, in 
His midnight walks for prey, hear some poor worm* 
Complain for want of little drops of dew, 

What pity could that generous creature have 
(Who never wanted small things) for those poor 
Ambitions ? yet these are their concernments. 

And but for want of these they pine and die. 


Modesty a bar to preferment. 

Sure ’twas his modesty. He might have thriven 
Much better possibly, had his ambition 
Bten greater much. They oftimes take more pains 
Who look for Tins, than those who find out Stars. 


Innocence vindicated at last. 

Heav’n may awhile correct the virtuous; 

Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make 
Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence 
Conceal’d is the Stpln Pleasure of the Gods, 
Which never ends in shame, as that of Men 
Doth oftimes do ; but like the Sun breaks forth. 
When it hath gratified another world ; 

And to our unexpecting eyes appears 
More glorious thro’ its late obscurity. 


Dying for a Beloved Person. 

There is a gust in Death, when ’tis for Love, 
That’s more than all that’s taste in all the world. 
For the true measure of true Love is Death ; 

And what falls short of this, was never Love : 
And therefore when those tides do meet and strive 
And both swell high, but Love is higher still, 

This is the truest satisfaction of 
The perfectest Love: for here it sees itself 
Indure the highest test; and then it feels 
The sum of delectation, since it now 
Attains its perfect end ; and shows its object. 

By one intense act, all its verity: 

Which by a thousand and ten thousand words 
It would have took a poor diluted pleasure 
To have imperfectly express’d. 




80 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Urania makes a mock assignation with 
the King, and substitutes the Queen in her 
place. The King describes the supposed 
meeting to the Confident , whom he had em¬ 
ployed to solicit for his guilty passion. 

I’yrrhus, I’ll tell thee all. When now the night 
<»rew black enough to hide a sculking action ; 

And Heav’n had ne’er an eye unshut to see 
Her Representative on Earth creep ’mongst 
Those poor defenceless worms, whom Nature left 
An humole prey to every thing, and no 
Asylum but the dark ; I softly stole 
To yonder grotto thro’ the upper walks, 

And there found my Urania. But I found her, 

I found her, Pyrrhus, not a Mistress, but 

A Goddess rather; which made me now to be 
No more her Lover, but Idolater. 

She only whisper’d to me, as she promised, 

Yet never heard I any voice so loud; 

And, tho’ her words were gentler far than those 
That holy priests do speak to dying Saints, 

Yet never thunder signified so much. 

And (what did more impress whate’er she said) 
Methought her whispers were my injured Queen’s, 

Her manner just like ber’sl and when she urged. 
Among a thousand things, the injury 
did the faithful’st Princess in the world; 

Who now supposed me sick, and was perchanee 
Upon her kpees offering up holy vows 
For him who mock’d both Heav’n and her, and was 
Now breaking of that vow he made her, when 
With sacrifice he call’d the Gods to witness : 

When she urged this, and wept, and spake so like 
My poor deluded Queen, Pyrrhus, I trembled ; 

Almost persuaded that it was her angel 
Spake thro’ Urania’s lips, who for her sake 
Took care of me, as something she much loved. 

II would be long to tell thee all she said. 

How oft .-.he sigh’d, how bitterly she wept: 

But the effect—Urania still is chaste; 

And with her chaster lips hath promised to 
.nvoke blest Heav’n for my intended sin. 

C. L. 


THE CUSHION DANCE. 

For the Table Book. 

The concluding dance at a country wake, 
or other general meeting, is the “ Cushion 
Danceand if it be not called for when 
the company are tired with dancing, the 
fiddler, who has an interest in it which will 
be seen hereafter, frequently plays the tune 
to remind them of it. A young man of the 
company leaves the room ; the poor young 
women, uninformed of the plot against 
them, suspecting nothing ; but he no sooner 
returns, bearing a cushion in one hand and 
a pewter pot in the other, than they are 
aware of the mischief intended, and would 


certainly make their escape, had not the 
bearer of cushion and pot, aware of the 
invincible aversion which young women 
have to be saluted by young men, prevent¬ 
ed their flight by locking the door, and 
putting the key in his pocket. The dance 
then begins. 

The young man advances to the fiddler, 
drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to 
one of his companions; cushion then 
dances round the room, followed by pot, 
and when they again reach the fiddler, the 
cushion says in a sort of recitative, accom¬ 
panied by the music, “ This dance it will 
no farther go.” 

The fiddler, in return, sings or says, for 
it partakes of both, “ I pray, kind sir, why 
say you so?” 

The answer is, “ Because Joan Sander¬ 
son won’t come to.” 

“ But,” replies the fiddler, “ she must 
come to, and she shall come to, whether 
she will or no.” 

The young man, thus armed with the 
authority of the village musician, recom¬ 
mences his dance round the room, but stops 
when he comes to the girl he likes best, 
and drops the cushion at her feet; she puts 
her penny in the pewter pot, and kneels 
down with the young man on the cushion, 
and he salutes her. 

When they rise, the woman takes up the 
cushion, and leads the dance, the man fol¬ 
lowing, and holding the skirt of her gown; 
and having made the circuit of the room, 
they stop near the fiddler, and the same 
dialogue is repeated, except, as it is now 
the woman who speaks, it is John Sander¬ 
son who won’t come to, and the fiddler’s 
mandate is issued to him, not her. 

The woman drops the cushion at the 
feet of her favourite man; the same cere¬ 
mony and the same dance are repeated, 
till every man and woman, the pot bearer 
last, has been taken out, and all have 
danced round the room in a file. 

The pence are the perquisite of the fid¬ 
dler. 

H. N. 

P.S. There is a description of this dance 
in Miss Hutton’s “ Oakwood Hall.” 


The Cushion Dance. 

For the Table Book. 

“ Saltabamus.” 

The village-green is clear and dight 
Under the starlight sky; 

Joy in the cottage reigns to night. 
And brightens every e/e: 


81 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


The peasants of the valley meet 
Their labours to advance. 

And many a lip invites a treat 
To celebrate the “ Cushion Dance.’* 

A pillow in the room they hide. 

The door they slily lock; 

The bold the bashfol damsels chide. 

Whose heart’s-pulse seem to rock i 
“ Escape ?”—“ Not yet!—no kev is found !”— 

“ Of course, *tis lost by chance— 

And flutt’ring whispers breathe around 
“ The Cushion Dance!—The Cushion Dance 1” 

The fiddler in a corner stands. 

He gives, he rules the game; 

A rustic takes a maiden’s hands 
Whose cheek is red with shame: 

At custom’s shrine they seal their truth, 

Love fails not here to glance;— 

Happy the heart that beats in youth. 

And dances in the “ Cushion Dance 1” 

The pillow’s carried round and round, 

The fiddler speaks and plays ; 

The choice is made,—the charm is wound. 

And parleys conquer nays :— 

For shame! I will not thus be kiss’d, 

Your beard cuts like a lance; 

Leave off—I’m sure you’ve sprained my wrist 
By kneeling in this ‘ Cushion Dance 1’ ” 

** ’Tis aunt’s turn,—what in tears ?—I thougkt 
You dearly loved a joke ; 

Kisses are sweeter stol’n than bought. 

And vows are sometimes broke. 

Play up 1—play up l—aunt chooses Ben; 

Ben loves so sweet a trance I 
Robin to Nelly kneels again, 

—Is Love not in the ‘ Cushion dance ?’ ** 

Laughter is busy at the heart, 

Cupid looks through the eye. 

Feeling is dear when sorrows part 
And plaintive comfort’s nigh, 

** Hide not in corners, Betsy, pray,” 

“ Do not so colt-like prance; 

One kiss, for memory’s future day, 

—Is Life not like a 4 Cushion Dance?* " 

** This Dance it will no further go !” 

“ Why say you thus, good man ?” 

“ Joan Sanderson will not come to 1” 

* She must,—’tis ‘ Custom’s’ plan 
44 Whether she will or no, must she 
The proper course advance; 

Blushes, like blossoms on a tree, 

Are lovely in the 4 Cushion Dance.* ' 

• This Dance it will no further go 1” 

“ Why say you thus, good lady ?” 

** John Sanderson will not come to!” 

“ Fie, John! the Cushion’s ready 
“ He must come to, he shall come to, 

’Tis Mirth’s right throne pleasance; 

How dear the scene, in Nature’s view 
To levers in a 4 Cushion Dance I’ *’ 

1______ 


** Ho 1 princum prancum !”—Love is blact; 

Both Joan and John submit; 

Friends smiling gather round and rest. 

And sweethearts closely sit;— 

Their feet and spirits languid grown, 

Eyes, bright in silence, glance 
Like suns on seeds of beauty sown. 

And nourish’d in the 44 Cushion Dance. 

In times to come, when older we 
Have children round our knees; 

How will our hearts rejoice to see 
Their lips and eyes at ease. 

Talk ye of Swiss in valley-streams. 

Of joyous pairs in France; 

None of their hopes-delighting dream9 
Are equal to the 44 Cushion Dance.” 

’Twas here my Maiden’s love I drew 
By the hushing of her bosom; 

She knelt, her mouth and press were true. 

And sweet as rose’s blossom:— 

E’er since, though onward we to glory. 

And cares our lives enhance. 

Reflection dearly tells the 44 story”— 

Haill—hail I—thou “ happy Cushion Dance.” 

J. R. Prior. 

Islington. 


ST. SEPULCHRE’S BELL. 

For the Table Book. 

On the right-hand side of the altar of 
St. Sepulchre’s church is a board, with a 
list of charitable donations and gifts, con 
taining the following item :— 

£. *. d . 

1605. Mr. Robert Do we gave 50 0 0 
for ringing the greatest 
bell in this church on the 
day the condemned pri¬ 
soners are executed, and 
for other services, for 
ever t concerning such 
condemned prisoners, for 
which services the sexton 
is paid £l. 6s. 8 d. 

Looking over an old volume of the New¬ 
gate Calendar, I found some elucidation of 
this inscription. In a narrative of the case 
of Stephen Gardner, (who was executed 
at Tyburn, February 3, 1724,) it is related 
that a person said to Gardner, when he was 
set at liberty on a former occasion, “ Be¬ 
ware how you come here again, or tlie 
bellman will certainly say his verses ovel 
you.” On this saying there is the follow, 
ing remark :— 

“ It has been a very ancient practice, on 
the night preceding the execution of con- 


82 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


ilemned criminals, for the bellman of the 
parish of St. Sepulchre, to go under New¬ 
gate, and, ringing his bell, to repeat the 
following verses, as a piece of friendly 
advice to the unhappy wretches under sen¬ 
tence of death :— 


All you that in the condemn’d hold do lie, 

Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die; 

Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near, 
That you before the Almighty must appear : 
Examine well yourselves, in time repent. 

That you may not to eternal flames be sent. 

And when St. Sepulchre’s bell to-morrow tolls. 
The Lord above have mercy on your souls I 

Past twelve o’clock. 

In the following extract from Stowe’s 
London,* it will be shown that the above 
verses ought to be repeated by a clergy¬ 
man, instead of a bellman :— 

“ Robert Doue, citizen and merchant tay- 
lor, of London, gave to the parish church of 
St. Sepulchres, the somme of £50. That after 
the several sessions of London, when the 
prisoners remain in the gaole, as condemn¬ 
ed men to death, expecting execution on 
the morrow following: the clarke (that is 
the parson ) of the church shoold come in 
the night time, and likewise early in the 
morning, to the window of the prison where 
they lye, and there ringing certain toles 
with a hand-bell appointed for the purpose, 
he doth afterwards (in most Christian man¬ 
ner) put them in mind of their present 
condition, and ensuing execution, desiring 
them to be prepared therefore as they 
ought to be. When they are in the cart, 
and brought before the wall of the church, 
there he standeth ready with the same bell, 
and, after certain toles, rehearseth an ap¬ 
pointed praier, desiring all the people 
there present to pray for them. The beadle 
also of Merchant Taylors’ Hall hath an 
bonest stipend allowed to see that this is 
duely done.” 

Probably the discontinuance of this prac¬ 
tice commenced when malefactors were 
first executed at Newgate, in lieu of Ty¬ 
burn. The donation most certainly refers 
to the verses. What the “ other services ” 
are which the donor intended to be done, and 
for which the sexton is paid £l. 6$. 8</., 
and which are to be “ for ever” I do not 
know, but I presume those services (or 
some other) are now continued, as the 
board which contains the donation seems 
to me to have been newly painted. 

Edwin S—. 

Carthusian-street, Jan. 1827. 


• Page 25 of the quarto edition, 1618* 


THE DEATH OF THE RED KTNG 

“ Come, listen to a tale of times of old; 

Come, for ye know me.” Southet 

Who is it that rides thro’ the forest so green, 

And gazes with joy on the beautiful scene, 

With the gay prancing war-horse, and helmeted head ) 
Tis the monarch of England, stern William the Red 

Why starts the proud courser ? what vision is there? 
The trees are scarce mov’d by the still breathing air— 
All is hush’d, save the wild bird that carols on high, 
'The forest bee’s hum, and the rivulet’s sigh. 

But, lo 1 a dark form o’er the pathway hath lean d 
*Tis the druid of Malwood, the wild forest-fiend 
The terror of youth, of the aged the fear— 

The prophet of Cadenham, the death-boding seer ! 

His garments were black as the night-raven’s plume. 
His features were veil’d in mysterious gloom. 

His lean arm was awfully rais’d while he said, 

“ Well met, England’s monarch, stern William the 
Red! 

“Desolation, death, rum, the mighty shall fall— 
Lamentation and woe reign in Malwood’s wide hall! 
Those leaves shall all fade in the winter’s rude blast. 
And thou shalt lie low ere the winter be past.’’ 

“ Thou liest, vile caitiff, ’tis false, by the rood, 

For know that the contract is seal’d with my blood, 
*Tis written, I never shall sleep in the tomb 
Till Cadenham’s oak in the winter shall bloom ! 

“ But say what art thou, strange, unsearchable thing, 
That dares to speak treason, and waylay a king?”— 

“ Know, monarch, I dwell in the beautiful bowers 
Of Eden, and poison I shed o’er the flowers. 

“ In darkness and storm o’er the ocean I sail, 

I ride on the breath of the night-rolling gale— 

I dwell in Vesuvius, ’mid torrents of flame. 

Unriddle my riddle, and tell me my name 1” 

O pale grew the monarch, and smote on his breast, 

For who was the prophet he wittingly guess’d : 

“ 0, Jesu-Maria /” lie tremblingly said, 

“ Bona Virgo /”—he gazed—but the vision had fled 

’Tis winter—the trees of the forest are bare. 

How keenly is blowing the chilly night air! 

The moonbeams shine brightly on hard-frozen flood. 
And William is riding thro’ Cadenham’s wood. 

Why looks he with dread on the blasted oak tree ? 
Saint Swithin ! what is it the monarch can see ? 
Prophetical sight! ’mid the desolate scene. 

The oak is array’d in the freshest of green I 

He thought of the contract, “ Thou’rt safe from th« 
tomb. 

Till Cadenham’s oak in the winter shall bloom 
He thought of the druid—“ The mighty shall fall. 
Lamentation and woe reign in Malwood’s wido nail." 


83 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


As he stood near the tree, To! a swift flying dart 
Hath struck the proud monarch, and pierc’d thro’ his 
neart; 

'Twas the deed of a friend, not the deed of a foe, 

For the arrow was aim’d at the breast of a roe. 

In Malwood is silent the light-hearted glee. 

The dance and the wassail, and wild revelrie; 

Its chambers are dreary, deserted, and lone. 

And the day of its greatness for ever hath flown. 

A weeping is heard in Saint Swithin’s huge pile— 

“ Dies Irae" resounds thro’ the sable-dight aisle— 

'Tis a dirge for the mighty, the mass lor the dead— 
The funeral anthem for William the Red ! 

Aquila. 


Pontoon. 

Described by a Writer in 1634. 

I will first take a survey of the long-con¬ 
tinued deformity in the shape of your city, 
which is of your buildings. 

Sure your ancestors contrived your nar- 
I row streets in the days of wheel-barrows, 
! before those greater engines, carts, were 
! invented. Is your climate so hot, that as 
you walk you need umbrellas of tiles to 
i intercept the sun ? or are your shambles so 
! empty, that you are afraid to take in fresh 
air, lest it should sharpen your stomachs ? 
Oh, the goodly landscape of Old Fish- 
street ! which, if it had not the ill luck to 
| be crooked, was narrow enough to have 
been your founder’s perspective ; and where 
the garrets, perhaps not for want of archi- 
' lecture, but through abundance of amity, 
are so narrow, that opposite neighbours 
may shake hands without stirring from 
home. Is unanimity of inhabitants in wide 
cities better exprest than by their coher¬ 
ence and uniformity of building, where 
streets begin, continue, and end, in a like 
stature and shape ?* But yours, as if they 
were raised in a general resurrection, where 
every man hath a several design, differ in 
all things that can make a distinction. 
Here stands one that aims to be a palace, 
and next it, one that professes to be a 
hovel; here a gitnt, there a dwarf; here 
slender, there broad ; and all most admi¬ 
rably different in faces, as well as in then- 
height and bulk. I was about to defy any 
Londoner, who dares to pretend there is so 
much ingenious correspondence in this 
•ity, as that he can show me one house like 


* If a disagreement of neighbours were to be inferred 
rora such a circumstance, what but an unfavourable 
nferer.ee would be drawn from our modern style of 
ft>-ehiieeture, as exemplified in Regent-street, where the 
houses are, as the leopard’s spots are described to be, 
two alike, and every one different.” 


another ; yet your houses seem to be re¬ 
versed and formal, being compared to the 
fantastical looks of the moderns, which 
have more ovals, niches, and angles, than 
in your custards, and are enclosed with 
pasteboard walls, like those of malicious 
Turks, who, because themselves are not im¬ 
mortal, and cannot dwell for ever where 
they build, therefore wish not to be at 
charge to provide such lastingness as may 
entertain their children out of the rain ; so 
slight and prettily gaudy, that if they could 
move, they would pass for pageants. It is 
your custom, wdiere men vary often the 
mode of their habits, to term the nation 
fantastical ; but where streets continually 
change fashion, you should make haste to 
chain up your city, for it is certainly mad. 

You would think me a malicious tra¬ 
veller, if I should still gaze on your mis¬ 
shapen streets, and take no notice of the 
beauty of your river, therefore I will pass 
the importunate noise of your watermen, 
(who snatch at fares, as if they were to 
catch prisoners, plying the gentry so unci¬ 
villy, as if they had never rowed any 
other passengers than bear-wards,) and 
now step into one of your peascod-boats, 
whose tilts are not so sumptuous as the 
roofs of gondolas; nor, when you are within, 
are you at the ease of a chaise-d-br as. 

The commodity and trade of your r ei 
belong to yourselves ; but give a stranger 
leave to share in the pleasure of it, which 
will hardly be in the prospect and freedom 
of air; unless prospect, consisting of 
variety, be made up with here a palace, 
there a wood-yard; here a garden, there 
a brewhouse ; here dwells a lord, there a 
dyer; and betweei both, duomo commune. 

If freedom of air be inferred in the liberty 
of the subject, where every private man 
hath authority, for his own profit, to smoke 
up a magistrate, then the air of your 
Thames is open enough, because it is 
equally free. I will forbear to visit your 
courtly neighbours at Wapping, not that 
it will make me giddy to shoot your bridge, 
but thai I am loath to describe the civil 
silence at Billingsgate, which is so great, 
as if the mariners were always landing to 
storm the harbour ; therefore, for brevity’s 
sake, I will put to shore again, though I 
should be so constrained, even without my 
galoshes, to land at Puddle-dock. 

I am now returned to visit your houses 
where the roofs are so low, that I presumed 
your ancestors were very mannerly, and 
stood bare to their wives; for 1 cannot dis¬ 
cern how they could wear their tiigli- 
crowned hats : yet I will enter, aud therein 


b 


84 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


oblige you much, wnen you know my aver¬ 
sion to a certain weed that governs amongst 
your coarser acquaintance, as much as 
lavender among your coarser linen; to 
which, in my apprehension, your sea-coal 
Smoke seems a very Portugal perfume. I 
should here hasten to a period, for fear of 
Suffocation, if 1 thought you so ungracious 
as to use it in public assemblies ; and yet [ 
see it grow so much in fashion, that rne- 
thinks your children begin to play with 
broken pipes instead of corals, to make 
way for their teeth. You will find my 
visit short; I cannot stay to eat with you, 
because your bread is too heavy, and you 
distrain the light substance of herbs. Your 
drink is too thick, and yet you are seldom 
over curious in washing your glasses. Nor 
will I lodge with you, because your beds 
seem no bigger than coffins ; and your cur¬ 
tains so short, as they will hardly serve to 
enclose your carriers in summer, and may 
be held, if taffata, to have lined your grand- 
sire’s skirts. 

I have now left your houses, and am 
passing through your streets, but not in a 
coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so 
narrow, that I took them for sedans upon 
wheels. Nor is it safe for a stranger to use 
them till the quarrel be decided, whether 
six of your nobles, sitting together, shall 
stop and give way to as many barrels of 
beer. Your city is the only metropolis 
in Europe, where there is wonderful dignity 
belonging to carts. 

I would now make a safe retreat, but 
that methinks l am stopped by one of your 
heroic games called foot-ball; which I con¬ 
ceive (under your favour) not very conve¬ 
niently civil in the streets, especially in 
such irregular and narrow roads as Crooked- 
lane. Yet it argues your coiirage, much 
like your military pastime of throwing at 
cocks; but your metal would be much 
magnified (since you have long allowed 
those two valiant exercises in the streets) 
were you to draw your archers from Fins¬ 
bury, and, during high market, let them 
shoot at butts in Cheapside. I have now 
no more to say, but what refers to a few 
private notes, which 1 shall give you in a 
whisper, when we meet in Moorfields, from 
whence (because the place was meant for 
public pleasure, and to show the munifi¬ 
cence of your city) I shall desire you to 
banish your laundresses and bleachers,whose 
acres of old linen make a show like the 
fields of Carthagena, when the five months’ 
shifts of the whole fleet are washed and 
spread.* 

• Sir W. Davenant. 


A FATHER’S HOME. 

For the Table Book. 

When oppress’d by the world, or fatigu’d with it* 
charms. 

My weary steps homeward I tread— 

’Tis there, midst the prattlers that fly to my arms, 

I enjoy purer pleasures instead. 

Hark ! the rap at the door is known as their dad’s, 
And rushing at once to the lock. 

Wide open it flies, while the lasses and lads 
Bid me welcome as chief of the flock. 

Little baby himself leaves the breast for a gaze 
Glad to join in th’ general joy, 

While with outstretched arms and looks of amaze 
He seizes the new purchas’d toy. 

Then Harry , the next, climbs the knee to engage 
His father’s attention again ; 

But Bob, springing forward almost in a rage. 

Resolves his own rights to maintain. 

Oh, ye vot’nes of pleasure and folly’s sad crew. 

From your midnight carousals depart I 
Look here for true joys, ever blooming and new. 

When I press both these boys to my heart 

Poor grimalkin purs softly—tl*> tea kettle sings, 

Midst glad faces and innocent hearts. 

Encircling my table as happy as kings, 

Right merrily playing their parts. 

And Bill (the sly rogue) takes a lump, when he’s able, 
Of sugar, so temptingly sweet, 

And, archly observing, hides under the table 
The spoil, till he’s ready to eat. 

While George , the big boy, talks of terrible “ sums” 

He perform’d so correctly at school; 

Bill leeringly tells, with his chin on his thumbs, 

“ He was whipt there for playing the fool!” 

This raises a strife, till in choleric mood 
Each ventures a threat to his brother, 

But their hearts are so good, let a stranger intrude, 
They’d fight to the last for each other. 

There Nan, the sweet girl, she that fags for the whol*, 
And keeps the young urchins in order. 

Exhibits, with innocence charming the soul, 

Her sister’s fine sampler and border. 

Kitty sings to me gaily, then chatting apace 
Helps her mother to darn or to stitch. 

Reminding me most of that gay laughing face 
Which once did my fond heart bewitch. 

While she I the dear partner of all my delight. 
Contrives them some innocent play ; 

Till, tired of all, in the silence of night, 

They dream the glad moments away. 

Oh, long may such fire-side scenes be iny lot I 
Ye children, be virtuous and true ! 

And think when I’m aged, alone in my cot, 

How I minister’d comfort to you. 

When my vigour is gone, and to manhood’s estata 
Ye all shall be happily grown, 

Live near me, and, anxious for poor father’s fate 
Show the world that you’re truly my own. 


85 







^tanmort CoH-ftousie. 


Its ornamental look, asd public use. 
Combine to render it worth observation. 


Our new toll-houses are deservedly the 
subject of frequent remark, on account of 
their beauty. The preceding engraving is 
intended to convey an idea of Stanmore- 
gate, which is one of the handsomest near 
! London. The top is formed into a large 
I lantern ; when illuminated, it is an im¬ 
portant mark to drivers in dark nights. 

It may be necessary to add, that the pre¬ 
sent representation was not destined to 
appear in this place ; but the indisposition 
of a gentleman engaged to assist in illus- 
rating this work, has occasioned a sudden 
disappointment. 


“ STATUTES ” AND “ MOPS.* 

To the Editor. 

S» ,—Although your unique and curious 
work, the Every-Day Book , abounds with 
very interesting accounts of festivals, fairs, 
wassails, wakes, and other particulars con¬ 
cerning our country manners, and will be 
prized by future generations as a rare and 


valuable collection of the pastimes and 
customs of their forefathers, still much oi 
the same nature remains to be related; 
and as I am anxious that the Country 
Statute, or Mop, (according to the version 
of the country people generally,) should be 
snatched from oblivion, I send you a de¬ 
scription of this custom, which, I hope, will 
be deemed worthy a place in the Table 
Book. I had waited to see if some one 
more competent to a better account than 
myself would achieve the task, when that 
short but significant word Finis, attached 
to the Every-Day Book , arouses me from 
further delay, and I delineate, as well as 1 
am able, scenes which, but for that work, 

I possibly should have never noticed. 

Some months ago I solicited the assist¬ 
ance of a friend, a respectable farmer, 
residing at Wootton, in Warwickshire, who 
not only very readily promised to give me 
every information he possessed on the sub¬ 
ject, but proposed that I should pass a 
week at his farm at the time these Statutes j 
were holding. So valuable an opportunity 


l 

























































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


of visiting them and making my own obser¬ 
vations, I, of course, readily embraced. Be¬ 
fore I proceed to lay before you the results, 
it may be as well, perhaps, to give some¬ 
thing like a definition of the name applied 
to this peculiar custom, as also when and 
for what purpose the usage was established. 

* Statutes,” or “ Statute Sessions,” otherwise 
called “ Petit Sessions,” are meetings, in 
every hundred of each shire in England where 
they are held, to which the constables and 
others, both householders and servants, 
repair for the determining of differences 
between masters and servants; the rating, 
by the sheriff or magistrates, of wages for 
the ensuing year; and the bestowing of 
such people in service as are able to 
serve, and refuse to seek, or cannot get 
masters. 

The first act of parliament for regulating 
servants’ wages passed in the year 1351, 
25th Edward II[. At an early period 
labourers were serfs, or slaves, and con¬ 
sequently there was no law upon the sub¬ 
ject. The immediate cause of the act of 
Edward III. was that plague which wasted 
Europe from 1347 to 1349, and destroyed 
a great proportion of its inhabitants. The 
consequent scarcity of labourers, and the 
high price demanded for labour, caused 
those who employed them to obtain legis¬ 
lative enactments, imposing fines on all 
who gave or accepted more than a stipu¬ 
lated sum. Since that period there have 
been various regulations of a similar nature. 
By the 13th of Richard II. the justices of 
every county were to meet once a year, 
between Easter and Michaelmas, to regu¬ 
late, according to circumstances, the rates 
of wages of agricultural servants for the 
year ensuing, and cause the same to be 
proclaimed. But though this power was 
confirmed to the justices by the 5th of 
Elizabeth, this part of the custom of Sta¬ 
tute Sessions is almost, it not quite, fallen 
into disuse. It is probable that in the years 
immediately succeeding the first enactment 
the population was so restored as to cause the 
laws to be relaxed, though they still remain 
as an example of the wisdom of past ages. 
However this may be, it is certain, that all 
that is at present understood by “ Statutes, ’ 
or, as the vulgar call them, “ Mops,’ is the 
assembling of masters and servants, the for¬ 
mer to seek the latter, and the latter to 
obtain employment of the former. It is un¬ 
doubtedly a mutual accommodation ; for 
although tne servants now rate and ask what 
wages they think fit, still they have an 
opportunity of knowing how wages are 
os'-jally going, and the masters have hun¬ 


dreds, and, in some cases, thousands of 
servants to choose from. 

The “ Statute” I first attended was held 
at Studley, in Warwickshire, at the latter 
end of September. On arriving, between 
twelve and one o’clock, at the part of the 
Alcester road where the assembly was held, 
the place was filling very fast by groups of 
persons of almost all descriptions from 
every quarter. Towards three o’clock there 
must have been many thousands present. 
The appearance of the whole may be pretty 
accurately portrayed to the mind of those 
who have witnessed a country fair; the 
sides of the roads were occupied with stalls 
for gingerbread, cakes, &c., general assort¬ 
ments of hardware, japanned goods, wag¬ 
goner’s frocks, and an endless variety of 
wearing apparel, suitable to every class, 
from the farm bailiff, or dapper footman, 
to the unassuming ploughboy, or day-la¬ 
bourer. 

The public-houses were thoroughly full, 
not excepting even the private chambers. 
The scene out of doors was enlivened, here 
and there, by some wandering minstrel, or 
fiddler, round whom stood a crowd of men 
and boys, who, at intervals, eagerly joined 
to swell the chorus of the song. Although 
there was as large an assemblage as could 
be well remembered, both of masters and 
servants, I was given to understand that 
there was very little hiring. This might 
happen from a twofold cause; first, on ac¬ 
count of its being one of the early Statutes, 
and, secondly, from the circumstance of the 
servants asking what was deemed (consi¬ 
dering the pressure of the times) exorbitant 
wages. The servants were, for the most 
part, bedecked in their best church-going 
clothes. The men also wore clean white 
frocks,and carried in their hats some emblem 
or insignia of the situation they had been 
accustomed to or were desirous to fill: for 
instance, a waggoner, or ploughboy, had a 
piece of whipcord in his hat, some of it 
ingeniously plaited in a variety of ways 
and entwined round the hatband; a cow¬ 
man, after the same manner, had some 
cow-hair ; and to those already mentioned 
there was occasionally added a piece of 
sponge; a shepherd had wool; a gardener 
had flowers, &c. &c. 

The girls wishing to be hired were in a 
spot apart from the men and boys, and all 
stood not unlike cattle at a fair waiting for 
dealers. Some of them held their hands be¬ 
fore them, with one knee protruding, (like 
soldiers standing at ease,) and never spoke, 
save when catechised and examined by 9 
master or mistress as to the work they h.i* 


87 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


Seen accustomed to; and ihen you would 
scarce suppose they had learned to say 
anything but “ Ees, sur,” or “ No, sur,” 
for these were almost the only expressions 
that fell from their lips. Others, on the 
contrary, exercised no small degree of self- 
sufficient loquacity concerning their abili¬ 
ties, which not unusually consisted of a good 
proportion of main strength, or being able 
to drive or follow a variety of kinds of 
plough. Where a master or mistress was 
engaged in conversation with a servant 
they were usually surrounded by a group, 
with their mouths extended to an angle of 
near forty-five degrees, as if to catch the 
sounds at the aperture; this in some, per¬ 
haps, was mere idle curiosity, in others, 
from desire to know the wages asked and 
given, as a guide for themselves. I observ¬ 
ed a seeming indifference about the servants 
in securing situations. They appeared to 
require a certain sum for wages, without 
reference to any combination of circum¬ 
stances or the state of the times ; and how¬ 
ever exorbitant, they rarely seemed dispos¬ 
ed to meet the master by proposing some¬ 
thing lower; they would stand for some 
time and hear reasons why wages should 
be more moderate, and at the conclusion, 
when you would suppose they were either 
willing, in some measure, to accede to the 
terms, or to offer reasons why they should 
not, yon were mortified to know, that the 
usual answer was, u Yo’ll find me yarn it, 
sur,” or “ I conna gue for less.” 

When a bargain is concluded on at a 
“ Statute,” it is the custom to ratify it im¬ 
mediately, and on the spot, by the master 
presenting to the servant what is termed 
“ earnest money,” which is usually one 
shilling, but it varies according to circum¬ 
stances ; for instance, if a servant agrees to 
come for less than he at first asked, it is, 
perhaps, on the condition that his earnest 
is augmented, probably doubled or trebled, 
as may be agreed on. 

The contract arises upon the hiring: if 
the hiring be general, without any particu¬ 
lar time limi'ted, the law construes it to be 
hiring for one year; but' the contract may 
be made for any longer or shorter period. 
Many farmers are wary enough to hire 
their servants for fifty-one weeks only, 
which prevents thern having any claim 
upon that particular parish in case of dis¬ 
tress, &c. We frequently find disputes 
between two parishes arising out of Statute- 
hirings brought to the assizes or sessions 
for settlement. 

When the hiring is over, the emblems in 
he hats are exchanged for ribbons of al¬ 


most every hue. Some retire to the neigh¬ 
bouring grounds to have games at bowls, 
skittles, or pitching, &c. &c., whilst tha 
more unwary are fleeced of their money by 
the itinerant Greeks and black legs with 
E. O. tables, pricking in the garter, the 
three thimbles Sc c. &c. These tricksters 
seldom fail to rea p abundant harvests at 
the Statutes. Towards evening each lad 
seeks his lass, and they hurry off to spend the 
night at the public-houses, or, as is the 
case in some small villages, at private 
houses, which, on these occasions, are 
licensed for the time being. 

To attempt to delineate the scenes that 
now present themselves, would on my pail 
be presumption indeed. It rather requires 
the pencil of Hogarth to do justice to this 
varied picture. Here go round the 

“ Song and dance, and mirth and glee 

but I caunot add, with the poet, 

“ In one continued round of harmony 

for, among such a mingled mass, it is rare 
but that in some part discord breaks in 
upon the rustic amusements of the peace¬ 
ably inclined. The rooms of the several 
houses are literally crammed, and usually 
remain so throughout the night, unless they 
happen to be under restrictions from the 
magistrates, in which case the houses are 
shut at a stated hour, or the license risked. 
Clearances, however, are not easily effected 
At a village not far from hence, it has, 
ere no\V, been found necessary to disturb 
the reverend magistrate from his peacefu. 
slumbers, and require his presence to quell 
disturbances that almost, as a natural con 
sequence, ensue, from the landlords and 
proprietors of the houses attempting to 
turn out guests, who, under the influence ol 
liquor, pay little regard to either landlord 
or magistrate. The most peaceable way of 
dealing, is to allow them to remain till the 
morning dawn breaks in and warns thern 
home. 

The time for Statute-hiring commencej 
about the beginning of September, and 
usually closes before old Michael mas-day, 
that being the day on which servants enter 
on their new services, or, at Last, quit then 
old ones. Yet there are some few Statutes 
held after this time, which are .significantly 
styled “ Runaway Mops ;” one of this kind 
is held at Henley-in-Arden, on the 29 th of 
October, being also St. Luke’s fair. Three 
others are held at Southam, in Warwick¬ 
shire, on the three successive Mondays 
after old Michaelmas-day. To these Sta¬ 
tutes all repair, who, from one cause oi 
otl er, decline to go to their new places, 


88 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


together with others who had not been for¬ 
tunate enough to obtain situations. Mas¬ 
ters, however, consider it rather hazardous to 
hire at these Statutes, as they are in danger 
of engaging with servants already hired, 
who capriciously refuse to go to their em¬ 
ployment; and if any person hire or retain 
a servant so engaged, the first hirer has his 
action for damages against the master and 
servant; yet, if the new master did not 
know his servant had been lured before, no 
action will lie against him, except he 
refuse to give him up on information and 
demand. Characters are sometimes requir¬ 
ed by the master hiring ; and these, to the 
great detriment of society, are given in 
such a loose and unreserved manner, that 
(to use the language of the author of the 
Rambler) you may almost as soon depend 
on the circumstance of an acquittal at the 
Old Bailey by way of recommendation to 
a servant’s honesty, as upon one of these 
characters. 

If a master discovers that a servant is 
not capable of performing the stipulated 
work, or is of bad character, he may send 
the servant to drink the “ earnest money 
and custom has rendered this sufficient to 
dissolve the contract. On the other hand, 
if a servant has been deceived by the mas¬ 
ter in any particular, a release is obtained 
by returning the “ earnest.” If, however, 
there is no just ground of complaint, it is 
at the master’s option to accept it, and vice 
versa. The Statutes I have visited for the 
purpose of gaining these particulars are 
Stud ley, Shipston-on-Stour, and Aston- 
Cantlow, all in Warwickshire. I observed 
no particular difference either in the busi¬ 
ness or the diversions of the day, but Stud- 
ley was by far the largest. At Stratford-on- 
Avon, and some other places, there is bul; 
roasting, tkc v which, of course, adds to the 
amusement and frolic of the visitors. 

I believe I have now pretty well exhaust¬ 
ed my notes, and I should not Itave been 
thus particular, but that 1 believe Statute¬ 
hiring is a custom peculiar to England. I 
shall conclude by making an extract from 
Isaac Bickerstaffe’s “ Love in a Village.” 
In scenes the 10th and ltt.h there is a green, 
with the prospect of a village, and the 
representation of a Statute, and the follow¬ 
ing conversation, &c. takes place :— 

Hodge. This way, your worship, this 
way. Why don’t you stand aside there ? 
Here’s his worship a-coming. 

Countrymen. His worship ! 

Justice fCuodcock. Fy ! fy! what a 
crowd’s this! Odds, I’ll put some of them 


in the stocks. ( Striking a fellow.) Stand 
out of the way, sirrah. 

Hodge. Now, your honour, now tne 
sport will come. The gut-scrapers are 
here, and some among them are going to 
sing and dance. Why, there’s not the Tike 
of our Statute, mun, in five counties; others 
are but fools to it. 

Servant Man. Come, good people, make 
a ring ; and stand out, fellow-servants, as 
many of you as are willing and able to 
bear a-bob. We’ll let my masters and 
mistresses see we can do something at 
least; if they won’t hire us it sha’n’t be 
our fault. Strike up the Servants’ Medley. 

AIR. 

Housemaid. 

I pray, gentles, list to me, 

I’m young and strong, and clean, you see; 

I'll not turn tail to any she, 

For work that’s in the country. 

Of all your house the charge I take, 

I wash, I scrub, I brew, I bake; 

And more can do than here I’ll speak, 

Depending on your bounty. 

Footman. 

Behold a blade, who knows his trade. 

In chamber, hall, and entry; 

And what though here I now appear, 

I’ve served the best of gentry. 

A footman would you have, 

I can dress, and comb, and shave; 

For I a handy lad am: 

On a message I can go, 

And slip a billet-doux, 

With your humble servant, madam. 

Coohmaid. 

Who wants a good cook my hand they must cross; 

For plain wholesome dishes I’m ne’er at a loss; 

And what are your soups, your ragouts, and your sauca, 
Compared to old English roast beef? 

Carter. 

If you want a young man with a true honest heart, 
Who knows how to manage a plough and a cart, 

Here’s one to your purpose, come take me and try; 
You’ll say you ne’er met with a better than I, 

Geho, dobin, &c. 

Chorus. 

My masters and mistresses hitner repair, 

What servants you want you’ll find in our fair; 

Men and maids fit for all sorts of stations there be, 

And as for the wages we sha’n’t disagree. 

Presuming that these memoranda mr>y 
amuse a number of persons who, chietiy 
living in large towns and cities, have no 
opportunity of being otherwise acquainted 
with “ Statutes,” or “ Mops,” in country- 
places, I am; &c. 

Birmingham. 


89 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


HAM AND STILTON. 

For the Table Book . 

The Poet’s Epistle of Thanks to a 
Friend at Birmingham. 

“ Perlege Maeonio cantatas carmine ranas, 

Et frontem nugi, solvere disce meis.” 

Masv. 


Dear Friend,—I feel constrain’d to say, 

The present sent the other day 

Claims my best thanks, and while design'd 

To please the taste, it warm’d my mind. 

Nor, wonder not it should inspire 
Within my oreast poetic fire I 

The Cheese seem’d like some growing state. 
Compos’d of little folks and great; 

Though we denominate them mites. 

They call each other Stiltonites. 

And ’tis most fit, where’er we live. 

The land our epithet should give: 

Romans derive their name from Rome, 

And Turks, you know, from Turkey come. 

Gazing with “ microscopic eye ” 

O’er Stilton land, I did espy 

Such wonders, as would make those stare 

Who never peep’d or travell’d there. 

The country where this race reside 
Abounds with crags on ev’ry side : 

Its geographic situation 
Is under constant variation; 

Now hurried up, then down again— 

No fix’d abode can it maintain: 

And, like the Lilliputian climj. 

We read about in olden time. 

Huge giants compass it about, 

Who dig within, and cut without. 

And at a mouthful—direful fate l 
A city oft depopulate I 

And, then, in Stilton, you must know. 

There is a spot, call’d Rotten-row ; 

A soil more marshy than the rest. 

Therefore by some esteem’d the best. 

The natives here, whene’er they dine, 

Drink nothing but the choicest wine; 

Which through each street comes flowing down. 
Like water in New Sarum’s town. 

In such a quarter, you may guess. 

The leading vice is drunkenness. 

Home hither any hour of day, 

And you shall see whole clusters lay 
Reeling and floundering about, 

As though it were a madman’s rout. 

Those who dwell nearer the land’s end, 

Where rarely the red show'rs descend. 

Are in their turns corporeal 
More sober and gymnastical 
Meandering in kindred dust, 

They gauge, and with the dry-rot burst, 

For we may naturally think. 

They live not long who cannofrdrink. 


Alas! poor Stilton ! where’s the mtui 
To sing thy downfall will refuse? 

Melpomene, in mournful verse. 

Thy dire destruction will rehearse: 

Comus himself shall grieve and weep. 

As notes of woe his gay lyre sweep; 

For who among thy countless band 
The fierce invaders can withstand ? 

Nor only foreign foes are thine— 

Children thou hast, who undermine 
Thy massive walls that ’girt thee round. 

And ev’ry corner seems unsound. 

A few more weeks, and we shall see 
Stilton, the fam’d—will cease to be I 

Before, however, I conclude, 

I wish to add, that gratitude 
Incites me to another theme 
Beside coagulated cream. 

’Tis not about the village Ham, 

Nor yet the place call’d Petersham — 

Nor more renowned Birmingham: 

Nor is it fried or Friar Bacon, 

The Muse commands me verse to make oo * 

Nor pigmies, (as the poet feigns,) 

A people once devour’d by cranes. 

Of these I speak not—my intention 
Is something nearer home to mention; 

Therefore, at once, for pig’s hind leg 
Accept my warmest thanks, I beg. 

The meat was of the finest sort. 

And worthy of a lish at court. 

Lastly, I gladly would express 
The grateful feelings I possess 
For such a boon—th’ attempt is 7ain, 

And hence in wisdom I refrain 
F rom saying more than what you see— 

Farewell! sincerely yours, 

B. C. 

To E. T. Esq. 

Jan. 1827. 

LOVES OF THE NEGROES. 

At New Paltz, United States. 

Phillis Schoonmaker v. Cuff Hogeboon. 

This was an action for a breach of the 
marriage promise, tried before ’squire De 
Witt, justice of the peace and quorum 
The parties, as their names indicate, were 
black, or, as philanthropists would say, 
coloured folk. Counsellor Van Shaick ap¬ 
pealed on behalf of the lady. He recapi¬ 
tulated the many verdicts which had been 
given of late in. favour of injured inno¬ 
cence, much to the honour and gallantry ol 
an American jury. It was time to put an 
end to these faithless professions, to these 
cold-hearted delusions ; it was time to put 
a curb upon the false tongues and false 
hearts of pretended lovers, who, with honied 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


accents, only woo’d to ruin, and only pro¬ 
fessed to deceive. The worthy counsellor 
trusted that no injurious impressions would 
be made on the minds of the jury by the 
colour of his client— 

“ ’Tis not a set of features. 

This tincture of the skin , that we admire.” 

She was black, it was true; so was the ho¬ 
noured wife of Moses, the most illustrious 
and inspired of prophets. Othello, the 
celebrated Moor of Venice, and the victo¬ 
rious general of her armies, was black, yet 
the lovely Desdemona saw “ Othello’s visage 
in his mind.” In modern times, we might 
quote his sable majesty of Hayti, or, since 
that country had become a republic, the 
gallant Boyer.—He could also refer to Rhio 
Rhio, king of the Sandwich Islands, his 
copper-coloured queen, and madame Poki, 
so hospitably received, and fed to death by 
their colleague the king of England—nay, 
the counsellor was well advised that the 
brave general Sucre, the hero of Ayacucho, 
was a dark mulatto. What, then, is colour 
in estimating the griefs of a forsaken and 
ill-treated female ? She was poor, it was 
true, and in a humble sphere of life; but 
love levels all distinctions; the blind god 
was no judge, and no respecter of colours ; 
his darts penetrated deep, not skin deep; 
his client, though black, was flesh and 
blood, and possessed affections, passions, 
resentments, and sensibilities; and in this 
case she confidently threw herself upon the 
generosity of a jury of freemen—of men of 
the north, as the friends of the northern 
president would say, of men who did not 
live in Missouri, and on sugar plantations ; 
and from such his client expected just and 
liberal damages. 

Phillis then advanced to the bar, to give 
her testimony. She was, as her counsel 
represented, truly made up of flesh and 
blood, being what is called a strapping 
wench, as black as the ace of spades. She 
was dressed in the low Dutch fashion, 
which has not varied for a century, linsey- 
woolsey petticoats, very short, blue worsted 
stockings, leather shoes, with a massive 
pair of silver buckles, bead ear-rings, her 
woolly hair combed, and face sleek and 
greasy. There was no “ dejected ’haviour 
of visage”—no broken heart visible in her 
face—she looked fat and comfortable, as if 
she had sustained no damage by the perfidy 
of her swain. Before she was sworn, the 
court called the defendant, who came from 
among the crowd, and stood respectfully 
oefore the bench. Cuff was a good-looking 
young fellow, with a tolerably smartish 


dress, and appeared as if he had been in 
the metropolis taking lessons of perfidious 
lovers—he cast one or two cutting looks at 
Phillis, accompanied by a significant turn 
up of the nose, and now and then a con¬ 
temptuous ejaculation of Eh !—Umph!— 
Ough!—which did not disconcert the fair 
one in the least, she returning the compli¬ 
ment by placing her arms a-kimbo, and 
surveying her lover from head to foot. The 
court inquired of Cuff whether he had 
counsel ? “ No, massa, (he replied) I tell 

my own ’tory—you see massa ’Squire, I 
know de gentlemen of de jury berry veil— 
dere is massa Teerpenning, of Little ’So- 
phus, know him berry veil—I plough for 
him;—den dere is massa Traphagan, of our 
town—how he do massa ?—ah, dere massa 
Topper, vat prints de paper at Big ’Sophus ! 
—know him too;—dere is massa Peet 
Steenberg—know him too—he owe me lit¬ 
tle money :—I know ’em all massa ’Squire; 
—I did go to get massa Lucas to plead for! 
me, but he gone to the Court of Error, at 
Albany;—Massa Sam Freer and massa 
Cockburn said they come to gib me good 
character, but I no see ’em here.” 

Cuff was ordered to stand aside, and 
Phillis was sworn. 

Plaintiff said she did not know how old 
she was; believed she was sixteen; she 
looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with 
Hons Schoonmaker; was brought up in the 
family. She told her case as pathetically 
as possible:— 

“ Massa ’Squire,” said she, “ I was gone 
up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on Shaun- 
gum mountain, to pile brush ; den Cuff, he 
vat stands dare, cum by vid de teem, he top 
his horses and say, ‘ How de do, Phillis r 
or, as she gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘ How 
gaud it mit you V ‘ Hail goot,’ said I; den 
massa he look at me berry hard, and say, 
Phillis, pose you meet me in the nite, ven de 
moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to 
say—den I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill—lie 
vent up de mountain, and I vent home; 
ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I 
say to myself, Phillis, pose you go down to 
de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. 
Well, massa ’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff 
sure enough, he told heaps of tings all 
about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, 
and other tings vat he got out of de play¬ 
house ven he vent down in the slope to 
New York, and he ax’d me if I’d marry 
him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat 
preached in Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. 

I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say 
no, ‘ By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis 
den he gib me dis here as earnest.”—Philip 


91 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


oere drew from her huge pocke: an im¬ 
mense pair of scissars, a jack knife, and a 
wooden pipe curiously carved, which she 
ottered as a testimony of the promise, and 
which was sworn to as the property of Cuff, 
w ho subsequently had refused to fulfil the 
contract. 

Cuff admitted that he had made her a 
kind of promise, but it was conditional. 
“ 1 told her, massa 'Squire, that she was a 
slave and a nigger, and she must wait till 
the year 27, then all would be free, cording 
to the new constitution; den she said, berry 
veil, I bill wait.” 

Phillis utterly denied the period of pro¬ 
bation ; it was, she said, to take place “ ben 
he got de new corduroy breeches from 
Cripplely Coon, de tailor; he owe three and 
sixpence, and massa Coon won’t let him 
hab ’em vidout de money: den Cuff he run 
away to Varsing; I send Coon Crook, de 
constable, and he find um at Shaudakin, 
and he king him before you, massa.” 

The testimony here closed. 

The court charged the jury, that although 
the testimony was not conclusive, nor the 
injury very apparent, yet the court was not 
warranted in taking the case out of the 
nands of thejury. A promise had evidently 
been made, and had been broken; some 
differences existed as to the period when 
the matrimonial contract was to have been 
fulfilled, and it was equally true and honour¬ 
able, as the court observed, that in 1327 
slavery was to cease in the state, and that 
fact might have warranted the defendant in 
the postponement; but of this there was 
no positive proof, and as the parties could 
neither read nor write, the presents might be 
construed into a marriage promise. The 
court could see no reason why these hum- 
f)le Africans should not, in imitation of 
their betters, in such cases, appeal to a jury 
for damages; but it was advisable not to 
make those damages more enormous than 
circumstances warranted, yet sufficient to 
act as a lesson to those coloured gentry, in 
their attempts to imitate fashionable in¬ 
fidelity. 

The jury brought in a verdict of “ Ten 
dollars, and costs, for the plaintiff.” 

The defendant not being able to pay, 
was committed to Kingston jail, a martyr 
to his own folly, and an example to all 
Others in like cases offending. 


THE RETROSPECT. 

I have not heard thy name for years; 

Thy memory ere thyself is dead; 

And even I forget the tears 
That once for thy lov’d sake were shed. 

There was a time when thou didst seem 
The light and breath of life to me— 

When, e’en in thought, I could not dream 
That less than mine thou e’er could be : — 

Yet now it is a chance that brought 
Thy image to my heart again ; 

A single flower recall’d the thought— 

Why is it still so full of pain ? 

The jasmine, round the casement twin’d. 
Caught mine eye in the pale moonlight • 

It broke my dream, and brought to mind 
Another dream—another night. 

As then, I by the casement leant, 

As then, the silver moonlight shone 
But not, as then, another bent 
Beside me—I am now alone. 

The sea is now between us twain 
As wide a gulf between each heart; 

Never can either have again 
An influence on the other’s part. 

Our paths are different; perchance mute 
May seem the sunniest of the two : 

The lute, which once was only thine, 

Has other aim, and higher view. 

My song has now a wider scope 
Than when its first tones breath’d thy name; 
My heart has done with Love—and hope 
Turn’d to another idol—Fame. 

’Tis but one destiny ; one dream 
Succeeds another—like a wave 
Following its bubbles—till their gleam 
Is lost, and ended in the grave. 

Why am I sorrowful ? ’Tis not 
One thought of thee has brought the tear 
In sooth, thou art so much forgot, 

I do not even wish thee here 

Both are so chang’d, that did we meet 
We might but marvel we had lov’d: 

What made our earliest dream so sweet ?— 
Illusions—long, long since remov’d. 

1 sorrow—but it is to know 

How still some fair deceit unweaves_ 

To think how all of joy below 
Is only joy while it deceives. 

I sorrow—but it is to feel 
Changes which my own mind hath told l— 
What, though time polishes the steel, 

Alas ! it is less bright than cold. 


92 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


..«▼* more smiles, R".' lewer tears ; 

Bu f tears are now restrain'd for shame: 

Task-work the smiles my lip now wears. 

That once like rain and sunshine came. 

Where is the sweet credulity. 

Happy in that fond trust it bore. 

Which never dream’d the time would be 
When it could hope and trust no more ? 

Affection, springing warmly forth— 

Light word, light laugh, and lighter care 

Life’s afternoon is little worth— 

The dew and warmth of morning air. 

I would not live again love’s hour ; 

But fain I would again recall 

The feelings which upheld its power— 

The truth, the hope, that made it thrall. 

I would renounce the worldliness. 

Now too much with my heart and me ; 

In one trust more, in oije doubt less. 

How much of happiness would be !— 

Vainer than vain 1 Why should I ask 
Life’s sweet but most deceiving part ? 

Alasl the bloom upon the cheek 
Long, lopg outlives that of the heart. 

L. E. L.—Monthly Magazine. 


timber in bogs. 

It is stated in the second report of the 
commissioners on the bogs of Ireland, that 
three distinct growths of timber, covered 
by three distinct masses of bog, are dis¬ 
covered on examination. But whether these 
morasses were at first formed by the de¬ 
struction of whole forests, or merely by the 
stagnation of water in places where its 
current was choked by the tall of a few 
trees, and by accumulations of branches 
and leaves, carried down from the sur¬ 
rounding hills, is a question. 

Professor Davy is of opinion, that in 
many places where forests had grown un¬ 
disturbed, the trees on the outside of the 
woods grew stronger than the rest, from 
their exposure to the air and sun ; and that, 
when mankind attempted to establish them¬ 
selves near these forests, they cut down the 
large trees on their borders, which opened 
the internal part, where the trees were weak 
and slender, to the influence of the wind, 
which, as is commonly to be seen in such 
circumstances, had immediate power to 
sweep down the whole of the internal parts 
of the forest. The large timber obstructed 
the passage of vegetable recrement, and of 
earth falling towards the rivers ; the weak 
timber, in the internal part of the forest 
after it had fallen, soon decayed, and be¬ 
came the food of future vegetation. 


Mr. Kirwan observes, that whatever tree* 
are found in bogs, though the wood may he 
perfectly sound, the bark of the timber has 
uniformly disappeared, and the decomposi 
tion of this bark forms a considerable par* 
of the nutritive substance of morasses 
Notwithstanding this circumstance, tanning 
is not to be obtained in analysing bogs 
their antiseptic quality is however indispu¬ 
table, for animal and vegetable substances 
are frequently found at a great depth in 
bogs, without their seeming to have suffered 
any decay; these substances cannot have 
been deposited in them at a very remote 
period, because their form and texture is 
such as were common a few centuries ago. 
In 1786 there were found, seventeen feet 
below the surface of a bog in Mr. Kirwan’s 
district, a woollen coat of coarse, but even, 
network, exactly in the form of what is 
now called a spencer; a razor, with a 
wooden handle, some iron heads of arrows, 
and large wooden bowls, some only half 
made, were also found, with the remains of 
tinning tools: these were obviously the 
wreck of a workshop, which was probably 
situated on the borders of a forest. The 
coat was presented by him to the Antiqua¬ 
rian Society. These circumstances coun¬ 
tenance the supposition, that the encroach¬ 
ments of men upon forests destroyed the 
first barriers against the force of the wind, 
and that afterwards, according to sir H. 
Davy’s suggestion, the trees of weaker 
growth, which had not room to expand, or 
air and sunshine to promote their inciease, 
soon gave way to the elements. 


MODES OF SALUTATION. 

Greenlanders have none, and laugh at 
the idea of one person being inferior to 
another. 

Islanders near the Philippines take a 
person’s hand or foot, and rub it over their 
face. 

Laplanders apply their noses strongly 
against the person they salute. 

In New Guinea, they place leaves upon 
the head of those they salute. 

In the Straits of the Sound they raise 
the left foot of the person saluted, pass it 
gently over the right leg, and thence over 
the face. 

The inhabitants of the Philippines bend 
very low, placing their hands on their 
cheeks, and raise one foot in the air, with 
the knee bent. 

An Ethiopian takes the robe of another 
and ties it about him, sc as to leave his 
friend almost naked. 


93 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


The Japanese take off a slipper, and 
the people of Arracan their sandals, in the 
street, an i their stockings in the house, 
when they salute. 

Two Negro kings on the coast of Africa, 
salute by snapping the middle finger three 
times. 

The inhabitants of Carmene, when they 
would show a particular attachment, breathe 
a vein, and present the blood to their friend 
as a beverage. 

If the Chinese meet, after a long separa¬ 
tion, they fall on their knees, bend their 
face to the earth two or three times, and 
use many other affected modes. They have 
also a kind of ritual, or “academy of com¬ 
pliments," by which they regulate the num¬ 
ber of bows, genuflections, and words to 
be spoken upon any occasion. Ambassa¬ 
dors practise these ceremonies forty days 
before they appear at court. 

In Otaheite, they rub their noses toge¬ 
ther. 

The Dutch, who are considered as great 
eaters, have a morning salutation, common 
amongst all ranks, “ Smaakelyk eeten ?”— 
“ May you eat a hearty dinner.” Another 
is, “ Hoe vaart awe.”—“ How do you 
sail V* adopted, no doubt, in the early 
periods of the republic, when they were all 
navigators and fishermen. 

The usual salutation at Cairo is, “ How 
do you sweat ?” a dry hot skin being a 
sure indication of a destructive ephemeral 
fever. Some author has observed, in con¬ 
trasting the haughty Spaniard with the 
frivolous Frenchman, that the proud, steady 
gait and inflexible solemnity of the former, 
were expressed in his mode of salutation, 
“Come esta?”—“How do you stand?” 
whilst the “ Comment vous portez-vous V* 
“ How do you carry yourself?” was equally 
expressive of the gay motion and incessant 
action of the latter. 

The common salutation in the southern 
provinces of China, amongst the lower 
orders, is, “Ya fan?”—“Have you eaten 
your rice ?” 

In Africa, a young woman, an intended 
bride, brought a little water in a calabash, 
and kneeling down before her lover, de¬ 
sired him to wash his hand-s ; when he had 
done this, the girl, with a tear of joy spark¬ 
ling in her eyes, drank the water; this was 
considered as the greatest proof she could 
give of her fidelity and attachment. 


©mnt'ana. 

POETRY. 

For the Table Book 

The poesy of the earth, sea, air, and sky. 

Though death is powerful in course of time 
With wars and battlements, will never die. 

But triumph in the silence of sublime 
Survival. Frost, like tyranny, might climb 
The nurseling germs of favourite haunts ; the roots 
Will grow hereafter. Terror on the deep 
Is by the calm subdu’d, that Beauty e’en might crees 
On moonlight waves to coral rest. The fruits 
Blush in the winds, and from the branches leap 
To mossy beds existing in the ground. 

Stars swim unseen, through solar hemispheres. 

Yet in the floods of night, how brightly round 
The zone of poesy, they reflect the rolling years. 

P 


A Bad Sign. 

4 

During a late calling out of the North 
Somerset yeomanry, at Bath, the service o< 
one of them, a “ Batcome boy/’ was en¬ 
livened by a visit from his sweetheart; 
after escorting her over the city, and being 
fatigued with showing her what she had 
“ ne’er zeed in all her life,” he knocked 
loudly at the door of a house in the Cres¬ 
cent, against which a hatchment was 
placed, and on the appearance of the pow¬ 
dered butler, boldly ordered “ two glasses 
of scalded wine, as hot as thee canst make 
it.” The man, staring, informed him he 
could have no scalded wine there—’twas no 
public-house. “ Then dose thee head,” 
replied Somerset, “ what’st hang out thik 
there zign var.” 


INSCRIPTION 

For a Tomb to the Memory of Captaik 
Hewitson, of the Ship, Town of Ui.- 

V ERSTON. 

By James Montgomery , Esq. 

Weep for a seaman, honest and sincere. 

Not cast away, but brought to anchor here ; 

Storms had o erwhelm’d him. but the conscious 
Repented, and resign’d him to the grave: 

In harbour, safe from shipwreck, now he lies. 

Till Time’s last signal blazes through the skim t 
Refitted in a moment, then shall he 
Sail from this port on an eternal sea. 


















My ^n«ff=bop. 


He only who is “ noseless himself” will 
deem this a trifling article. My prime 
minister of pleasure is my snuff-box. The 
office grew out of my “ liking a pinch, now 
and then,” and carrying a bit of snuff, 
screwed up in paper, wherewith, some two 
or three times a day, I delighted to treat 
| myself to a sensation, and a sneeze. Had 
I kept a journal of my snuff-taking business 
from that time, it would have been as in- 
j structive as “ the life of that learned anti¬ 
quary, Elias Ashmole, Esq., drawn up by 
himself by way of diary in submitting 
which to the world, its pains-taking editor 
says, that such works “ let us into the secret 
history of the affairs of their several times, 
discover the springs of motion, and display 
many valuable, though minute circum¬ 
stances, overlooked or unknown to our 
general historians; and, to conclude all, 
satiate our largest curiosity.” A compa¬ 
rative view of the important annals of Mr. 
Ashmole, and some reminiscent incidents 


of my snuff-taking, I reserve for my auto¬ 
biography. 

To manifest the necessity of my present 
brief undertaking, I beg to state, that I 
still remain under the disappointment ol 
drawings, complained of in the former ! 
sheet. I resorted on this, as on all difficult 
occasions, to a pinch of snuff; and, having i 
previously resolved on taking “ the first 
thing that came uppermost,” for an engrav¬ 
ing and a topic, my hand first fell on the 
top of my snuff-box. If the reader be 
angry because I have told the truth, it is 
no more than I expect; for, in nine cases 
out of ten, a preference is given to a pre¬ 
tence, though privily known to be a false¬ 
hood by those to whom it is offered. 

As soon as I wear out one snuff-box I 
get another—a silver one, and I, parted 
company long ago. My customary boxes 
have been papier-mache, plain black : fci 
if I had any figure on the lid it Wi»3 sus¬ 
pected to be some hidden device; &n j 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


95 


H 



















































j 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


L 


answer of direct negation was a ground of 
doubt, offensively expressed by an in¬ 
sinuating smile, or the more open rudeness 
of varied questions. This I could only 
resist by patience; but the parlement excise 
on that virtue was more than I could afford, 
and therefore my choice of a black box. 
The last of that colour I had worn out, at 
a season when I was unlikely to have more 
than three or four visitors woith a pinch of 
snuff, and I then bought this box, because 
it was two-thirds cheaper than the former, 
and because I approved the pictured orna¬ 
ment. While the tobacconist was securing 
my shilling, he informed me tnat tne figure 
had utterly excluded it from the choice of 
every one who had noticed it. My selection 
was agreeable to him in a monied view, 
yet, both he, and his man, eyed the box 
so unkindly, that I fancied they extended 
their dislike to me; and I believe they did. 
Of the few who have seen it since, it has 
been favourably received by only one—my 
little Alice—who, at a year old, prefers 
it before all others for a plaything, and 
even accepts it as a substitute for myself, 
when I wish to slip away from her caresses. 
The elder young ones call it the “ ugly 
old man,” but she admires it, as the in¬ 
nocent infant, in the story-book, did the 
harmless snake, with whom he daily shared 
his bread-and-milk breakfast. I regard it 
as the likeness of an infirm human being, 
who, especially requiring comfort and pro¬ 
tection, is doomed to neglect and insult 
from childhood to the grave ; and all this 
fiom no self-default,but the accident of birth 
—as if the unpurposed cruelty of nature 
were a warrant for man’s perversion and 
wickedness. Of the individual I know 
nothing, save what the representation seems 
to tell—that he lives in the world, and is 
not of it. His basket, with a few pamphlets 
for sale, returns good, in the shape of 
knowledge, to evil doers, who, as regards 
himself, are not to be instructed. His up¬ 
ward look is a sign—common to these 
afflicted ones—of inward hope of eternal 
mercy, in requital for temporal injustice : 
besides that, and his walking-staff, he 
appears to have no other support on earth. 
The intelligence of his patient features 
would raise desire, were he alive and before 
me, to learn by what process he gained the 
understanding they express : his face is not 
more painful, and I think scarcely less wise 
than Locke’s, if we may trust the portrait 
of that philosopher. In the summer, after 
a leisure view of the Dulwich gallery for 
the first time, I found myself in the quiet 
parlour of a little-frequented road-side 


house, enjoying the recollections of a few 
glorious pictures in that munificent exhi¬ 
bition; while pondering with my box ic 
my hand, the print on its lid diverted me 
into a long reverie on what he, whom it 
represented, might have been under other 
circumstances, and I felt not alone on the 
earth while there was another as lonely 
Since then, this “ garner for my grain” has 
been worn out by constant use; with 
every care, it cannot possibly keep its ser¬ 
vice a month longer. I shall regret the 
loss: for its little Deformity has been my 
frequent and pleasant companion in many 
a solitary hour;—the box itself is the 
only one I ever had, wherein simulated or 
cooling friendship has not dipped. 




#amcfe paps. 

No. IV. 


[From “All Fools’’ a Comedy by George 
Chapman: 1605.] 


Love's Panegyric. 
’tis Nature’s second Sun, 


Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines ; 
And as without the Sun, the world's Great Eye, 
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature, 
Are given in vain to man ; so without Love 
All beauties bred in women are in vain. 

All virtues born in men lie buried; 

For Love informs them as the Sun doth colours • 
And as the Sun, reflecting his warm beams 
Against the earth, begets all fruits and flowers . 
So Love, fair shining in the inward man, 

Brings forth in him the honourable fruits 
Of valour, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts. 
Brave resolution, and divine discourse. 


Love with Jealousy. 


such Love is like a smoky fire 


In a cold morning. Though the fire be chearful, 
Yet is the smoke so foul and cumbersome, 
’Twere better lose the fire than find the smoke. 


Bailiffs routed. 

I walking in the place where men’s Law Suits 
Are heard and pleaded, not so much as dreaming 
Of any such encounter ; steps me forth 
Their valiant Foreman with the word “ I 'rest you. 
I made no more ado but laid these paws 
Close on his shoulders, tumbling.him to earth ; 

And there sat he on his posteriors 
Like a baboon : and turning me about, 

I strait espied the whole troop issuing on me. 

I step me back, and drawing my old friend ner*. 
Made to the midst of ’em, and all unable 
To endure the shock, all rudely fell in rout. 


96 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Vml down the stairs they ran in such a fury, 

4s meeting with a troop of Lawyers there, 

Mann’d by their Clients (some with ten, some with 

twenty, 

•Some live, some three ; he that had least had one), 

I pon the stairs, they bore them down afore them. 

Hut such a rattling then there was amongst them, 

Of ravish’d Declarations, Replications, 

Rejoinders, and Petitions, all their books 
And writings torn, and trod on, and some lost. 

That the poor Lawyers coining to the Bar 
Could say nought to the matter, but instead 
Were fain to rail and talk beside their books, 

Without all order. 


[From the “ Late Lancashire Witches,” a 
Comedy, by Thomas Hey wood.] 

A Household Bewitched. 

My Uncle has of late become the sole 

LLscourse of all the country ; for of a man respected 

As master of a govern’d family, 

1 tie House (^as if the ridge were fix’d below, 

And groundsils lifted up to make the roof) 

All now’s turn’d topsy-turvy, 

1 n such a retrograde and preposterous way 
As seldom hath been heard of, I think never. 

The Good Man 

In all obedience kneels unto his Son ; 

lie with an austere brow commands his Father. 

The Wife presumes not in the Daughter’s sight 
Without a prepared curtsy; the Girl she 
Kxpects it as a duty; chides her Mother, 

Who quakes and trembles at each word she speaks. 
And what’s as strange, the Maid—she domineers 
(Per her young Mistress, who is awed by her. 

The Son, to whom the Father creeps and bends. 
Stands in as much fear of the groom his Man 1 
All in such rare disorder, that in some 
As it breeds pity, and in others wonder. 

So in the most part laughter. It is thought, 

This comes by Witchcraft. 


[From “Wit in a Constable,” a Comedy, 
by Iienry Glapthorn.J 

Books. 

Collegian. Did you, ere we departed from the College, 
O'erlook my Library ? 

Servant. Yes, Sir ; and I find, 

Altho’ you tell me Learning is immortal. 

The paper and the parchment ’tis contain’d in 
Savours of much mortality. 

The moths have eaten more 
Authentic Learning, than would nchly furnish 
A huadred country pedant* ; yet the worms 
4xe not one letter wiser. 

C. L. 


TIIE TURK IN CHEAPSIDE 
For the Table Book. 

To Mr. Charles Lamb. 

I have a favour to ask of you. My desire 
is this: I would fain see a stream from thy 
Ilippocrene flowing through the pages of 
the Table Book. A short article on the old 
Turk, who used to vend rhubarb in the 
City, I greatly desiderate. Methinks you 
would handle the subject delightfully. They 
tell us he is gone- 

We have not seen him for some time 
past—Is he really dead ? Must we hereafter 
speak of him only in the past tense? You 
are said to have divers strange items in your 
brain about him— Vent them I beseech 
vou. 

Poor Mummy !—IIow many hours hath 
he dreamt away on the sunny side of Cheap, 
with an opium cud in his cheek, mutely 
proffering his diug to the way-farers ! That 
deep-toned bell above him, doubtless, hath 
often brought to his recollection the loud 
Allah-il-Allahs to wiiich he listened hereto- 
foie in his fatherland—the city of minaret 
and mosque, old Constantinople. Will he 
never again be greeted by the nodding 
steeple of Bow ?—Perhaps that ancient bel¬ 
dame, with her threatening head and loud 
tongue, at length eflrayed the sallow being 
out of existence. 

Hath his soul, in truth, echapped from 
that swarthy cutaneous case of which it was 
so long a tenant ? Hath he glode over that 
gossamer bridge which leads to the para¬ 
dise of the prophet of Mecca? Doth he 
puisiie his old calling among the faithful ? 
Are the blue-eyed beauties (those living 
diamonds) who hang about the neck of Ma¬ 
homet ever qualmish? Did the immortal 
llouris lack rhubarb ? 

Prithee teach us to know more than we 
do of this Eastern mystery ! Have some 
of the ministers of the old Magi eloped 
with him ? Was he in truth a Turk ? We 
have heard suspicions cast upon the au¬ 
thenticity of his complexion—was its taw¬ 
niness a forgery ? Oh ! for a quo warranto 
to show by what authority he wore a tur¬ 
ban ! Was there any hypocrisy in his sad 
brow ?—Poor Mummy ! 

The editor of the Table Book ought to 
perpetuate his features. He was part ol 
the living furniture of the city—Have not 
our grandfathers seen him? 

The tithe of a page from thy pen on this 
subject, surmounted by “ a true portraic- 
ture & effigies,” would be a treat to me and 
many more. If thou art stil Elia— il 


97 












I 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


jiou art yet that gentle creature who lias 
immortalized his predilection for the sow's 
*aby—roasted without sage—this boon wilt 
fliou not deny me. Take the matter upon 
.nee speedily.—Wilt thou not endorse thy 
^egasus with this pleasant fardel ? 

An* thou wilt not I shall be malicious 
and wish thee some trifling evil: to wit— 
6y way of revenge for the appetite which 
thou hast created among the reading pub¬ 
lic for the infant progeny—the rising gene¬ 
ration of swine—I will wish that some of 
the old demoniac leaven may rise up against 
thee in the modern pigs:—that thy sleep 
may be vexed with swinish visions; that a 
hog in armour, ora bashaw of a boar of three 
tails, may be thy midnight familiar—thy in¬ 
cubus ;—that matronly sows may howl after 
thee in thy walks for their immolated off¬ 
spring ;—that Mab may tickle thee into fits 
“ with a tithe-pig’s tail—that whereso¬ 
ever thou goest to finger cash for copy¬ 
right,” instead of being paid in coin current, 
thou mayst be enforced to receive thy 
per-sheetage in guinea-pigs;—that thou 
mayst frequently dream thou art sitting 
on a hedge-hog;—that even as Oberon’s 
Queen doated on the translated Bottom, so 
may thy batchelorly brain doat upon an 
ideal image of the swine-faced lady- 


Finally, I will wish, that when next G. D. 
visits thee, he may, by mistake, take away 
thy hat, and leave thee his own—— 

“ Think of that Master Brook."— 

Yours ever, 

E. C. M. D. 

January 31, 1827. 


2,tteraturt. 


Glances at New Books on my Table. 


Specimens of British Poetesses ; se¬ 
lected, and chronologically arranged, by 
the Rev. Alexander Dyce , 1827, cr. 8vo. 
pp. 462. 


eighty-eight, ten of whom are still living. 
He commences with the dame Juliana Ber¬ 
ners, Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopwell, 
“ who resembled an abbot in respect of 
exercising an extensive manorial jurisdic¬ 
tion, and who hawked and hunted in com¬ 
mon with other ladies of distinction/’ and 
wrote in rhyme on field sports. The volume 
concludes with Miss Landon, whose initials, 
L. E. L, are attached to a profusion of 
talented poetry, in different journals. 

The following are not to be regarded as 
examples of the charming variety selected 
by Mr. Dyce, in illustration of his purpose, 
but rather as “ specimens ” of peculiar 
thinking, or for their suitableness to the 
present time of the year. 

Our language does not afford a more 
truly noble specimen of verse, dignified by 
high feeling, than the following chorus from 
“ The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613,” ascribed 
to lady Elizabeth Carew. 


Revenge of Injuries. 

The fairest action of our human life 
Is scorning to revenge an injury ; 

For who forgives without a further strife. 
His adversary’s heart to him doth tie. 
And ’tis a firmer conquest truly said. 

To win the heart, than overthrow the head. 


If we a worthy enemy do find, 

To yield to worth it must be nobly done t 
But if of baser metal be his mind, 

In base revenge there is no honour won. 
Who would a worthy courage overthrow. 

And who would wrestle with a worthless foe? 


We say our hearts are great and cannot yield ; 

Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor: 
Great hearts are task’d beyond their power, but seli 
The weakest lion will the loudest roar. 

Truth’s school for certain doth this same allow, 
High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow. 


Mr. Dyce remarks that, “ from the great 
Collections of the English Poets, where so 
many worthless compositions find a place, 
the productions of women have been care¬ 
fully excluded.” This utter neglect of fe¬ 
male talent produces a counteracting effort: 
** the object of the present volume is to 
exhibit the growth and progress of the 
genius of our countrywomen in the depart¬ 
ment of poetry.” The collection of “ Poems 
by eminent Ladies,” edited by the elder 
Colman and Bonnel Thornton, contained 
specimens of only eighteen female writers ; 
Mr. Dyce offers specimens of the poetry of 


A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn. 
To scorn to owe a duty overlong; 

To scorn to be for benefits forborne. 

To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong. 
To scorn to bear an injury in mind, 

To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind. 


But if for wrongs we needs revenge must havo. 
Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind ; 
Do we his body from our fury save, 

And let our hate prevail against our mini ? 
What car, ’gainst him a greater vengeance be. 
Than make his foe more worthy far than he ? 


Had Mariam scorn’d to leave a due unpaid. 

She wmuld to Herod then have paid her lort. 
And not have been by sullen passion sway’d. 

To fix her thoughts all injury above 
Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proad. 
Long famous life to her had been allow’d. 


98 












THE TABLE BO OX. 


Margaret duchess of Newcastle, who 
died in 1673, “ filled nearly twelve volumes 
folio with plays, poems, orations, philoso¬ 
phical discourses,’’and miscellaneous pieces. 
Her lord also amused himself with his 
pen. This noble pair were honoured by 
the ridicule of Horace Walpole, who had 
more taste than feeling; and, notwithstand- 
ng the great qualities of the duke, who 
lacrificed three quarters of a million in 
thankless devotion to the royal cause, 
and, though the virtues of his duchess are 
unquestionable, the author of “ The Dor¬ 
mant and Extinct Baronage of England’’ 
joins Walpole in contempt of their affec¬ 
tion, and the means they employed to 
render each other happy during retirement. 
This is an extract from one of the duchess’s 
poems :— 

Melancholy. 

I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun. 

Sit on the banks by which clear waters run ; 

In summers hot down in a shade I lie. 

My music is the buzzing of a fly ; 
l walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass. 

In fields, where corn is high, I often pass; 

Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, 

Some brushy woods, and some all champains be ; 
Returning back, I in fresh pastures go. 

To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; 

In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on. 

Then I do live in a small house alone ; 

Altho’ tis plain, yet cleanly ’tis within. 

Like to a soul that’s pure and clear from sin; 

And there I dwell in quiet and still peace, 

Not fill’d with cares how riches to increase ; 

I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures. 

No riches are, but what the mind intreasures. 

Thus am I solitary, live alone. 

Yet better lov’d, the more that I am known; 

And tho’ my face ill-favour’d at first sight. 

After acquaintance it will give delight. 

Refuse me not, for I shall constant be. 

Maintain your credit and your dignity. 


Elizabeth Thomas, (bom 1675, died 
730 ) in the fifteenth jear of her age, was 
isturbed in her mind, by the sermons she 
eard in attending her grandmother at 
leetings, and by the reading of high pre- 
estinarian works. She “ languished For 
ome time,” in expectation of the publics, 
ion of bishop Burnet s work on the 
'hirty-nine Articles. When she read it, 
lie bishop seemed to her more candi in 
tating the doctrines of the sects, than e - 
.licit in his own opinion; and, in this 
.erplexity, retiring to her closet, she en tei ed 
, n a self-discussion, and wrote the follow¬ 


ing poem 


Predestination , or, the Resolution. 

Ah 1 strive no more to know what fate 
Is preordain’d for thee : 

’Tis vain in this ray mortal state. 

For Heaven’s inscrutable deoree 
Will only be reveal’d in vast Eternity. 

Then, O my soul 1 
Remember thy celestial birth. 

And live to Heaven, while here on earth . 

Thy God is infinitely true. 

All Justice, yet all Mercy too: 

To Him, then, thro’ thy Saviour, pray 
For Grace, to guide thee on thy way. 

And give thee Will to do. 

But humbly, for the rest, my soul I 
Let Hope, and Faith, the limits be 
Of thy presumptuous curiosity 1 

Mary Chandler, born in 1687, the 
daughter of a dissenting minister at Bath, 
commended by Pope for her poetry, died in 
1745. The specimen of her verse, selected 
by Mr. Dyce, is 

Temperance. 

Fatal effects of luxury and ease 1 
We drink our poison, and we eat disease. 

Indulge our senses at our reason’s cost. 

Till sense is pain, and reason hurt, or lost. 

Not so, 0 Temperance bland ! when rui’d by thee, 

The brute’s obedient, and the man is free. 

Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest, 

His veins not boiling from the midnight feast. 

Touch’d by Aurora’s rosy hand, he wakes 
Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes 
The joyful dawnings of returning day, 

For which their grateful thanks the whole creation pay, 
All but the human brute : ’tis he alone, 

Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun. 

•Tis to thy rules, O Temperance 1 that we owe 

All pleasures, which from health and strength can flow 

Vigour of body, purity of mind. 

Unclouded reason, sentiments refin’d, 

Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse, 

Th’ intemperate sinner’s never-failing curse. 

Elizabeth Toilet (born 1694, died 1754) 
was authoress of Susanna, a sacred drama, 
and poems, from whence this is a seasonable 
extract:— 


Winter Song. 

Ask me no more, my truth to prove, 
What I would suffer for my love 
With thee I would in exile go. 

To regions of eternal snow; 

O’er floods by solid ice confin’d: 
Thro’ forest bare with northern wind 
While ad around my eyes I cast. 
Where all is wild and all is waste. 
If there the timorous stag you cbai». 
Or rouse to fight a fiercer race. 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Undaunted f thy arms would bear, 

And give thy hand the hunter’s spear. 

When the low sun withdraws his light, 

And menaces an half year’s night 
The conscious moon and stars above 
Shall guide me with my wandering love. 
Beneath the mountain’s hollow brow, 

Or in its rocky cells below. 

Thy rural feast I would provide ; 

Nor envy palaces their pride ; 

The softest moss should dress thy bed. 

With savage spoils about thee spread ; 

While faithful love the watch should keep, 

To banish danger from thy sleep. 

Mrs. Tighe died in 1810. Mr. Dyce 
says, “Of this highly-gifted Irishwoman, I 
have not met with any poetical account; 
but I learn, from the notes to her poems, 
that she was the daughter of the Kev. 

I William Blachford, and that she died in 
j her thirty-seventh year. In the Psyche of 
(Mrs Tighe are several pictures, conceived 
in the true spirit of poetry ; wnile over the 
whole composition is spread the richest 
glow of purified passion.” Besides spe¬ 
cimens from that delightful poem, Mr. 
Dyce extracts 

The Lily. 

How wither'd, perish’d seems the foim 
Of yon obscure unsightly root I 
Yet from the blight of wintry storm, 

It hides secure the precious fruit. 

The careless eye can find no grace, 

No beauty in the scaly folds, 

Nor see within the dark embrace 
What latent loveliness it holds. 

Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales, 

The lily wraps her silver vest, 

Till vernal suns and vernal gales 
Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast. 

Yes, bide beneath the mouldering heap 
The undelighting slighted thing ; 

There in the cold earth buried deep, 

In silence let it wait the Spring. 

Oh 1 many a stormy night shall close 
In gloom upon the barren earth, 

W-hile still, in undisturb’d repose, 

Uninjur’d lies the future birth; 

And Ignorance, with sceptic eye, 

Hope's patient smile shall wondering view; 
Or mock her fond credulity, 

As her soft tears the spot bedew. 

S '9 3et smile of hope, delicious tear ! 

The sun, the shower indeed sha 1 come j 
I ne oromis’d veidant shoot appear, 

| And nature bid her blossoms bloom. 


And thou, 0 virgin Queen of Spring f 
Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed. 

Bursting tby green sheath’d silken string. 

Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed ; 

Unfold thy robes of purest white, 

Unsullied from their darksome grave. 

And thy soft petals’ silvery light 
In the mild breeze unfetter’d wave. 

So Faith shall seek the lowly dust 
Where humble Sorrow loves to lie, 

And bid her thus her hopes intrust. 

And watch with patient, cheerful eye ; 

And bear the long, cold wintry night, 

And bear her own degraded doom, 

And wait till Heaven’s reviving light, 

Eternal Spring! shall burst the gloom. 

Every one is acquainted with the beau¬ 
tiful ballad which is the subject of the fol¬ 
lowing notice; yet the succinct history, and 
the present accurate text, may justify the 
insertion of both. 

Lady Anne Barnard. 

Born-died 1825. 

Sister of the late Earl of Balcarras, and wife of Sii 
Andrew Barnard, wrote the charming song o‘ 
Auld Robin Gray. 

A quarto tract, edited by “ the Ariosto of the North,” 
and circulated among the members of the Banna 
tyne Club, contains the original ballad, as cor 
rected by Lady Anne, and two Continuations by 
the same authoress ; while the Introduction con¬ 
sists almost entirely of a very interesting letter 
from her to the Editor, dated July 1823, part of 
which I take the liberty of inserting here :— 
‘•‘Robin Gray,’ so called from its being the name of 
the old herd at Balcarras, was born soon after the 
close of the year 1771. My sister Margaret had 
married, and acoompanied her husband to London; 
I was melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse my¬ 
self by attempting a few poetical trifles. There 
was an ancient Scotch melody, of which I was 

passionately fond ;-, who lived before 

your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarras. She 
did not object to its having improper words, 
though I did. I longed to sing old Sophy’s air to 
different words, and give to its plaintive tones 
some little history of virtuous distress in humble 
life, such as might suit it. While attempting to 
effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, 
now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only persou 
near me, ‘ I have been writing a ballad, my dear ; 
I am oppressing my heroine with many misfor¬ 
tunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea—and 
broken her father's arm—and made her mother 
fall sick—and given her Auld Robin Gray for her 
lover ; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow 
within the four lines, poor thing 1 Help me to 
one.'—‘Steal the cow, sister Anne,’ said the little 
Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by 
me, and the song completed. At our fireside, and 


100 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


amongst our neighbours, ‘Auld Robin Gray’ was 
always called for. I was pleased in secret with 
the approbation it met with; but such was my 
dread of being suspected of writing anything, 
perceiving the shyness it created in those who 
could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own 
secret. * • • • 

Meantime, little as this matter seems to have been 
worthy of a dispute, it afterwards became a party 
question between the sixteenth and eighteenth cen¬ 
turies. ‘ Robin Gray ’ was either a very very 
ancient ballad, composed perhaps by David Rizzio, 
and a great curiosity, or a very very modern 
matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted 
to avow whether I had written it or not,—where 
I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I 
kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing 
a reward of twenty guineas offered in the news¬ 
papers to the person who should ascertain the 
point past a doubt, and the still more flattering 
circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, 
secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endea¬ 
voured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I 
took amiss. Had he asked me the question oblig- 
ingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly 
and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of 
this important ambassador from the Antiquaries, 
was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of 
the * Ballat of Auld Robin Gray’s Courtship,’ as 
performed by dancing-cogs under my window. It 
proved its popularity from the highest to the 
lowest, and gave me pleasure while I hugged my¬ 
self in obscurity.” 

l'he two versions of the second part were written many 
years after the first; in them, Auld Robin Gray 
falls sick,—confesses that he himself stole the cow, 
in order to force Jenny to marry him,—leaves to 
Jamie all his possessions,—dies,—and the young 
couple, of course, are united. Neither of the Con¬ 
tinuations is given here, because, though both are 
beautiful, they are very inferior to the original 
tale, and greatly injure its effect. 

Auld Rohm Gray* 

When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come 
hame. 

When a’ the weary world to quiet rest are gane, 

The woes of my heart fa’ in showers frae my ee, 

Unken’d by iny gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me. 

Young Jamie loo’d me weel. and sought me for his 
bride; 

But saving ae crown-piece, he’d naethingelse beside. 

To make the crown a pound.t my Jamie gaed to sea; 

And the crown and the pound, O they were baith for 

me l 


* The text of the corrected copy is followed, 
f “ I must also mention ” (says lady Anne, in the 
letter already quoted) “ the laird of Da'ziel’s advice, 
who, in a tetc-d-tetc, afterwards said, * Mv dear, ihe 
next time you sing that song, try to change the words a 
wee bit, and instead of singing, 4 To make the crown a 
pound, my Jamie gaed to sea/ say, to make it twenty 


Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day. 

My father brak his arin, our cow was stown away; 

My mother she fell sick—my Jamie was at sea— 

And auld Robin Gray, oh ! he came a-courting me, 

My father cou’dna work—my mother cou’dna spin ; 

I toil’d day and night, but their bread I cou’dna win , 
Auld Rob maintain’d them baith, and, wi’ tears in hi.* 
ee, 

Said, “ Jenny, oh ! for their sakes, will you marry me ?’ 

My heart it said na, and I look’d for Jami. ba- k ; 

But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack : 
His ship it was a wrack ! Why didna Jamie dee? 

Or, wherefore am I spar’d to cry out, Woe is me 1 

My father argued sair—my mother didna speak, 

But she look’d in my face till my heart was like to 
break; 

They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea; 
And so auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me. 

I hadna been his wife a week but only four, 

When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at my door, 

I saw my Jamie’s ghaist—I cou’dna think it lie, 

Till he said, “ I’m come hame, my love, to marry thee I 

0 sair. sair did we greet, and mickle say of a’; 

Ae kiss we took, nae mair—I bad him gang awa. 

I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee ; 

For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me I 

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin ; 

I darena think o’ Jamie, for that wad be a sin. 

But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be, 

For auld Robin Gray, oh ! he is sae kind to me. 

The great and remarkable merit of Mr. 
I)yce is, that in this beautifully printed vo¬ 
lume, he has reared imperishable columns to 
the honour of the sex, without a questionable 
trophy. His “ specimens’’ are an assem¬ 
blage so individually charming, that the 
mind is delighted by every part whereon the 
eye rests, and scrupulosity itself cannot 
make a single rejection on pretence of 
inadequate merit, lie comes as a rightful 
herald, marshalling the perfections of each 
poetess, and discriminating with so much 
delicacy, that each of his pages is a page of 
honour to a high-born grace, or dignified 
beauty. His book is an elegant tribute to 
departed and living female genius; and 
while it claims respect from every lady in 
the land for its gallantry to the fair, its in¬ 
trinsic worth is sure to force it into every 
well-appointed library. 


merks, for a Scottish pnnd is but twenty pence, and 
Janee was na such a gowk as to leave Je'aiy and gang 
to sea to lessen his gear. It is that line [whisper’d he] 
that tells me that sang was written oy some bonni* 
lassie that didna ken (he value of the Scots money 
quite so well as an auld writer in the town of Edin¬ 
burgh would have kent it.’" 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


This engraving may illustrate Mr. Pare’s 
account of the Warwickshire “ statute” or 
“ mop,”* and the general appearance of 
similar fairs for hiring servants. Even in 
London, bricklayers, and other house- 
tabourers, still carry their respective im¬ 
plements to the places where they stand 
for hire : for which purpose they assemble 
in great numbers in Cheapside and at 
Charing-cross, every morning, at five or 
six o’clock. It is further worthy of ob¬ 
servation, that, in old Rome, there were 
particular spots in which servants applied 
for hire. 

Dr. Plott, speaking of the Statutes for 
hiring servants, says, that at Bloxham the 
carters stood with their whips in one place, 
and the shepherds with their crooks in 
another; but the maids, as far as he could 
observe, stood promiscuously. He adds, 
that this custom seems as old as our 
Saviour; and refers to Matt. xx. 3, “ And 


At p. 171. 


he went orrt about the third hour and saw 
others standing idle in the market-place/* 

In the statistical account of Scotland, it 
is said that, at the parish of Wamphray, I 
“ Hiring fairs are much frequented: those 
ivho are to hire wear a green sprig in their 
hat: and it is very seldom that servants 
will hire in any other place.” 

Of ancient chartered fairs may be in¬ 
stanced as an example, the fair of St. Giles’s 
Hill or Down, near Winchester, which 
William the Conqueror instituted and gave 
as a kind of revenue to the bishop of 
Winchester. It was at first for three 
days, but afterwards by Henry III., pro¬ 
longed to sixteen days. Its jurisdiction 
extended seven miles round, and compre¬ 
hended even Southampton, then a capital 
and trading town. Merchants who sold 
wares at that time within that circuit for¬ 
feited them to the bishop. Officers were 
placed at a considerable distance, at 
bridges and other avenues of access to the 
fair, to exact toll of all merchandise passing 
that way. In the mean time, all shops in 


String ^rrbants at a statute Jfat'r. 


102 























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


the city of Winchester were shut. A 
court, called the pavilion, composed of the 
bishop’s justiciaries and other officers, had 
power to try causes of various sorts for 
seven miles round. The bishop had a toll 
of every load or parcel of goods passing 
through the gates of the city. On St. 
Giles’s eve the mayor, bailiffs, and citizens 
of Winchester delivered the keys of the 
four gates to the bishop’s officers. Many 
and extraordinary were the privileges 
granted to the bishop on this occasion, all 
tending to obstruct trade and to oppress 
the people. Numerous foreign merchants 
frequented this fair; and several streets 
were formed in it, assigned to the sale of 
different commodities. The surrounding 
monasteries had shops or houses in these 
streets, used only at the fair; which they 
held under the bishop, and often let by 
lease for a term of years. Different coun¬ 
ties had their different stations. 

According to a curious record of the 
; establishment and expenses of the house¬ 
hold of Henry Percy, the fifth earl of 
I Northumberland, a. d. 1512, the stores of 
his lordship’s house at Wresille, for the 
| whole year, were laid in from fairs. The 
articles were “ wine, wax, beiffes, muttons, 
wheite, and malt.” This proves that fairs 
were then the principal marts for purchas¬ 
ing necessaries in large quantities, which 
are now supplied by frequent trading 
towns: and the mention of u beiffes and 
mnttons,” (which are salted oxen and sheep,) 
h ws that at so late a period they knew 
ittle of breeding cattle. 

The monks of the priories of Maxtoke in 
Warwickshire, and of Bicester in Oxford¬ 
shire, in the time of Henry VI., appear to 
have laid in yearly stores of various, yet 
common necessaries, at the fair of Stour¬ 
bridge, in Cambridgeshire, at least one 
Hundred miles distant from either mo¬ 
nastery. 

I 

I 

. .. — 

jfebrttarp 14. 

VALENTINE’S DAY. 

Now each food youth who ere essay’d 
An effort in the tinkling trade, 

Resumes to day ; and writes and blots 
About true-love and true-love’s-knots ; 

And opens veins in ladies’ hearts ; 

(Or steels ’em) with two cris-cross darts,— 

(There must be two) 

Stuck through (and through) 

His own i and then to s’cure ’em better 
tie doubles up his single letter— 


Type of his state, 

(Perchance a hostage 
To double fate) 

For single postage • 

Emblem of his and my Cupidity ; 

With p’rhsps 'ike happy end—stupidity. 


French Valentines. 

Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary, 
has accounted for the term “ Valentine,” 
by stating that Madame Royale, daughter 
of Henry the Fourth of France, having 
built a palace near Turin, which, in honoui 
of the saint, then in high esteem, she called 
the Valentine, at the first entertainment 
which she gave in it, was pleased to order 
that the ladies should receive their lovers 
for the year by lots, reserving to herself the 
privilege of being independent of chance, 
and of choosing her own partner. At the 
various balls which this gallant princess 
gave during the year, it was directed that 
each lady should receive a nosegay from 
her lover, and that, at every tournament, 
the knight’s trappings for his horse should 
be furnished by his allotted mistress, with 
this proviso, that the prize obtained should 
be hers. This custom, says Menage, oc¬ 
casioned the parties to be called “ Valen¬ 
tines.”* 


An elegant writer, in a journal of the 
present month, prepares for the annual 
festival with the following 

LEGEND OF ST. VALENTINE. 

From Britain’s realm, in olden time, 

By the strong power of truths sublime. 

The pagan rites were banish’d; 

And, spite of Greek and Roman lore. 

Each god and goddess, fam’d of yort? 

From grove and altar vanish’d. 

And they (as sure became them best) 

To Austin and Paulinius’ hest 
Obediently submitted. 

And left the land without delay— 

Save Cupid, who still held a sway 
Too strong to passively obey, 

Or be by saints outwitted. 

For well the boy-god knew that he 
Was far too potent, e’er to be 
Depos’d and exil’d quietly 
From his belov’d dominion; 

And sturdily the urchin swore 
He ne’er, to leave the British shore, 

Would move a single pinion. 


* Dr. Drake’s Shakspeare and his Times. See alas 
the Exery-IJay Book for large particulars of the day. 


103 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


The saints at this were sadly vex’d, 

And much their holy brains perplex’d, 

To bring the boy to reason ; 

And, when they found him bent to stay, 

They built up convent-walls straightway. 

And put poor Love in prison. 

But Cupid, though a captive made. 

Soon met, within a convent shade, 

New subjects in profusion : 

Albeit he found his pagan name 
Was heard by pious maid and dame 
With horror and confusion. 

For all were there demure and coy, 

And deem’d a rebel heathen boy 
A most unsaintly creature ; 

But Cupid found a way with ease 
His slyest vot’ries tastes to please. 

And yet not change a feature. 

For, by his brightest dart, the elf 
Affirm’d he’d turn a saint himself, 

To make their scruples lighter ; 

So gravely hid his dimpled smiles. 

His wreathed locks, and playful wiles, 

Beneath a bishop’s mitre. 

Then Christians rear’d the boy a shrine, 

And youths invok’d Saint Valentine 
To bless their annual passion ; 

And maidens still his name revere, 

And, smiling, hail his day each year— 

A day to village lovers dear. 

Though saints are out of fashion. 

A. S. 

Monthly Magazine. 


Another is pleased to treat the prevailing 
topic of the day as one of those “ whims 
and oddities," which exceedingly amuse 
the reading world, and make e’en sighing 
lovers smile. 

SONG 

For the 14th of February. 

By a General Lover. 

“ Mille gravem telis exhausta pene pharetrA. ” 

Apollo has peep’d through the shutter, 

And waken’d the witty and fair ; 

The boarding-school belle’s in a flutter, 

The twopenny post's in despair: 

The breath of the morning is flinging 
A magic on blossom, on spray ; 

And cockneys and sparrows are singing 
In chorus on Valentine’s Day. 

Away with ye, dreams of disaster, 

Away with ye, visions of law, 

Of cases I never shall master. 

Of pleadings 1 never shall draw : 

Away with ye, parchments and papers. 

Red tapes, unread volumes, away; 

it gives a fond lover the vapours 
T i *ee you on Valentine’s Day. 


I’ll sit in my nightcap, like Hayley, 

I’ll sit with my arms crost, like Spain, 

Till joys, which are vanishing daily, 

Come back in their lustre again : 

Oh, shall I look over the waters, 

Or shall I look over the way, 

For the brightest and best of Earlh’s daughters 
To rhyme to on Valentine’s Day ? 

Shall I crown with my worship, for fame’s sake 
Some goddess whom Fashion has starr’d, 
Make puns on Miss Love and her namesake, 

Or pray for a pas with Brocard ? 

Shall I flirt, in romantic idea, 

With Chester’s adorable clay, 

Or whisper in transport, “ Si mea * 

Cum Vestris ■ - ” on Valentine’s Day? 

Shall I kneel to a Sylvia or Celia, 

Whom no one e’er saw or may see, 

A fancy-drawn Laura Amelia, 

An ad libit. Anna Marie ? 

Shall I court an initial with stars to it, 

(J'j mad for a G. or a J. 

Get Bishop to put a few bars to it. 

And print it on Valentine’s Day ? 

Alas 1 ere I’m properly frantic 

With some such pure figment as this, 

Some visions, not quite so romantic. 

Start up to demolish the bliss ; 

Some Will o’ the Wisp in a bonnet 
Still leads my lost wit quite astray, 

Till up to my ears in a sonnet 
I sink upon Valentine’s Day. 

The Dian I half bought a ring for. 

On seeing her thrown in the ring ; 

The Naiad I took such a spring for, 

From Waterloo Bridge, in the spring ; 

The trembler I saved from a robber, on 
My walk to the Champs Elys£e!— 

The warbl ;r that fainted at Oberon, 

Three months before Valentine's Day. 

The gipsy I once nad a spill with, 

Bad luck to the Paddington team ! 

The countess I chanced to be ill with 
From Dover to Calais by steam ; 

The lass that m ikes tea for Sir Stephen, 

The lassie that brings in the tray ; 

It’s odd—but the betting is even 
Between them on Valentine’s Day. 

The white hands I help’d in their nutting ; 

lhe fair neck I cloak’d in the rain ; 

The bright eyes that thank’d me for cutting 
My friend in Emmanuel-lane ; 

The Blue that admires Mr. Barrow ; 

The Saint that adores Lewis Way ; 

1 he Nameless that dated from Harrow 
Three couplets last Valentine’s Day. 

1 think not of Laura the witty. 

For, oh ! she is married at York I 
I sigh not for Rose of the City, 

For, ah ! she is buried at Cork I 


Si mea cum Vestris valuissent vota !”— O vid. Mi 


104 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Adels has a braver and better 
To say what I never couid say ; 

Louise cannot construe a letter 
Of English on Valentine’s Day. 

So perish the leaves in the arbou*% 

The tree is all bare in the blast! 

Like a wreck that is drifting to harbour, 
I come to thee, Lady, at last. 

Where art thou so lovely and lonely ? 
Though idle th.* lute and the lay, 

The lute and the lay are thine only 
My fairest, on Valentine’s Day. 

For thee 1 have open’d my Blackstone, 
For thee I have shut up myself; 

Exchanged my long curls for a Caxton, 
And laid my short whist on the shelf; 

For thee I have sold my old Sherry, 

For thee 1 have burn’d my new play ; 

And I grow philosophical—very 1 
Except upon Valentine’s Day, 


0 


New Monthly Magazine. 


In the poems of Elizabeth Trefuais there 
is a“ Valentine” with an expression ot’ feel¬ 
ing which may well conclude the extracts 
already produced. 

When to Love’s influence woman yields. 

She loves for life ! and daily feels 
Progressive tenderness !—each hour 
Confirms, extends, the tyrant’s power ! 

Her lover is her god ! her fate !— 

Vain pleasures, riches, worldly state, 

Are trifles all!—each sacrifice 
Becomes a dear and valued prize, 

If made for him, e’en tho’ he proves 
Forgetful of their former loves. 


AIR AND EXERCISE 
For Ladies. 

There is a notion, that air spoils the com¬ 
plexion. It i 9 possible, that an exposure 
to all weathers might do so ; though if a 
gipsy beauty is to be said to have a bad 
complexion, it is one we are very much 
inclined to be in love with. A russeton 
apple has its beauty as well as a peach At 
all events, a spoilt complexion of this sort 
is accompanied with none of the melan* 
choly attending the bad complexions that 
arise from late hours, and spleen, and 
plodding, and indolence, and indigestion. 
Fresh air puts a wine in the blood that 
lasts from morning to night, and not 
merely for an hour or two after dinner. If 
ladies would not carry buttered toast in 
their cheeks, instead of roses, they must 


shake the blood in their ve : ns, till it spins 
clear. Cheerfulness itself helps to make 
good blood ; and air and exercise make 
cheerfulness. When it is said, that air 
spoils the complexion, it is not meant tha‘ 
breathing it does so, but exposure to it 
We are convinced it is altogether a fallacy, 
and that nothing but a constant exposure 
to the extremes of heat and cold has any 
such effect. The not breathing the fresh 
air is confessedly injurious; and this might 
be done much oftener than is supposed. 
People might oftener throw up their win¬ 
dows, or admit the air partially, and with 
an effect sensible only to the general feel¬ 
ings. We find, by repeated experiments, 
that we can write better and longei with 
the admission of air into our study. We have 
learnt also, by the same experience, to 
prefer a large study to a small one ; and 
here the rich, it must be confessed, have 
another advantage over us. They pass 
their days in large airy rooms—in apart¬ 
ments that are field and champain, com¬ 
pared to the closets that we dignify with 
the name of parlours and drawing-rooms. 
A gipsy and they are in this respect, and 
in many others, more on a footing ; and 
the gipsy beauty and the park beauty enjoy 
themselves accordingly. Can we look at 
that extraordinary race of persons—we 
mean the gipsies—and not recognise the 
wonderful physical perfection to which 
they are brought, solely by their exemp¬ 
tion from some of our most inveterate no¬ 
tions, and by dint of living constantly in 
the fresh air ? Read any of the accounts 
that are given of them, even by writers 
the most opposed to their way of life, and 
you will find these very writers refuting 
themselves and their proposed ameliora¬ 
tions by confessing that no human beings 
can be better formed, or healthier, or hap¬ 
pier than the gipsies, so long as they are 
kept out of the way of towns and their 
sophistications. A suicide is not known 
among them. They are as merry as the 
larks with which they rise; have the use of 
their limbs to a degree unknown among 
us, except by our new friends the gym¬ 
nasts; and are as sharp in their faculties 
as the perfection of their frames can render 
them. A glass of brandy puts them into 
a state of unbearable transport. It is a 
superfluous bliss ; wine added to wine : 
and the old learn to do themselves mis¬ 
chief with it, and level their condition with 
stockbiokers and politicians. Yet these 
are the people whom some wiseacres are 
for turning into bigots and manufacturers. 
They had much better take them for what 


105 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


they are, and for what Providence seems to 
nave intended them—a memorandum to 
keep alive among us the belief in nature, 
und a proof to what a physical state of per¬ 
fection the human being can be brought, 
solely by inhaling her glorious breath, and 
heing exempt from our laborious mistakes. 
~f the intelligent and the gipsy life could 
ever be brought more together, by any 
rational compromise, (and we do not de¬ 
spair of it, when we see that calculators 
begin to philosophize,) men might attain 
the greatest perfection of which they are 
capable. Meanwhile the gipsies have the 
advantage of it, if faces are any index of 
health and comfort. A gipsy with an eye 
fit for a genius, it is not difficult to meet 
with; but where shall we find a genius, or 
even a fundholder, with the cheek and 
health of a gipsy ? 

There is a fact well known to physicians, 
which settles at once the importance of 
fresh air to beauty, as well as health. It is, 
inat in proportion as people stay at home, 
and do not set their lungs playing as they 
ought, the blood becomes dark, and lags in 
its current; whereas the habit of inhaling 
the air out of doors reddens it like a ruby, 
and makes it clear and brisk. Now the 
darker the blood, the m re melancholy the 
sensations, and the worse the complexion. 

It is common with persons who inherit a 
good stock of health from their ancestors, 
to argue that they take no particular pains 
to preserve it, and yet are well. This may 
be true ; and it is also true, that there is a 
painstaking to that effect, which is super¬ 
fluous and morbid, and helps to do more 
harm than good. But it does not follow 
from either of these truths, that a neglect of 
the rational means of retaining health will 
ultimately be good for any body. Healthy 
people may live a good while upon their 
stock. Children are in the habit of doing 
it. But healthy children, especially those 
who are foolishly treated upon an assump¬ 
tion that health consists in being highly fed, 
and having great beef-eating cheeks, very 
often turn out sickly at last; and grown-up 
people, for the most part, at least in great 
towns, have as little really good health, as 
children in general are given credit for the 
everse. Nature does indeed provide libe- 
“ally for abuses; but the abuse will be felt 
at last. It is generally felt a long while 
Defore it is acknowledged. Then comes 
age, with all its train of regrets and super¬ 
stitions ; and the beauty and the man, 
besides a world perhaps of idle remorse, 
which they would not feel but for their 
perverted blood, could eat their hearts out 


for having been such fools as not to secure 
a continuance of good looks and manly 
feelings, for want of a little handsome 
energy. 

The ill taste of existence that is so apt to 
come upon people in middle life, is too 
often attributed to moral causes. Moral 
they are, but very often not in the sense 
imagined. Whatever causes be mixed up 
with them, the greatest of all is, in ninety- 
nine instances out of a hundred, no better 
or grander than a non-performance of the 
common duties of health. Many a fine 
lady takes a surfeit for a tender distress ; 
and many a real sufferer, who is haunted 
by a regret, or takes himself for the most 
ill-used of bilious old gentlemen, might 
trace the loftiest of his woes to no better 
origin than a series of ham-pies, or a want 
of proper use of his boots and umbrella.* 


A SONG. 

Young Joe, lie was a carman gay, 

As any town could show ; 

His team was good, and, like his pence, 
Was always on the go ; 

A thing, as every jackass knows. 

Which often leads to wo I 

It fell out that he fell in love. 

By some odd chance or whim, 

With Alice Payne—beside whose eyes 
All other eyes were dim : 

The painful tale must out—indeed, 

She was A Pain to him. 

For, when he ask’d her civilly 
To make one of they two, 

She whipp’d her tongue across her teeth, 
And said, “ D’ye think it true, 

I’d trust my load of life with sich 
A waggoner as you ? 

“ No, no—to be a carman’s wife 
Will ne’er suit Alice Payne; 

I’d better far a lone woman 
For evermore remain. 

Than have it said, while in my youth. 
My life is on the wain /” 

“ Oh, Alice Payne ! Oh, Alice Payne 1 
Why won’t you meet with me?” 

Then up she curl’d her nose, and said, 

“ Go axe your axletree; 

I tell you, Joe, this—once for all— 

My joe you shall not be.” 

She spoke the fatal “no,” which put 
A spoke into his wheel— 

And stopp’d his happiness, as though 
She’d cry wo ! to his weal :— 

These women ever steal our hearts. 

And then their own they steel. 


• New Monthly Magazine. 


106 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


So room! his melancholy neck 
Poor Joe his drag-chain tied. 

And hook’d it on a hook—“ Oh ! what 
A weight is life!” he cried; 

Then off he cast himself—and thus 
The cast-off carman died 1 
Howbeit, as his son was set, 

(Poor Joe !) at set of sun, 

They laid him in his lowly grave. 

And gravely that was done; 

And she stood by, and laugh’d outright— 
How wrong—the guilty one I 

But the day of retribution comes 
Alike to prince and hind. 

As surely as the summer’s sun 
Must yield to wintry wind : 

Alas! she did not mind his peace— 

So she’d no peace of mind. 

For when she sought her bed of rest. 

Her rest was all on thorns; 

And there another lover stood, 

Who wore a pair of horns: 

His little tiny feet were cleft. 

And cloven, like a fawn’s; 

His face and garb were dark and black, 

A8 daylight to the blind ; 

And a something undefinable 
Around his skirt was twin’d— 

As if he wore, like other pigs, 

His pigtail out behind. 

His arms, though less than other men’s. 

By no means harm-less were : 

Dark elfin locks en lock’d his brow— 

You might not call them hair; 

ADd, oh ! it was a gas-tly sight 
To see his eye-balls glare. 

And ever, as the midnight bell 
Twelve awful strokes had toll’d, 

That dark man by her bedside stood. 
Whilst all her blood run cold ; 

And ever and anon he cried, 

“ I could a tail unfold !” 

And so her strength of heart grew less. 

For heart-less she had been ; 

And on her pallid cheek a small 
Red hectic spot was seen : 

You could not say her life was ?pent 
Without a spot, I wean. 

And they who mark’d that crimson light 
Well knew the treach’rous bloom— 

A light that shines, alas 1 alas I 
To light us to our tomb: 

They said ’twa3 like thy cross, St. Paul’s, 
The signal of her doom. 

And so it prov’d—she lost her health, 
When breath she needed most— 

Just as the winning horse get^blown 
Close by the winning-post. 

The ghost, he gave up plaguing her— 

So she gave np the ghost 


SLonbon. 

MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 

In the annals of the world there have 
never been such rapid changes and such 
vast improvements as have occurred in 
this metropolis during the last seven years. 
We have no occasion now to refer to 
Pennant to produce exclamations of sur¬ 
prise at the wonderful changes in London; 
our own recollections are sufficient. Oxford- 
street seems half a mile nearer to Charing 
Cross than in the days of our youth. Swal¬ 
low-street, with all the dirty courts in its 
vicinity, have been swallowed up, and re¬ 
placed by one of the most magnificent 
streets in Europe; a street, which may vie 
with the Calle a Alcala in Madrid, with the 
Quartier du Chapeau Rouge at Bourdeaux. 
or the Place de Louis Quinze at Paris. We 
must, for the present, overlook the defects 
of the architectural detail of this street, in 
the contemplation of the great and general 
improvement which its construction has 
produced in the metropolis. 

Other streets are proposed by the same 
active genius under which Regent-street 
has been accomplished; the vile houses 
which surrounded and hid the finest portico 
in London—that of St. Martin’s church— j 
are already taken down ; a square is to be 
formed round this building, with two large | 
openings into the Strand, and plans are 
already in agitation to lay open other 
churches in the same manner. Even the 
economical citizens have given us a peep at 
St. Bride’s—being ashamed again to hide 
beauties which accident had given them an 
opportunity of displaying to greater advan¬ 
tage. One street is projected from Charing 
Cross to the British Museum, terminating 
in a square, of which the church in Hart- 
street is to form the centre; another is in¬ 
tended to lead to the same point from 
Waterloo-bridge, by which this structure, 
which is at present almost useless, will be¬ 
come the great connecting thoroughfare 
between the north and south sides of the 
Thames : this street is, indeed, a desidera¬ 
tum to the proprietors of the bridge, as well 
as to the public at large. Carlton-house is 
already being taken down-—by which means 
Regent-street will terminate at the south 
end, with a view of St. James’s Park, in 
the same manner as it does at the north 
end, by an opening into the Regent’s Park. 

Such is the general outline of the late 
and the projected improvements in the 
heart of the metropolis; but they have not 
stopped here. The king has been decora- 


107 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


t'ng Hyde Park with lodges, designed by 
Mr. Decimus Burton, which are really gems 
i:i architecture, and stand unrivalled for 
proportion, chasteness, and simplicity, 
amidst the architectural productions of the 
age. 

Squares are already covering the exten¬ 
sive property of lord Grosvenor in the fields 
of Chelsea and Pimlico ; and crescents and 
colonnades are planned, by the architect to 
the bishop of London, on the ground be- 
1 nging to the diocese at Bayswater. 

But all suburban improvements sink into 
insignificance, when compared with what 
has been projected and attained within the 
last seven years in the Kegent’s Park. This 
new city of palaces has appeared to have 
started into existence like the event of a 
fairy tale. Every week showed traces of 
an Aladdin hand in its progress, till, to our 
astonishment, we tide through streets, 
squares, crescents, and terraces, where we 
the other day saw nothing but pasture land 
and Lord’s-cricket-ground ;—a barn is re¬ 
placed by a palace—and buildings are con¬ 
structed, one or two of which may vie with 
the proudest efforts of Greece and Rome. 

The projector, with true taste, has called 
the beauties of landscape to the aid of 
architectural embellishment; and we ac¬ 
cordingly find groves, and lawns, and 
streams intersecting the numerous ranges 
of terraces and vdlas; while nature, as 
though pleased at the efforts of art, seems 
to have exerted herself with extraordinary 
vigour to emulate and second the efforts of 
the artist. 

In so many buildings, and amidst so 
much variety, there must, consequently, be 
many different degrees of architectural ex¬ 
cellence, and many defects in architectural 
composition ; but, taken as a whole, and 
the short time occupied in its accomplish¬ 
ment, the Regent’s Park may be considered 
as one of the most extraordinary creations 
of architecture that has ever been witnessed. 
It is the only speculation of the sort where 
elegance seems to have been considered 
equally with profit in the disposition of the 
ttround. The buildings are not crowded 
together with an avaricious determination 
to create as much frontage as possible; and 
we cannot bestow too much praise on the 
'iberality with which the projector has given 
up so much space to the squares, roads, 
;md plantations, by which he has certainly 
*elin:juished many sources of profit for the 
pleasure and convenience of the public. 

It is in the contemplation of these addi¬ 
tions and improvements to our metropolis, 
that we doubly feel the blessings and effects 


of that peace which has enabled the govern 
merit, as well as private individuals, to at¬ 
tempt to make London worthy of the cha¬ 
racter it bears in the scale of cities; and 
we are happy now to feel proud of the 
architectural beauty, as we always have o* 
the commercial influence, of our metro¬ 
polis. * 


THE SPELLS OF HOME. 

There blend the ties that strengthen 
Our hearts in hours of grief. 

The silver links that lengthen 
Joys visits when most brief! 

Then, dost thou sigh for pleasure ? 

0 ! do not widely roam ! 

But seek that hidden treasure 
At home, dear home ! 

Bernard Barton. 


By the soft green light in the woody glade. 

On the banks of moss where thy childhood play’d ; 

By the waving tree ihro’ which thine eye 
First look’d in love to the summer sky ; 

By the dewy gleam, by the very breath 
Of the primrose-tufts in the grass beneath, 

Upon thy heart there is laid a spell— 

Holy and precious—oh! guard it welll 

By the sleepy ripple of the stream, 

Which hath lull’d thee into many a dream ; 

By the shiver of the ivy-leaves, 

To the wind of morn at thy casement-eaves ; 

By the bees’ deep murmur in the limes, 

By the music of the Sabbath-chimes ; 

By every sound of thy native shade. 

Stronger and dearer the spell is made. 

By the gathering round the winter hoarth. 

When twilight call’d unto household mirth , 

By the fairy tale or the legend old 
In (hat ring of happy faces told; 

By the quiet hours when hearts unite 

In the parting prayer, and the kind “ good night 

By the smiling eye and the loving tone. 

Over thy life has the spell been thrown. 

And bless that gift!—it hath gentle might, 

A guardian power and a guiding light! 

It hath led the freeman forth to stand 
In the mountain-battles of his land ; 

It hath brought the wanderer o'er the seas, 

To die on the hills of his own fresh breeze; 

And back to the gates of his father’s hall, 

It hath won the weeping prodigal. 

Yes! when thy heart in its pride would stray. 

From the loves of its guileless youth away ; 

When the sullying breath of the world would come. 
O’er the flowers it brought from its childhood’s home - 


• Monthly Magazine. 


108 . 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


’ 'bink thou again of the woody glade. 

And the sound by the rustling ivy made; 

Think of the tree at thy parent’s door. 

And the kindly spell shall have power once morel 

F. Ii. 

Monthly Magazine. 


BOOKS. 

’Twere well with most, if books, that could engage 
Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age ; 

The man approving what had charmed the boy. 
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy ; 

And not with curses on his art, who stole 
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. 

Cowper. 

If there be one word in our language, 
beyond all others teeming with delightful 
associations, Books is that word. At that 
magic name what vivid retrospections of 
by-gone times, what summer days of un¬ 
alloyed happiness “ when life was new,” 
tush on the memory ! even now the spell 
retains its power to charm : the beloved of 
my youth is the solace of my declining 
years : such is the enduring nature of an 
early attachment to literature. 

The first book that inspired me with a 
taste for reading, was Runyan's Pilgrims 
Progress ; never shall I forget the intense 
emotion with which I perused this pious 
and interesting fiction : the picturesque 
descriptions and quaint moralities blended 
with this fine allegory, heightened the 
enchantment, which to a youthful and 
fervid imagination, “ unsated yet with 
g-'ibage,” was complete. From hence¬ 
forward my bias was determined; the 
passion grew with my gtowth, and strength¬ 
ened with my strength ; and L devoured all 
i lie books that fell in my way, as if “ ap¬ 
petite increased by what it fed on.” My 
next step was,—I commenced collector. 
Smile, if you will, reader, but admire the 
benevolence of creative wisdom, by which 
:lie means of happiness are so nicely ad¬ 
justed to the capacity for enjoyment: tor, 
-lender, as in those days were my finances, 
1 much doubt if the noble possessor of the 
unique edition of Boccaccio, marched off 
with his envied prize at the cost of two 
thousand four hundred pounds, more tri¬ 
umphantly, than 1 did with my sixpenny 
i amphlet, or dog’s eared volume, destined 
! o form the nucleus of my future library. 

The moral advantages arising out of a 
ove of books are so obvious, that to en¬ 
large upon such a topic might be deemed 
i gratuitous parade of truisms; I shall 
’herefore proceed to offer a few observa¬ 


tions, as to the best modes of deriving both 
pleasure and improvement from the culti¬ 
vation of this most fascinating and intel¬ 
lectual of all pursuits. Lord Bacon says, 
with his usual discrimination, “ Some 
books are to be tasted, others to be swal¬ 
lowed, and some few to be chewed and 
digestedthis short sentence comprises 
the whole practical wisdom of the subject, 
and in like manner by an extension of the 
principle, the choice of a library must be 
legulated. “ Few books, well selected, are 
best,” is a maxim useful to all, but more 
especially to young collectors : for let it 
be remembered, that economy in our plea¬ 
sures invariably tends to enlarge the sphere 
of our enjoyments. Fuller remarks, “ that 
it is a vanity to persuade the world one 
hath much learning by getting a great 
library ;” and the supposition is equally 
erroneous, that a large collection neces¬ 
sarily implies a good one. The truth is, 
were we to discard all the works of a mere 
temporary interest, and of solemn trifling, 
that incumber the fields of literature, the 
magnitude of numerous vast libraries would 
suddenly shrink into most diminutive 
dimensions, for the number of good original 
authors is comparatively few ; study there¬ 
fore quality rather than quantity in the 
selection of your books. As regards the 
Injuries of the library, keep a rigid watch 
upon your inclinations ; for though it must 
not be denied that there is a rational plea- 
sun* in seeing a favourite author elegantly 
attired , nothing is more ridiculous than 
this taste pushed to the extreme ; for then 
this refined pursuit degenerates into a mere 
hobbyhorse, and once fairly mounted, 
good-by to prudence and common sense ! 
The Bibliomaniac is thus pleasantly sati¬ 
rized by an old poet in the “ Shyp of 
Fooles.” 

Styll am I besy bc\ assemblj/nge. 

For to have plenty >t is a pleasaunt thynge 

In my conceit, and to have them ay in hand, 

But what they mene do I not understande I 

When we survey our well-furnished book¬ 
shelves, the first thought that suggests 
itself, is the immortality of intellect. Here 
repose the living monuments of those 
master spirits destined to sway the empire 
of mind; the historian, the philosopher, 
and the poet, “of imagination all com¬ 
pact!” and while the deeds of mighty con 
querors hurry down the stream of oblivion, 
the works of these men survive to after- 
ages; are enshrined in the memories of a 
grateful posterity, and finally stamp upon 


109 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


national character the permanent impress 
of their genius. 

Happy we, who are early taught to 
cherish the society of these silent friends, 
ever ready to amuse without importunity, 
and instruct without the austerity of reproof. 
Let us rest assured that it is “ mind that 
makes the body rich,” and that in the cul¬ 
tivation of our intellect we secure an in¬ 
exhaustible store of present gratification, 
and a source of pleasurable recollections 
which will never fail to cheer the evening 
of life. J. H. 


ETIQUETTE. 

Philosophy may rave as it will, “ little 
things are great to little men,” and the 
less the man, the greater is the object. 
A king at arms is, in his own estimation, 
the greatest king in Europe, and a German 
baron is not more punctilious than a master 
of the ceremonies. The first desire with all 
men is power, the next is the semblance of 
power; and it is perhaps a happy dispen¬ 
sation that those who are cut off from the 
substantial rights of the citizen, should find 
a compensation in the “ decorations ” of 
the slave; as in all other moral cases the 
vices of the individual are repressed by 
those of the rest of the community. The 
pride of Diogenes trampled on the pride 
of Plato; and the vanity of the excluded 
may be trusted for keeping within bounds 
the vanity of the preeminent and the pri¬ 
vileged. The great enemy, however, of 
etiquette is civilisation, which is incessantly 
at work, simplifying society. Knowledge, 
by opening our eyes to the substances of 
things, defends us from the juggle of forms; 
and Napoleon, when he called a throne a 
mere chair, with gilt nails driven into it, 
epitomised one of the most striking results 
of the revolutionary contest. Strange that 
he should have overlooked or disregarded 
the fact in the erection of his own institu¬ 
tions ! Ceremonial is a true paper cur¬ 
rency, and passes only as far as it will be 
taken. The representative of a thousand 
pounds, unbacked by credit, i> a worthless 
rag of paper, and the highest decoration 
which the king can confer, if repudiated by 
opinion, is but a piece of blue riband. 
Here indeed the sublime touches the ridi¬ 
culous, for who shall draw the line of de¬ 
marcation between my lord Grizzle and 
the gold stick? between Mr. Dymock, in 
Westminster-hall, and his representative 
“ on a real horse ” at Covent-garden ?— 
Every day the intercourse of society is be¬ 
coming more and more easy, and a man of 


fashion is as little likely to be ceremonious 
in trifles, as to appear in the costume oi 
sir Charles Grandison, or to take up the 
quarrels of lord Herbert of Cherbury.* 

INDICATIONS. 

Written in the Frost. 

For the Table Book. 

I know that the weather’s severe, by the noses 
That run between eves smartly lash’d by the fair ; 
By the coxcombs that muff-led are smiling; at roses 
Got into the cheeks, and got out of the air. 

By the skates, (slipp’ry fish) for the Serpentine’s Fleet 
By the rise of the coal; by the shot-birds that fall 
By the chilly old people that creep to the heat; 

And the ivy-green branches that creep to the wall 

By the chorus of boys sliding over the river. 

The grumbles of mep sliding over the flags ; 

The beggars, poor wretches 1 half naked, that shiver 
The sportsmen, poor horsemen ! turn’d out on their 
nags! 

By the snow standing over the plant and the fountain; 

The chilbain-tribes, whose understanding is weak; 
The wild-ducks of the valley, the drift of the mountain, 
Ai»d, like Niob£, street-plugs all tears from the 
Creek: 

And I know, by the icelets from nature’s own shops. 

By the fagots just cut, and the cutting wind’s tone, 
That the weather will freeze half the world if it stops. 
If it goes, it will thaw t’other half to the bone. 

Jan 27. *, *, P. 


ADOPTION. 

There is a singular system in France 
relative to the adoption of children. A 
family who has none, adopts as their own 
a fine child belonging to a friend, or more 
generally to some poor person, (/or the laws 
of population in the poor differ from those 
in the rich;) the adoption is regularly enre- 
gistered by the civil authorities, and the 
child becomes heir-at-law to the property 
of its new parents, ai. 1 cannot be disin¬ 
herited by any subsequent caprice of the 
parties; they are bound to support it suit¬ 
ably to their rank, and do every thing due 
to their offspring.-f 


A Ro/al Simile. 

“ Queen Elizabeth was wont to say, 
upon the commission of sales, that the 
commissioners used her like strawberry - 
wives, that laid two or three great straw¬ 
berries at the mouth of their pottle, and all 
the rest were little ones; so they made her 
two or three great prices of the first par¬ 
ticulars, but fell straightways.*/ 

• New Monthly Magazine. f Ibid. 

X Apophthegms Antiq. 


110 













33Imti feaiutab 


Sightless, and gently led her unseen round. 
She daily creeps, and draws a soothing sound 
Of Psalmody, from out her viol’ strings. 

To company some plaintive words she sings. 


This young woman sojourns in the 
neighbourhood of the ancient scene of the 
“ Pretty Bessee ” and her old father, the 
“ Blind Beggar of Bethnal-green ”•— 

“ His marks and his tokens were known full well, 

He always was led with a dog and a bell ” 

Her name is Hannah Brentford. She is 
an inhabitant of Burthill-row, twenty-four 
years old, and has been blind from the time 
she had the small-pox, two and twenty 
vears ago. She sings hymns, and accom¬ 
panies herself on the violin. Her manner 
is to “ give out ” two lines of words, and 
rhant them to “a quiet tuneand then 


she gives out another two lines ; and so she 
proceeds till the composition is finished. 
Her voice, and the imitative strains of her 
instrument, are one chord of ’plaining 
sound, beautifully touching. She supports 
herself, and an aged mother, on the alms of 
passengers in the streets of Finsbury, who 
“ please to bestow their charity on the 
blind the poor blind.” They who are 
not pierced by her “ sightless eye-balls 
have no sight: they who are unmoved tp 
her virginal melody have e * ears, and they 
hear not.” Her eyes are of agate— she \s 
one of the “ poor stone blind 

raoet musical, most melanelioij “ 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


i 


111 


I 











































































































TFTE TABLE BOOK. 


<§arrirft ^3IapsJ. 

No. V. 

[From “Arden of Feversham his true and 
lamentable Tragedy/’ Author unknown. 
1592.] 

Alice Arden with Mosbie her Paramour 
conspire the murder o f her Husband. 

Mos. How now, Alice, what sad and passionate ? 
Make me partaker of thy pensiveness ; 

; Fire divided burns with lesser force, 
j At. But I will dam that fire in my breast. 

Till by the force thereof my part consume. 

Ah Mosbie! 

Mas. Such deep pafhaires, like to a cannon’s burst, 
Discharged against a ruinated wall. 

Breaks my relenting heart in thousand pieces. 

Ungentle Alice, thy sorrow is my sore ; 

Thou know’st it will, and ’tis thy policy 
To forge distressful looks, to wound a breast 
Where lies a heart which dies when Ihou art sad. 

It is not Love that loves to anger Love. 

Al. It is not Love that loves to murther Lore. 

Mos. How mean you that ? 

Al. Thou know’st how dearly Arden loved me. 

Mos. And then- 

A!. And then—conceal the rest, for ’tis too bad, 

Lest that my words be carried to the wind. 

And publish’d in the world to both our shames. 

I pray thee, Mosbie, let our springtime wither ; 

Our harvest else will yield but loathsome weeds. 
Forget, I pray thee, what has past betwixt us; 

For new I blush and tremble at the thoughts. 

Mas. What, are you changed ? 

Al. Aye, te my former happy life again; 

From title of an odious strumpet’s name 
To honest Arden’s wife, not Arden’s honest wife— 

Ha Mosbie ! ’tis thou hast rifled me of that. 

And made me slanderous to all my kin. 

Even in my forehead is thy name engrave, 

A mean Artificer, that low-born name I 
i I was bewitcht; woe-worth the hapless hour 
And all the causes that enchanted me. 

Mos. Nay, if thou ban, let me breathe corses forth ; 
And if you stand so nicely at your fame. 

Let me repent the credit I have lost. 

1 have neglected matters of import. 

That would hnve ’stated me above thy state ; 
For-slow’d advantages, and spurn’d at time: 

Aye, Fortune’s right hand Mosbie hath forsook, 

To take a wanton giglot by the left. 

I left the marriage of an honest maid. 

Whose dowry would have weigh’d down all th v wealth; 
Whose beauty and demeanour far exceeded thee. 

This certain good 1 lost for changing bad, 

Ar 1 wrapt my credit in thy company. 

I was bewitcht; that is no theme of thine ; 

And thou unhallow’d hast enchanted me. 

Bui 1 will break thy spells and exorcisms, 

And put another sight upon these eyes. 

That efcew’d my heart a raven for a dove. 


Thou art not fair; I view’d thee not til! mow : 

Thou art not kind: till now I knew thee not: 

And now ttie rain hath beaten otf thy gilt. 

Thy worthless copper shews thee counterfeit. 

It grieves me not to see how foul thou art. 

But mads me that ever I thought thee fair. 

Go, get thee gone, a copesmate for thy hinds ; 

I am too good to be thy favourite. 

Al. Aye, now 1 see, and too soon find it true. 
Which often hath been told me by my friends. 

That Mosbie loves me not but for my wealth ; 

Which too incredulous I ne’er believed. 

Nay, hear me speak, Mosbie, a word or two ; 

I’ll bite my tongue if I speak bitterly. 

Look on me, Mosbie, or else I’ll kill myself. 

Nothing shall hide me from thy stormy look ; 

If thou cry War, there is no Peace for me. 

I will do penance for offen ding thee ; 

And burn this Prayer Book, which I here use. 

The Holy Word that has converted me. 

See, Mosbie, T wijl tear away the leaves. 

And all the leaves ; and in this golden Cores 
Shall thy sweet phrases and thy letters dwell. 

And thereor. will I chiefly meditate. 

And hold no other sect but such devotion. 

Wilt thou not look ? is all thy Love o’erwhelin’d ? 
Wilt thou not hear ? what malice stops thy ears ? 
Why speakst thou not ? what silence ties thy tonga? 
Thou hast been sighted as the Eagle is. 

And heard as quickly as the fearful Hare 
And spoke as smoothly as an Orator, 

When 1 have bid thee hear, or see, or speak: 

And art thou sensible in none of these ? 

Weigh all thy good turns with this little fault. 

And I deserve not Mosbie's muddy looks. 

A fence of trouble is not thicken’d still; 

Be clear again; I’ll ne’er more trouble thee. 

Mos. O he, no ; I’m a base artificer ; 

My wings are feather'd for a lowly flight. 

Mosbie, tie, no; not for a thousand pound 
Make love to you; why, tis unpardonable. 

We Beggars must not breathe, where Gentiles are. 

Al. Sweet Mosbie is as Gentle as a King, 

And I too blind to judge him otherwise. 

Flowers sometimes spring in fallow lands: 

Weeds in gardens, Roses grow on thorns; 

So, whatsoe’er my Mosbie’s father was. 

Himself is valued Gentle by his worth. 

Mos. Ah how you women can insinuate. 

And clear a trespass with your sweet set tongue . 

I will forget this quarrel, gentle Alice, 

Provided I’ll be tempted so no more. 


Arden, with his friend Franklin, travel 
ling at night to Arden's house at Fever- 
sham, where he is lain in icait for b$ 
Ruffians, hired by Alice and Mosbie t ; 
murder him; Franklin is interrupted in cl 
story he ivus beginning to tell by the wax, 
of a bad wife, by an indisposition, omi¬ 
nous of the impending danger of his friend 


112 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Arden. Come, Master Franklin, onwards with your 
tale. 

Frank. I’ll assure you, Sir, you task me much. 

A heavy blood is gather’d at my heart; 

And on the sudden is my wind so short, 

As nindereth the passage of my speech, 
r^o tierce a qualm yet ne'er assailed me. 

Arden. Come, Master Franklin, let us go on softly ; 
’l he annoyance of the dust, or else some meat 
You ate at dinner cannot brook with vou. 

I have been often so, and soon amended. 

Frank. Do you remember where my tale did leave ? 
Arden. Aye, where the Gentleman did check his 
wife— 

Frank. She being reprehended for the fact. 

Witness produced that took her with the fact. 

Her glove brought in which there she left behind, 

And many other assured arguments. 

Her Husband ask d her whether it were not so— 
Arden. Her answer then ? I wonder how she look'd, 
Having forsworn it with so vehement oaths, 

And at the instant so approved upon her. 

Frank. First did she cast her eyes down on the 
earth. 

Watching the drops that fell amain from thence; 

Then softly draws she out her handkercher, 

And modestly she wipes her tear-stain’d face : 

Then hemtn’d she out (to clear her voice it should 
seem), 

And with a majesty addrest herself 
To encounter all their accusations— 
l'ardon me. Master Arden, I can no more; 

I his lighting at my heart makes short my wind. 

Arden. Come, we are almost now at Raynum Down; 
'four pretty tale beguiles the weary way, 

I would you were in case to tell it out. 

[ They are set upon by the Ruffians.] 


jilustr. 

For the Table Book. 

GOD SAVE THE KING. 

John Bull. 

In answer to an inquiry in The Times , 
respecting the author of “ God save the 
King,” the writers of several letters in that 
journal, during the present month, concur 
in ascribing the air of the “ national an¬ 
them ” to Dr. John Bull. This opinion 
results from recent researches, by the curi¬ 
ous in music, which have been published in 
elaborate forms. 

Dr. John Bull was a celebrated musi¬ 
cian, born about 1.063, in Somersetshire. 
His master in music was William Blithe- 
man, organist of the chapel royal to queen 
Elizabeth, in which capacity he was much 
distinguished. Bull, on the death of his 
master in 1091, was appointed his suc¬ 


cessor. In 1592 he was created doctor in 
the university of Cambridge ; and in 1096 
at the rt commendation of her majesty, he 
was made professor of music to Gresham 
college, which situation he resigned it 
1607. During more than a )ear of his 
professorship, Mr. Thomas Bird, son of the 
venerable William Bird, exercised the 
office of a substitute to Dr. Bull, while he 
travelled on the continent for the recovery 
of his health. After the decease of queen 
Elizabeth, Bull was appointed chamber- 
musician to king James. In 1613, Dr. Bull 
finally quitted England, and entered into 
the service of the archduke, in the Nether¬ 
lands. lie afterwards seems tc have set¬ 
tled at Lubec, from which place many of 
his compositions, in the list published bv 
Dr. Ward, are dated ; one of them so late 
as 1622, the supposed year of his decease. 
Dr. Bull has been censured for quitting bis 
establishment in England ; but it is pro¬ 
bable that the increase of health and wealth 
was the cause and consequence of his re¬ 
moval. lie seems to have been praised at 
home more than rewarded. The professor¬ 
ship of Gresham college was not then a 
sinecure. His attendance on the chapei 
royal, for which he had 40/. per annum, 
and on the prince of Wales, at a similai 
salary, though honourable, were not very 
lucrative appointments for the first per¬ 
former in the world, at a time when scho¬ 
lars were not so profitable as at present, 
and there was no public performance where 
this most wonderful musician could display 
his abilities. A list of more than two hun¬ 
dred of Dr. Bull’s compositions, vocal and 
instrumental, is inserted in his life, the 
whole of which, when his biography was 
written in 1740, were preserved in the 
collection of Dr. 1'epusch. The chief part 
of these were pieces for the organ and 
virginal.* 

Anthony a Wood relates the following 
anecdote of this distinguished musician, 
when he was abroad for the recovery of his 
health in 1601 : — 

“ Dr. Bull hearing of a famous musician 
belonging to a certain cathedral at St. 
Omer’s, he applied himself as a novice to 
him, to learn something of his faculty, and 
to see and admire his works. This musi¬ 
cian, after some discourse had passed be¬ 
tween them, conducted Bull to a vestry or 
music-school joining to the cathedral, and 
showed to him a lesson or song of lorty parts, 
and then made a vaunting challenge to any 
person in the world to add one more part 


* Dictionary of Musicians. Hawlxin*. 


113 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


to them, supposing it to oe so complete 
and full that it was impossible for any 
mortal man to correct or add to it; Bull 
thereupon desiring the use of pen, ink, and 
ruled paper, such as we call music paper, 
prayed the musician to lock him up in the 
said school for two or three hours ; which 
being done, not without great disdain by 
the musician, Bull in that time, or less, 
added forty more parts to the said lesson 
or song. The musician thereupon being 
called in, he viewed it, tried it, and retried 
it; at length he burst out into a great 
ecstasy, and swore by the great God, that he 
that added those forty parts must either be 
the devil, or Dr. Bull, &c. Whereupon 
Bull making himself known, the musician 
fell down and adored him. Afterwards 
continuing there and in those parts for a 
lime, he became so much admired, that he 
was courted to accept of any place or pre¬ 
ferment suitable to his profession, either 
within the dominions of the emperor, king 
of France, or Spain; but the tidings of 
these transactions coming to the English 
court, queen Elizabeth commanded him 
home.”* 

Dr. Burney disregards the preceding 
account as incredible ; but Wood was a 
most accurate writer: and Dr. Bull, be¬ 
sides being a great master, was a lover of 
the difficulties in his science, and was 
therefore likely to seek them with delight, 
and accomplish them in a time surprisingly 
short to those who study melody rather 
than intricacy of composition. 

It is related that in the reign of James I. 
“July the 16th, 1607, his majesty and 
prince Henry, with many of the nobility, 
and other honourable persons, dined at 
Merchant Taylors’ hall, it being the elec* 
tion-day of their master and wardens; 
when the company’s roll being offered to 
his majesty, he said he was already free of 
another company, but that the prince 
should grace them with the acceptance of 
his freedom, and that he would himself see 
when the garland w r as put on his head, 
which was done accordingly. During their 
stay, they were entertained with a great 
variety of music, both voices and instru¬ 
ments, as likewise with several speeches. 
And, while the king sat at dinner, Dr. Bull, 
who was free of that company,being in a citti - 
zen’s gowne, cappe, and hood, played most 
excellent melodie uppon a small payre of 
organs, placed there for that purpose 
onely.” 

From the only works of Dr. Bull in 
* Wood’s Fasti, anno 1586. 


print, some lessons in the “ Parthenia 
the hist music that was ever printed for the 
virginals,” he is deemed to have possessed 
a power of execution on the harpsichord 
far beyond what is generally conceived of 
the masters of that time. As to his lessons, 
they were, in the estimation of Dr. Pepusch, 
not only for the harmony and contrivance, 
but for air and modulation, so excellent, 
that he scrupled not to prefer them to those 
of Couperin, Scarlatti, and others of the 
modern composers for the harpsichord. 

Dr. Pepusch had in his collection a book 
of lessons very richly bound, which had 
once been queen Elizabeth’s; in this were 
contained many lessons of Bull, so very 
difficult, that hardly any master of the doc¬ 
tor’s time was able to play them. It is 
well known, that Dr. Pepusch married the 
famous opera singer, signora Margarita de 
L’Pine, who had a very fine hand on the 
harpsichord : as soon as they were married, 
the doctor inspired her with the same sen¬ 
timents of Bull as he himself had long 
entertained, and prevailed on her to prac¬ 
tise his lessons; in which she succeeded so 
well, as to excite the curiosity of numbers 
to resort to his house at the corner of Bart¬ 
lett’s-buildings, in Fetter-lane, to hear her. 
There are no remaining evidences of her 
unwearied application, in order to attain 
that degree of excellence which it is known 
she arrived at; but the book itself is yet in 
being, which in some parts of it is so dis¬ 
coloured by continual use, as to distinguish 
with the utmost degree of certainty the 
very lessons with which she was most de¬ 
lighted. One of them took up twenty 
minutes to go through it.* 

Dr. Burney says, that Pepusch’s prefer¬ 
ence of Bull’s compositions to those of 
Couperin and Scarlatti, rather proves that 
the doctor’s taste was bad, than that Bull’s 
music was good ; and he remarks, in re¬ 
ference to some of them, “ that they may 
be heard by a lover of music, with as little 
emotion as the clapper of a mill, or the 
rumbling of a post-chaise.” It is a mis¬ 
fortune to Dr. Bull’s fame, that he left little 
evidence of his great powers, except the 
transcendantly magnificent air of “ God 
save the king.” 

February , 1827. * 

COMPANY OF MUSICIANS 
of the City of London. 

King James I., upon what beneficia 
principle it is now difficult to discover, b. 

* Hawlnns. 




114 








































_ «*«» -i " ' 

THE TABLE BOOT 


letters-patent incorporated the musicians of 
the city of London into a company, and 
tney still continue to enjoy privileges in 
consequence of their constituting a frater¬ 
nity and corporation ; bearing arms azure, 
a swan, argent, within a tressure counter- 
riure, or: in a chief, gules, a rose between 
two lions, or: and for their crest the celes¬ 
tial sign Lyra, called by astronomers the 
Orphean Lyre. Unluckily for the bon- 
vivans of this tuneful tribe, they have no 
hall in the city for festive delights ! How¬ 
ever, on days of greatest gourmandise , the 
members of this body are generally too 
I busily employed in exhilarating others, 
comfortably to enjoy the fruits of good 
living themselves. And here historical in¬ 
tegrity obliges me to say, that this company 
has ever been held in derision by real pro¬ 
fessors, who have regarded it as an institu¬ 
tion as foreign to the cultivation and pros¬ 
perity of good music, as the train-bands to 
the art of war. Indeed, the only uses that 
have hitherto been made of this charter 
seem the affording to aliens an easy and 
cheap expedient of acquiring the freedom 
of the city, and enabling them to pursue 
some more profitable and respectable trade 
than that of fiddling; as well as empower¬ 
ing the company to keep out of processions, 
and city-feasts, every street and country- 
dance player, of superior abilities to those 
who have the honour of being styled the 
“ fTaits of the corporation.” * 


EFFECTS OF MUSIC. 

Sultan Amurath, that cruel prince, having 
laid siege to Bagdad, and taken it, gave 
orders for putting thirty thousand Persians 
to death, notwithstanding they had sub¬ 
mitted, and laid down their arms. Among 
the number of these unfortunate victims 
was a musician. He besought the officer, 
who had the command to see the sultan s 
orders executed, to spare him but for a mo¬ 
ment, while he might be permitted to speak 
to the emperor. The officer indulged him 
with his entreaty; and, being brought be¬ 
fore the emperor, he was permitted to 
exhibit a specimen of his art. Like the 
musician in Homer, he took up a kind of 
psaltrv, resembling a lyre, with six strings 
on each side, and accompanied it with his 
voice. lie sung the taking of Bagdad, and 
tfie triumph of Amurath. The pathetic 
Jones and exulting sounds which he drew 
|om the instrument, joined to the alternate 


* Burney. 


plaintivensss and boldness of his strains, 
rendered the prince unable to restrain the 
softer emotions of his soul. He even suf¬ 
fered him to proceed until, overpowered 
with harmony, he melted into tears of pity, 
and relented of his cruel intention, lie 
spared the prisoners who yet remained 
alive, and gave them instant liberty. 


Copograpbg. 

THE YORKSHIRE GIPSY * 

For the Table Booh. 

The Gipsies are pretty well known at 
streams of water, which, at different periods, 
are observed on some parts of the Yorkshire 
Wolds. They appear toward the latter end 
of winter, or early in spring ; sometimes 
breaking out very suddenly, and, after run¬ 
ning a few miles, again disappearing. That 
which is more particularly distinguished by 
the name of The Gipsy , has its origin near 
the Wold-cottage, at a distance of about 
twelve miles W. N.W. from Bridlington. 
The water here does not rise in a body, in 
one particular spot, but may be seen oozing 
and trickling among the grass, over a sur¬ 
face of considerable extent, and where the 
ground is not interrupted by the least ap¬ 
parent breakage; collecting into a mass, 
it passes off in a channel, of about four 
feet in depth, and eight or ten in width, 
along a fertile valley, toward the sea, which 
it enters through the harbour at Bridling¬ 
ton ; having passed the villages of Wold 
Newton, North Burton, Rudston, and 
Boynton. Its uncertain visits, and the 
amazing quantity of water sometimes dis¬ 
charged in a single season, have afforded 
subjects of curious speculation. One wri¬ 
ter displays a considerable degree of ability 
in favour of a connection which he sup¬ 
poses to exist between it and the ebbing 
and flowing spring, discovered at Bridling¬ 
ton Quay in 1811 . “The appearance ol 
this water,’’ however, to use the words ol 
Mr. Hinderwell, the historian of Scar¬ 
borough, “ is certainly influenced by the 
state of the seasons,” as there is sometimes 
an intermission of three or four years. It 
is probably occasioned by a surcharge of 
water descending from the high lands into 
the vales, by subterraneous passages, and. 
finding a proper place of emission, breaks 
out with great force. 


* The word is not pronounced the same as gipsy, a 
fortune-teller ; the g, in this case, being sounded hard 
as in gimlet. 


115 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


f 


Where shell thet land, that spot of earth be found ? 
Art thou a man ? a patriot? look around; 

Oh, thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam, 
That land thy country, and that spot thy home. 


Aftei a secession of five years, the Gipsy 
made its appearance in February, 1823 ; a 
circumstance which some people had sup¬ 
posed as unlikely to occur, owing to the 
alterations effected on the Carrs , under the 
Muston and Yedingham drainage act. 

• We are told, that the ancient Britons 
exalted their rivers and streams into the 
offices of religion, and whenever an object 
had been thus employed, it w 7 as reverenced 
, with a degree of sanctity ever afterwards ; 
j and we may readily suppose, that the sud- 
j den and extraordinary appearance of this 
| stream, after an interval of two or three 
successive years, would awaken their curi¬ 
osity, and excite in them a feeling of sacred 
astonishment. From the Druids may pro¬ 
bably have descended a custom, formerly 
prevalent among the young people at North 
Burton, but now discontinued: it was— 
“ going to meet the Gipsy,” on her first 
approach. Whether or not this meeting 
i was accompanied by any particular cere¬ 
mony, the writer of this paragraph has not 
been able to ascertain. 

T. C. 

Bridlington. 

WILTSHIRE ABROAD AND AT 
HOME. 

To the Editor. 

There is a land, of every land the pride. 

Beloved by heaven o’er all the world beside, 

Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 

And milder moons emparadise the night. 

A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth, 
rime-tutor’d age, and love-exalted youth ; 

The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 

Views not a realm so beautiful and fair. 

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; 

In every clime the magnet of his soul, 

Touch'd by remembrance, trembles to that pole. 

For in this land of heaven’s peculiar grace. 

The heritage of Nature’s noblest race, 

There is a spot of earth, supremely blest, 
j A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest; 

Where man, creation’s tyrant, casts aside 
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride ; 

While in his softened looks benignly blend 
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend. 

Here woman reigns—the mother, daughter wife, 
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life , 

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye 
An arg d guard of loves, and graces lie ; 

Around her knees domestic duties meet, 

And r. reside pleasures gambol at her feet. 


Mr. Editor,—As your Table Book may 
be considered an extensively agreeable and 
enterta ; ning continuation of your Every- 
Day Book, allow me a column, wherein, 
without wishing to draw attention too fre¬ 
quently to one subject, I would recur again 
to the contributions of your correspondent, 
in vol. ii. page 1371, of the Every-Day 
Book , my observations at page 1584, and 
his notices at page 1606. Your “ Old Cor¬ 
respondent” is, I presume, a native of this 
part of the country. He tells us, page 1608, 
that his ancestors came from the Priory ; in 
another place, that he is himself an anti¬ 
quarian ; and, if I am not much mistaken 
in the signatures, you have admitted his 
poetical effusions in some of your num¬ 
bers. Assuming these to be facts, he will 
enter into the feeling conveyed by the lines 
quoted at the head of this article, and 
agree with me in this observation, that 
every man who writes of the spot, or the 
county so endeared, should be anxious that 
truth and fiction should not be so blended 
together as to mislead us (the inhabitants) 
who read your miscellany ; and that we 
shall esteem it the more, as the antiquities, 
the productions, and the peculiarities o* 
this pait of our county are noticed in a 
proper manner. 

As your correspondent appears to have 
been anxious to set himself right with re¬ 
gard to the inaccuracies 1 noticed in his 
account of Clack, &c., I will point out that 
he is still in error in one slight particular. 

hen he visits this county again, he will 
find, if he should direct his footsteps to¬ 
wards Malmsbury and its venerable abbev, 
(now the church,) the tradition is, that the 
boys of a school, kept in a room that once 
existed over the antique and curious en¬ 
trance to the abbey, revolted and killed 
their master. Mr. Moffatt, in his history 
of Malmsbury, (ed. 1805,) has not noticed 
this tradition. 

Excuse my transcribing from that work, 
the subjoined “ Sonnet to the Avon,” and 
let me express a hope that your correspond¬ 
ent may also favour us with some effusions 
in verse upon that stream, the scene ofj 
warlike contests when the boundary of the 
Saxon kingdom, ot upon other subjects! 
connected with our local history. 

Upon this river, meandering- through ? 
fine and fertile tract of country, Mr. Mof- 


11G 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


fatt, after noticirg tlie earlier abbots of 
Maimsbury, adds, “ The ideas contained in 
the following lines were suggested by the 
perusal of the history of the foundation of 
Mai msbury abbey : 

“ Sonnet to the /Ivon. 

“ Reclined beside the willow shaded stream. 

On which the breath of whispering zephyr plays, 

Let me, O Avon, in untutor’d lays 
Assert thy fairest, purest right to fame. 

What tho’ no myrtle bower thy banks adorn, 

Nor sportive Naiads wanton in thy waves; 

No glittering sands of gold, or coral caves. 

Bedeck the channel by thy waters worn : 

Yet thou canst boast of honour* passing these, 

For when fair science left her eastern seat, 

Ere Alfred raised her sons a fair retreat. 

Where Isis’ laurels tremble in the breeze ; 

’Twas there, near where thy curling streamlet flows. 
E’en in yon dell, the Muses found repose.” 

! This interesting period in the history of 
the venerable abbey, its supposed connec¬ 
tion with Bradcnstoke Priory, the admired 
1 scenery of the surrounding country, the 
1 events of past ages blended into the exer- 
1 tions of a fertile imagination, and the many 
‘ traditions still floating in the minds of the 
| inhabitants, would form materials deserving 
1 the attention of a writer disposed to wield 
! his pen in that department of literature, 

1 which has been so successfully cultivated in 
the northern and other parts of our island. 

If by the observation, “ that his ances¬ 
tors came from the Priory,” your corres¬ 
pondent means Bradenstoke Priory, he 
will allow me to direct his attention to the 
fact of the original register of that esta¬ 
blishment being in the British Museum. 1 
refer him to the “ Beauties of England and 
Wales.” 

As your correspondent probably resides 
in London, he may be induced to obtain 
access to this document, in which 1 con¬ 
clude he would have no difficulty ; and if 
you, Mr. Editor, could favour us in your 
publication with an engraving of this 
Priory, it would be acceptable. 

I appreciate the manner in which your 
correspondent noticed my remarks, and 
wish him success in his literaly efforts,^ 
whether relating to objects in this vicinity, 
or to other matters. One remaik only I 
will add,—that I think he should avoid the 
naming of respectable individuals : the 
mention of names may cause unpleasant 
feelings in a neighbcuihood like this, how¬ 
ever unintentional on his part. 1 should 
have considered it better taste in an anti¬ 
quarian to have named the person in pos- 
i 


session cf the golden image, in preference 
to tlie childish incident stated to have 
occurred when Bradenstoke Priory was 
occupied by a formal respectable inhabit¬ 
ant, Mrs. Bridges. 

Your correspondent will excuse the free¬ 
dom of this observation ; his ready pen 
could perhaps relate to you the detail of a 
tragical event, said by tradition to have 
occurred at Dauntsey, where the mansion 
of the late earl of Peterborough now stands, 
and “ other tales of other times.” 

A Reader.* 

Lyneham , Wilts,, 

January 23, 1827. 


OLD BIRMINGHAM CONJURERS. 

By Mr. William Hutton. 

No head is a vacuum. Some, like a 
paltry cottage, are ill accommodated, dark, 
and circumscribed ; others are capacious as 
Westminster-hall. Though none are im¬ 
mense, yet they are capable of immense 
furniture. The more room is taken up by 
knowledge, the less remains for credulity. 
The more a man is acquainted with things, 
the more willing to “ give up the ghost." 
Every town and village, within my know¬ 
ledge, has been pestered with spiiits, 
which appear in horrid forms to the ima-! 
gination in the winter night—but the! 
spiiits which haunt Birmingham, are those 
of industry and luxury. 

If we examine the whole parish, we can¬ 
not produce one old “ witclibut we have 
numbers of young, who exercise a powerf'. 1 
influence over us. Should the ladies accuse 
the harsh epithet, they will please to con¬ 
sider, I allow them, what of all things they 
most wish for ,power —therefore the balance 
is in my favour. 

If we pass through the planetary worlds, 
we shall be able to muster two conjurers, 
who endeavoured to “ shine with the stars.” 
The first, John Walton, who was so busy 
in casting tlie nativity of others, that he 
forgot his own. Conscious of an applica¬ 
tion to himself, for the discovery of stolen 


• I am somewhat embarrassed by this differencA 
between two valued correspondents, and I hope neither 
will regard me in an ill light, if I venture to interpose, 
and deprecate controversy beyond an extent which can 
interest the readers of the Table Bunk. I do not say 
that it has passed that limit, and hitherto all has been 
well; perhaps, however, it would be advisable that 
“ A Reader” should confide to me his name, and that 
he and my “ Old Correspondent,” whom I know, should ' 
allow me to introduce them to each other. I think the 
result would be mutually satisfactory. 

W. H. 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


goods, he employed his people to steal 
j them. And though, for many years con- 
lined to his bed by infirmity, he could con¬ 
jure away the property of others, and, for a 
reward, conjure it back again. 

The prevalence of this evil, induced the 
legislature, in 1725, to make the reception 
\ of stolen goods capital. The first sacrifice 
to this law was the noted Jonathan Wild. 

The officers of justice, in 1732, pulled 
Walton out of his bed, in an obscure cottage, 
one furlong from the town, now Brickiln- 
lane, carried him to prison, and from thence 
to the gallows—they had better have car¬ 
ried him to the workhouse, and his followers 
to the anvil. 

To him succeeded Francis Kimberley, 
the only reasoning animal, who resided at 
No. 60, in Dale-end, from his early youtn 
I to extreme age. A hermit in a crowd ! 

! The windows of his house were strangers 
' to light. The shutters forgot to open ; the 
i chimney to smoke fiis cellar, though 
amply furnished, never knew moisture. 

lie spent threescore years in filling six 
rooms with such trumpery as w'as just too 
i good to be thrown away, and too bad to be 
kept. His life was as inoffensive as long. 
Instead of stealing the goods which other 
people used, he purchased what he could 
! not use himself. He was not difficult in 
: his choice of the property that entered his 
house ; if there was bulk, he was satisfied. 

His dark house, and his dark figure, 
corresponded with each other. The apart¬ 
ments, choked up with lumber, scarcely 
admitted his body, though of the skeleton 
order Perhaps leanness is an appendage 
to the science, for I never knew a corpu¬ 
lent conjurer. His diet, regular, plain, 
and slender, showed at how little expense 
life might be sustained. His library con¬ 
sisted of several thousand volumes, not one 
of which, I believe, he ever read; having 
written, in characters unknown to all but 
himself, his name, the price, and the date, 
in the title-page, he laid them by for ever. 
The highest pitch of his erudition was the 
annual almanack. 

He never wished to approach a woman, 
or be approached by one. Should the rest 
of men, for half a century, pay no more 
attention to the fair, some angelic hand 
might stick up a note like the arctic circle 
over one of our continents, “ this world to 
be let.” 

If he did not cultivate the acquaintance 
of the human species, the spiders, more 
numerous than his books, enjoyed an unin¬ 
terrupted reign of quiet. The silence of 
the place was not broken; the bioom, the 


book, the dust, or the web, was nor dis- : 
turbed. Mercury and his shirt pertormed 
their revolutions together; and Saturn 
changed his with his coat. He died in , 
1756, as conjurers usually die, unla¬ 
mented.* 


PATIENCE. 

t 

For the Table Book 

As the pent water of a mill-dam lies 

Motionless, yielding, noiseless, and serene. 
Patience waits meekly with companioned eyes; 

Or like the speck-cloud, which alone is seen 
Silver’d within blue space, ling’ring for air 
On which to sail prophetic voyages; 

Or as the fountain stone that doth not wear. 

But suits itself to pressure, and with ease 
Diverts the dropping crystal; or the wife 
That sits beside her husband and her love 
Subliming to another state and life, 

OfFriug him consolation as a dove,— 

Her sighs and tears, her heartache and her mind 
Devout, uatired, calm, precious, and resign’d. 

* * p 

> > 4 • 


British portraits. 

Catalogue of Painted British Por¬ 
traits, comprising most of the Sove- j 
reigns of England, from Henry 1. to 
George IV 7 ., and many distinguished 
personages; principally the produc¬ 
tions of Holbein, Zucchero, C. Jansen, 
Vandyck, Hudson, Reynolds, North- 
cote, &c. Now selling at the prices 
affixed, by Horatio Rodd, 17, Air- 
street, Piccadilly. 1827. 

This is an age of book and print cata¬ 
logues; and lo ! we have a picture dealer’s 1 
catalogue of portraits, painted in oil, from 
the price of two guineas to sixty. There 
is only one of so high value as the latter 
sum, and this is perhaps the most interest¬ 
ing in Mr. llodd’s collection, and he has 
allowed the present engraving from it. The 
picture is in size thirty inches by twenty- 
five. The subjoined particulars are from 
the catalogue. 


* Hist, of Birmingham. 


118 








































£>imon 2.orii 2Cobat. 

T hom the original Picture by Hogarth, lately discovered. 


“ To the present time, none of Hogarth’s 
biographers appear to have been aware of 
the ‘ local habitation’ of the original paint¬ 
ing from which the artist published his 
etching, the popularity of which, at the 
period to which it alludes, was so great, 
that a printseller offered for it its weight in 
gold : that offer the artist rejected; and he 
is said to have received from its sale, for 
many weeks, at the rate of twelve pounds 
each day. The impressions could not be 
taken off so fast as they were wanted, 
though the rolling-press was at work all 
night by the week together. 


“ Hogarth said himself, that lord Lovat's 
portrait was taken at the White Hart-inn, 
at St. Alban’s, in the attitude of relating on 
his fingers the numbers of the rebel forces : 
‘ Such a general had so many men, &c. 
and remarked that the muscles of Lovat’s 
neck appeared of unusual strength, more 
so than he had ever seen. Samuel Ireland, 
in his Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, 
vol. i. p. 146, states that Hogarth was in¬ 
vited to St. Alban’s for the express purpose 
of being introduced to Lovat, who was then 
resting at the White Hart-inn, on his way 
to London from Scotland, by Dr. Webster. 


THE TABLE BOOiv. 























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


a physician residing at St. Alban’s, and well 
known to Boswell, Johnson, and other emi¬ 
nent literary characters of that period. 
Hogarth had never seen Lovat before, and 
was, through the doctor’s introduction, re¬ 
ceived with much cordiality, even to the 
kiss fraternal, which was then certainly not 
very pleasant, as his lordship, being under 
the barber’s hands, left in the salute much 
of the lather on the artist’s face. Lord 
Lovat rested two or three days at St. Al¬ 
ban’s, and was under the immediate care of 
Dr. Webster, who thought his patient’s ill¬ 
ness was feigned with his usual cunning, or 
if at all real, arose principally from his ap¬ 
prehension of danger on reaching London. 
The short stay of Lovat at St. Alban’s 
allowed the artist but scanty opportunity 
of providing the materials for a complete 
picture; hence some carpenter was em- 
oloyed on the instant to glue together some 
Jeal board, and plane down one side, 
which is evident from the back being in the 
usual rough state in which the plank leaves 
the saw-pit. The painting, from the thin¬ 
ness of the priming-ground, bears evident 
proof of the haste with which the portrait 
was accomplished. The course lineament 
of features so strongly exhibited in his 
countenance, is admirably hit off; so well 
has Duncombe expressed it, 

‘ Lovat’s hard features Hogarth might command 

for his pencil was peculiarly adapted to 
such representation. It is observable the 
button holes of the coat, &c., are reversed 
in the artist’s etching, which was profe>sed 
to be ‘ drawn from the life, fkc.;’ and in 
the upper corner of the picture are satirical 
heraldic insignia, allusive to the artist’s 
idea of his future destiny.” 

The “ satirical heraldic insignia,” men¬ 
tioned in the above description, and repre¬ 
sented in the present engraving, do not 
appear in Hogarth's well-known whole 
length etching of lord Lovat. The picture 

j is a half-length ; it was found in the house 
of a poor person at Verulam, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of St. Alban’s, where Hogarth 
painted it eighty years ago, and it is a singu¬ 
lar fact, that till its discovery a few weeks 
ago, such a picture w'as not known to have 
been executed. In all probability, Hogarth 
obliged his friend, Dr. Webster, with it, 
and after the doctor’s death it passed to 
some heedless individual, and remained 
in obscurity from that time to the present.* 

! Further observation on'it is needless; for 

I- 

) * There is an account of lord Lovat in the Evertf 

'Jny B<tuh. 


persons who are interested concerning the 
individual whom Hogarth has portrayed, 
or who are anxious respecting the works of 1 
that distinguished artist, have an opportu¬ 
nity of seeing it at Mr. Rodd’s until it is j 
soid. 

As regards the other portraits in oil, 
collected by Mr. Rodd, and now offered 
by him for sale, after the manner of book¬ 
sellers, “ at the prices annexed,’’ they can 
be judged of with like facility. Like book¬ 
sellers, who tempt the owners of empty 
shelves, with “ long sets to fill up ” at 
small prices, Mr. R. “ acquaints the no¬ 
bility and gentry, having spacious country 
mansions, that he has many portraits of 
considerable interest as specimens of art, 
but of whom the picture is intended to re¬ 
present, matter of doubt: as such pictures 
would enliven many of their large rooms, 
and particularly the halls, they may be had 
at very low prices.” 

Mr. Rodd’s ascertained pictures really 
form a highly interesting collection of 
“ painted British Portraits,” from whence j 
collectors may select what they please : 
his mode of announcing such productions, i 
by way of catalogue, seems well adapted 
to bring buyers and sellers together, and is 
noticed here as an instance of spirited de¬ 
parture from the ancient trading rule, viz. 

Twiddle your thumbs 

Till a customer comes. 

* 


DEATH’S DOINGS. 

“ I am now worth one hundred thousand 
pounds,” said old Gregory, as he ascended 
a hill, which commanded a full prospect of 
an estate he had just purchased ; “ I atn 
now worth one hundred thousand pounds, 
and here,” said lie, “ I’ll plant an orchard : 
and on that spot I’ll have a pinery— 

“ Yon farm houses shall come down,” 
said old Gregory, “ they interrupt my 
view.” 

“ Then, what will become of tne far¬ 
mers ?” asked the steward, who attended 
him. 

^ “ That’s their business,” answered old 
Gregory. 

“ And that mil! must not stand upon the 
stream,” said old Gregory. 

“Then, how will the villagers grind their 
corn ?” asked the steward. 

“ That’s not my business,” answered old 
C regory. 

So old Gregory returned home—ate a 
hearty supper—drunk a bottle of port- 


120 









THE TABLE 


smoked two pipes of tobacco—and fell into 
| a profound slumber—and awoke no more ; 
and the farmers reside on their lands—and 
the nail stands upon the stream—and the 
i villagers rejoice that Death did “ business ” 
with old Gregory. 


THE BARBER. 

For the Table Book. 

Barbers are distinguished by peculiarities 
appertaining to no other class of men. They 
have a caste, and are a race of themselves. 
The members of this ancient and gentle 
profession—foul befall the libeller v ho -nail 
designate it a trade —are mild, peaceable, 
cheerful, polite, and communicative. Tin y 
mingle with no cabal, have no interest ir 
factions, are “ open to all parties, at d 
influenced by noneand they have a 
good, kind, or civil word for every bod . 
The cheerful morning salutation of one ot 
these cleanly, respectable persons is a 
“ handsell ’’ for the pleasures of the d v ; 
serenity is in its tone, and com to t n>e< s 
from its accompanying smile. Tilth , 

cool, clean, and sparingiy-fuinished shu. 
with sanded floor and towelled walls, re- 
lieved by the white-painted, well-scoured 
shelves, scantily adorned with the various 
implements of their art,denote the snug sys¬ 
tem of economy which characterises the 
owners. Here, only, is the looking-glass 
not an emblem of vanity : it is placed to 
reflect, and not to flatter. You seat your¬ 
self in the lowly, antique chair, worn 
smooth by the backs of half a century of 
beard-owners, and instantly feel a full re¬ 
pose from fatigue of body and mind. "N on 
fmd yourself in attentive and gentle hands, 
and are persuaded that no man can be in 
collision with his shaver or hair-dresser. 
The very operation tends to set you on 
better terms with yourself: and your barber 
hath not in his constitution the slightest 
element of difference. The adjustment of 
a curl, the clipping of a lock, the trimming 
of a whisker, (that much-cherished and 
highly-valued adornment of the face,) are 
matters of paramount importance to both 
patties—threads of sympathy for the time, 
unbroken by the divesture of the thin, soft, 
ample mantle, that enveloped you in its 
snowy folds while under Ins care. V\ ho 
can entertain ill-humour, much less vent 
his spleen, while wrapt in the symbolic 
vestment? The veiiest churl is softened 
by the application of the warm emollient 
brush, and calmed into complacency by 
the light-handed hoverings of the comb 


and si i A smile, a compliment, a 

re’ 1 .)i the weather, a diffident, side- 

win.: i c: 1 ' "v about politics, or the passing 
intellig, c of the day, are tendered witli 
that deference, which is the most grateful 
as well as the handsomest demonstration of 
politeness. Should you, on sitting down, 
iialf-blushingly request him to cut off “ as 
large a lock as he car, Purely,” you assure 
him, “ that you may detect any future 
change in its colour, ’ how skilfully he ex¬ 
tracts, from your iaiher thin head of hair, a 
graceful, flowing lock, which self-love 
alone prevents you from doubting to hare 
been grown by yourself: how pleasantly 
you contemplate, in Idea, its glossiness 
from beneath the intended glass of the pro¬ 
pitiatory locket. A web of delightful 
associations is thus woven ; and the care he 
takes to “ make each particular hair to 
stand on end ” to your wishes, so as to let 
' on know he surmises your destination, 
completes the charm.—We never hear of 
pt. pie cutting their throats in a barber’s 
shop, though the place is redolent of razois. 

T j ; the ensanguined spots that occasion- 
air i) '-.Toirch the whiteness of the revolving 
t.:vi 'om careless, unskilful, and opi- 
inaividuals, who mow their own 
be i:js, or refuse to restrain their risibility. 

1 wonder how any can usurp the province 
ot the barber, (once an almost exclusive 
one,) and apply unskilful, or unpractised 
hands so near to the grand canal of life. 
For my own part, I would not lose the 
daily elevation ot my tender nose, by the 
velvet-tipped digits of my barber—no, not 
for an independence ! 

The genuine barber is usually (like his 
razors) well-tempered ; a man unvisited by 
care ; combining a somewhat hasty assi¬ 
duity, with an easy and respectful manner. 1 
He exhibits the best part of the character 
of a Frenchman—an uniform exterior sua¬ 
vity, and politesse. He seems a faded, 
nobleman, or emigrt of the old regime. 
And surely if the souls of men transmigrate, 
those of the old French noblesse seek tl e 
congenial soil of the barber’s bosom ! Is it 
a degradation of worthy and untroubled 
spirits, to imagine, that they animate the 
bodies of the. harmless and unsophisticated ? 

In person the barber usually inclines to 
the portly ; but is rarely obese. IIis is 
that agreeable plumpness betokening the 
man at ease with himself and the world— 
and the utter absence of that fretfulness 
ascribed to leanness. Nor do his comely 
proportions and fleshiness make leaden the 
heels, or lessen the elasticity of his sn p, 
or transmute his feathery lightness of hand 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


co heaviness. He usually wears powder, 
for it looks respectable, and is professional 
withal. Ths last of the almost forgotten 
and quite despised race of pigtails, once 
proudly cherished by all ranks—now pro¬ 
scribed, banished, or, if at all seen, dimi¬ 
nished in stateliness and bulk, “ shorn of 
its fair proportions,’'—lingers fondly with 
its former nurturer; the neat-combed, even- 
clipped hairs, encased in their tight swathe 
of black ribbon, topped by an airy bow, 
nestle in the well-clothed neck of the mo¬ 
dern barber. Yet why do I call him 
modern ? True, he lives in our, but he 
belongs to former times, of which he is the 
remembrancer and historian—the days of 
bags, queues, clubs, and periwigs, when a 
halo of powder, pomatum, and frizzed curls 
encircled the heads of our ancestors. That 
glory is departed; the brisk and agile 
tonsor, once the genius of the toilet, no 
longer directs, with the precision of a can¬ 
noneer, rapid discharges of scented atoms 
against bristling batteries of his own crea¬ 
tion.. “ The barber's occupation's gone,” 
with all the “ pride, pomp, and circum¬ 
stance of glorious wigs!" 

Methinks I detect some unfledged reader, 
upon whose head of hair the sun of the 
J eighteenth century never shone, glancing 
nis “ mind’s eye ” to one of the more 
recent and fashionable professors of the art 
of “ ciseaurie "—one of the chemical per¬ 
fumers, or self-esteemed practitioners of the 
present day, in search of an exemplification 
of my description :—he is at fault. Though 
he may deem Truefit or Macalpine mo- 
| dels of skill, and therefore of description, I 
must tell him I recognise none such. I 
speak of the last generation, (between 
which and the present, Ross, and Taylor of 
| Whitechapel, are the connecting links,) the 
last remnants of whom haunt the solitary, 
well-paved,silent corners,and less frequented 
i streets of London—whose windows ex- 
| hibit no waxen busts, bepainted and be¬ 
dizened in fancy dresses and flaunting 
; feathers, but one or two “old original” 
blocks or dummies , crowned with sober- 
looking, respectable, stiff-buckled, brown 
wigs, such as our late venerable monarch 
used to wear. There is an aboriginal wig- 
maker’s shop at the corner of an inn-yard 
in Bishopsgate-street; a “ repository ” of 
hair; the window of which is full of these 
primitive caxons, all of a sober brown, or 
simpler flaxen, with an occasional contrast 
of rusty black, forming, as it were, a finis 
to the by-gone fashion. Had our first fore¬ 
father, Adam, been bald, he could not have 
worn a more simply artificial imitation of 


nature than one of these wigs—so frank, so 
sincere, and so warm an apology for want 
of hair, scorning to deceive the observer, 
or to crown the veteran neaa witn adoles¬ 
cent curls. The ancient v/ig, whether j 
a simple scratch, a plain bob, or a splendid 
periwig, was one which a man might mo- : 
destly hold on one hand, while with the ! 
other he wiped his bald pate ; but with 
what grace could a modern wig-w^earer 
dismount a specific deception, an elaborate 
imitation of natural curls to exhibit a hair¬ 
less scalp ? It would be either a censure 
on his vanity, or a sarcasm on his other¬ 
wise unknown deficiency. The old wig, 
on the contrary, was a plain acknowledg¬ 
ment of want of hair ; avowing the com¬ 
fort, or the inconvenience, (as it might 
happen,) with an independent indifference 
to mirth or pity ; and forming a decent 
covering to the head that sought not to be¬ 
come either a decoration or deceit. Peace 
to the manes of the primitive artificers of 
human hair—the true skull-thatchers—the 
architects of towering toupees—the en¬ 
gineers of flowing periwigs ! 

The wig-makers (as they still denominate 
themselves) in Lincoln’s-inn and the Tem¬ 
ple, are quite of the “ old school.” Their 
shady, cool, cleanly, classic recesses, where 
embryo chancellors have been measured 
for their initiatory forensic wigs; where the 
powdered glories of the bench have oft- 
times received a rc-revivification; where 
some “old Bencher” still resorts, in his 
undress, to have his nightly growth of j 
beard shaven by the “ particular razor j 
these powder-scented nooks, these legal 
dressing-closets seem, like the “ statutes at 
large,” to resist, tacitly but effectually, the 
progress of innovation. They are like the 
old law offices, which are scattered up and 
down in various corners of the intricate 
maze of “ courts,” constituting the “ Tem¬ 
ple”—unchangeable by time; except when 
the hand of death removes some old 
tenant at will, who has been refreshed by 
the cool-borne breezes from the river, or 
soothed by the restless monotony of the 
plashing fountain, “ sixty years since.”— 
But I grow serious.—The barber possesses 
that distinction of gentleness, a soft and 
white hand, of genial and equable tempera¬ 
ture, neither falling to the “ zero ” of chilli¬ 
ness, nor rising to the “ fever heat ” of 
perspiration, but usually lingering at 
“ blood heat.” I know not if any one ever 
shook hands with his barber : there needs 
no such outward demonstration of good¬ 
will ; no grip, like that we bestow upon 
an old friend returned after a long absence. 


122 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


by way of rivet, as it were, to that link in 
the chain of friendship. His air of courtesy 
keeps a good understanding floating be- 
i tween him and his customers, which, if 
ruffled by a hasty departure, or dismissal, 
is revived the next day by the sun-light of 
his morning smile! 

The barber’s hand is unlike that of any 
other soft hand : it is not flabby, like that 
of a sensualist; nor arid, and thin, like a stu¬ 
dent’s; nor dead white, like that of a deli¬ 
cate female; but it is naturally warm, of a 
glowing, transparent colour, and of a 
cushiony, elastic softness. Beneath its 
conciliatory touch, as it prepares the skin 
for the sweeping course of the razor, and its 
gentle pressure, as it inclines the head to 
either side, to aid the operation of the scis¬ 
sors, a man may sit for hours, and feel no 
weariness. Happy must he be who lived 
in the days of long, or full-dressed hair, 
and resigned himself for a full hour to the 
passive luxury of hair-dressing ! A morn¬ 
ing’s toilette—(for a gentleman, I mean ; 
being a bachelor, I am uninitiated in the 
arcana of a lady’s dressing-room)—a morn¬ 
ing’s toilette in those days was indeed an 
important part of the “ business of life 
there were the curling-irons, the comb, the 
pomatum, the powder-puff, the powder- 
knife, the mask, and a dozen other requi¬ 
sites to complete the elaborate process that 
perfected that mysterious “ frappant, or 
tintinabulant appendage ” to the back part 
of the head. Oh ! it must have been a 
luxury—a delight surpassing the famed 
baths and cosmetics of the east. 

I have said that the barber is a gentle 
man ; if not in so many words, I have at 
least pointed out that distinguishing trait 
in him. He is also a humane man : his 
occupation of torturing hairs leaves him 
neither leisure nor disposition to torture 
ought else. He looks as respectable as he 
is; and he is void of any appearance of 
deceit or cunning. There is less of per¬ 
sonality or egotism about him than mankind 
in general : though he possesses an idio¬ 
syncrasy, it is that of his class, not of him¬ 
self. As he sits, patiently renovating some 
dilapidated peruke, or perseveringly pre¬ 
sides over the developement of grace in 
some intractable bush of hair, or stands 
at his own threshold, in the cleanly pride 
of white apron and hose, lustrous shoes, 
and exemplary jacket, with that studied 
yet seeming disarrangement of hair, as 
though subduing, as far as consistent with 
propriety, the visible appearance of tech¬ 
nical skill—as he thus, untired, goes the 
tiever-varying round of his pleasant occu¬ 


pation, and active leisure, time seems to 
pass unheeded, and the wheel of chance, 
scattering fragments of circumstance from 
the rock of destiny, continues its relentless 
and unremittent revolution, unnoticed by 
him. He hears not the roar of the fearfu. 
engine, the groans and sighs of despair, or 
the wild laugh of exultation, produced by 
its mighty working. All is remote, strange, 
and intricate, and belongs not to him to 
know. He dwells in an area of peace—a 
magic circle whose area might be de¬ 
scribed by his obsolete sign-pole ! 

Nor does the character of the barber vary 
in other countries. He seems to flourish in 
unobtrusive prosperity all the world over. 1 
In the east, the clime most congenial to his 
avocations, the voluminous beard makes 
up for the deficiency of the ever-turbaned, 
close-shorn skull, and he exhibits the tri¬ 
umph of his skill in its most special depart- | 
ment. Transport an English barber to Sa- 
marcand, or Ispahan, and, saving the lan- j 
guage, he would feel quite at home. Here 
he reads the newspaper, and, unless any | 
part is contradicted by his customers, j 
he believes it all: it is his oracle. At 1 
Constantinople the chief eunuch would con¬ 
fide to him the secrets of the seraglio as if 
he were a genuine disciple of Mahomet ; 
and with as right good will as ever old 
“ gossip’’ vented a bit of scandal with un- ; 
constrained volubility of tongue. He would 
listen to, aye and put faith in, the relations ; 
of the coffee-house story-tellers who came to 
have their beards trimmed, and repaid him 
with one of their inventions for his trouble. 
What a dissection would a barber’s brain 
afford, could we but discern the mine of 
latent feuds and conspiracies laid up there 
in coil, by their spleenful and mischievous 
inventors. I would that I could unpack 
the hoarded venom, all hurtless in that i 
“ cool grot,” as destructive stores are de¬ 
posited in an arsenal, where light and heat 
never corne. His mind admits no spark of 
malice to fire the train of jealousy, or ex¬ 
plode the ammunition of petty strife; and 
it were well for the world and society, if j 
the intrigue and spite of its inhabitants 
could be poured, like the “ cursed juice of 
Hebenon,” into his ever-open ear, and be 
buried for ever in the oblivious chambers 
of his brain. Vast as the caverned ear 
of Dionysius the tyrant, his contains in its j 
labyrinthine recesses the collected scandal 
of neighbourhoods, the chatter of house¬ 
holds, and even the crooked policy of 
courts; but ail is decomposed and neutra¬ 
lized there. It is the very quantity of this 
freight of plot and detraction that renders 


123 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


l.im so harmless. Tt is as ballast to the 
sails of his judgment. He mixes in r.o 
conspiracy, domestic or public. The foul¬ 
est treason would remain “ pure in the last 
recesses of his mind.” He knows not of, 
cares not for, feels no interest in all this 
material of wickedness, any more than the 
unconscious paper that bears on its lettered 
forehead the “ sixth edition ” of a bulletin. 

| Amiable, contented, respected race !— 
I exclaim with Figaro, “ Oh, that 1 were a 
happy barber!” 

Gaston. 


THE KING OF INDIA’S LIBRARY. 

Dabshelim, king of India, had so nume¬ 
rous a library, that a hundred brachmans 
were scarcely sufficient to keep it in order; 
and it required a thousand dromedaries to 
transport it from one place to another. As 
he was not able to read all these books, he 
proposed to the brachmans to make extracts 
from them of the best and most useful of 
their contents. These learned personages 
set themselves so heartily to work, that in 
less than twenty years they had compiled of 
all these extracts a little encyclopaedia of 
twelve thousand volumes, which thirty 
camels could carry with ease. They had 
'.he honour to present it to the king. But, 
how great was their amazement, on his 
giving them for answer, that it was in:pos¬ 
sible for him to read thirty camel-loads of 
books. They therefore reduced their ex¬ 
tracts to fifteen, afterwards to ten, then to 
four, then to two dromedaries, and at last 
there remained only so much as to load a 
mule of ordinary stature. 

Unfortunately, Dabshelim, during this 
process of melting down his library, was 
grown old, and saw no probability of living 
to exhaust its quintessence to the last vo¬ 
lume. “ Illustrious sultan,” said his vizir, 
the sage Pilpay, “ though I have but a very 
imperfect knowledge of your royal library, 
yet I will undertake to deliver you a very 
brief and satisfactory abstract of it. You 
shall read it through in one minute, and 
yet you will find matter in it for reflecting 
upon throughout the rest of your life.” 
Having said this, Pilpay took a palm leaf, 
and wrote upon it with a golden style the 
tour following sentences :— 

1. The greater part of the sciences com¬ 
prise but one single word —Perhaps : and 
| the whole history of mankind contains no 
I more than three—they are born , suffer, die. 


2. Love nothing but what »s good, and 
do all that thou lovest to do; tnink nothing 
but what is true, and speak not all that 
thou thickest. 

3. O kings ! tame your passions, govern 
yourselves ; and it will be only child’s play 
to you to govern the world. 

4. O kings! O people! it can never be 
often enough repeated to you, what the 
half-witted venture to doubt, that there is 
no happiness without virtue, and no viitue 
without the fear of God. 


ENC OURA G EM ENT TO AUTHORS. 

Whether it is perfectly consistent in an 
author to solicit the indulgence of the pub¬ 
lic, though it may stand first in his wishes, ! 
admits a doubt; for, if his productions 
will not bear the light, it may be said, why 
does he publish ? but, if they will, there is 
no need to ask a favour; the world receives 
one from him. Will not a piece everlast¬ 
ingly be tried by its merit? Shall we 
esteem it the higher, because it was written 
at the age of thirteen f because it was the 
ffiort of a w T eek ? delivered extempore? 
hatched while the author stood upon one 
leg ? or cobbled, while he cobbled a shoe 
or will it be a recommendation, that it issues 
forth in gilt binding? The judic ous 
world will not be deceived by the tinselled 
purse, but will examine whether the con¬ 
tents are sterling, 

POETICAL ADVICE. 

For the Table Book. 

I have pleasure in being at liberty to 
publish a poetical letter to a young poet 
from om yet younger; who, before the 
years of manhood, has attained the height 
of knowing on what conditions the muse 
may be successfully wooed, and imparts the 
secret to h s friend. Some lines towards 
the close, which refer to his co-aspirant’s 
effusions, are omitted. 

To It. R. 

To you, dear Rowland, lodg'd in town, 

Where Pleasure’s smile soothes Winter's frown, 

I write while chilly breezes blow. 

And the dense clouds descend in snow. 

For Twenty-six is nearly dead. 

And age has whiten’d o’er her head ; 

Her velvet robe is stripp’d away, 

Her watery pulses hardly play ; 

Clogg’d with tiie withering leaves, the wind 
Comes with his blighting blast behind. 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


And here and tb°re, with prying eye, 

And flagging wings a bird flits by ; 

(For every Robin sparer grows. 

And every Sparrow robbing grips.'i 
The Year’s two eyes—the sun and moon— 

Are fading, and will fade full soon ;* 

With shattered forces Autumn yields. 

And Winter triumphs o’er the fields. 

So thus, alas ! I'm gagg’d it seems. 

From converse of the woods and streams, 

( For all the countless rhyming rabble 
Hold leaves can whisper—waters babble') 

And, house-bound for whole weeks together 
By stress of lungs, and stress of weather, 

Feed on the more delightful strains 
Of howling winds, and pelting rains; 

Which shake the house, from rear to van. 

Like valetudinarian; 

Pouring innumerable streams 
Of arrows, thro’ a thousand seams: 

Arrows so tine, the nicest eye 

Their thickest flight can ne’er descry.— 

Yet fashion’d with such subtle art. 

They strike their victim to the heart; 

While imps, that fly upon the. point. 

Raise racking pains in every joint. 

Kay, more—these winds are thought magicians. 
And supereminent physicians: 

For men who have been kill’d outright. 

They cure again at dead of night. 

That double witch, who erst did dwell 
Jn Endor’s cave, raised Samuel; 

But they each night raise countless hosts 
Of wandering sprites, and sheeted ghosts ; 

Turn shaking locks to clanking chains, 

And howl most supernatural strains: 

While all our dunces lose their wits, 

And pass the night in ague-tits. 

While this nocturnal serks blows 
l hide my head beneath the clothes. 

And sue the power whose dew distils 
The only balm for human ills. 

All day the sun’s prevailing beam 
Absorbs this dew from Lethe’s stream : 

All night the falling moisture sheds 
Oblivion over mortal heads. 

Then sinking into sleep 1 fall, 

And leave them piping at their bull. 

When morning comes—no summer’s mom— 

1 wake and find the spectres gone; 

But on the casement see emboss’d 
A mimic world in crusted frost; 

Ice-bergs, high shores, and wastes of snow, 
Mountains above, and seas below’; 

Or, if Imagination bids. 

Vast crystal domes, and pyramids. 

Then starting Irom my couch I leap. 

And shake away the dregs of sleep. 


• To shield this line from criticism 
’Tib Parody—not Plagiarism. 


J»st breathe upon the grand array. 

And ice-bergs slide in seas away. 

Now on the scout I sally forth. 

The weather-cock due E. by N. 

To meet some masquerading fog. 

Which makes all nature dance incog. 

And spreads blue devils, and blue lock*. 

Till exercised by tongues and books. 

Books, do I say? full well I wist 
A book’s a famous exorcist! 

A book’s the tow that makes the tether 
That binds the quick and dead together ; 

A speaking trumpet under ground. 

That turns a silence to a sound; 

A magic mirror form’d to show’. 

Worlds that were dust ten thousand years ago 
They’re aromatic cloths, that hold 
The mind embalm’d in many a fold, 

And look, arrang'd in dust-hung rooms, 

Like mummies in Egyptian tombs; 

—Enchanted echoes, that reply. 

Not to the ear, but to the eye ; 

Or pow’rful drugs, that give the brain. 

By strange contagion, joy or pain. 

A book’s the phoenix of the earth. 

Which bursts in splendour from its birth: 

And like the moon without her w’anes. 

From every change new lustre gains ; 

Shining w’ith undiminish’d light. 

While ages wing their idle flight. 

By such a glorious theme inspired 
Still co,uld I sing—but you are tired: 

(Tho’ adamantine lungs w’ould do. 

Ears should be adamantine too,) 

And thence we may deduce ’tis better 
To answer (’faith ’tis tirnej your letter. 

To answer first what first it says. 

Why will you speak of partial praise? 

I spoke with honesty and truth, 

And now you seem to doubt them both. 

The lynx’s eye may seem to him. 

Who always has enjoy’d it, dim : 

And brilliant thoughts to you may be 
What common-place ones are to me. 

You note them not—but cast them by. 

As light is lavish’d by the sky; 

Or streams from Indian mountains roll'd 
Fling to the ocean grains of gold. 

But still we know the gold is fine— 

But still we know the light’s divine. 

As to the Century and Pope, 

The thought’s not so absurd, I hope. 

I don’t despair to see a throne 
Rear’d above his—and p’rhaps ycur own 
The course is clear, the goal’s in view, 

‘Tis free to all, why not to you ? 

But, ere you start, you should surve 
The towering falcon strike her prey: 

In gradual sweeps the sky she scale* 

Nor all at once the bird assails. 


125 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Bnt hems him in—cuts round the skies, 

A ud gains upon him as he flies. 

Wearied and faint he beats the air in va : n. 

Then shuts his flaggy wings, and pitches to the plain. 
Now, falcon i now ! One stoop—but one, 

The quarry’s struck—the prize is won ! 

So he who hopes the palm to gain, 

So often sought—and sought in vain. 

Must year by year, as round by round. 

In easy circles leave the ground: 

’Tis time has taught him how to rise. 

And naturalized him to the skies. 

I Full many a day Pope trod the vales. 

Mid “ silver streams and murmuring gales.’ 

Long fear’d the rising hills to tread, 

Nor ever dared the mountain-head. 

ft needs not Milton to display,— 

Who let a life-time slide away. 

Before he swept the sounding string. 

And soar’d on Pegasean wing,— 

Nor Homer’s ancient form—to show 
The Laurel takes an age to grow; 

And he who gives his name to fate. 

Must plant it early, reap it late ; 

Nor pluck the blossoms as they spring, 

So beautiful, yet perishing. 

• # • * 




More 1 would say—but, see, the paper 
Is nearly out—and so’s my taper. 

So while I’ve space, and while I’ve light. 
I’ll shake your hand, and bid good-night. 


Dr. King —His pun 

The late Dr. King, of Oxford, by actively 
interfering in some measures which mate¬ 
rially affected the university at large, be¬ 
came very popular with some individuals, | 
and as obnoxious with others. The mode 
of expressing disapprobation at either ol 
the universities in the senate-house, or 
schools, is by scraping with the feet: but 
deviating from the usual custom, a party 
was made at Oxford to hiss the doctor at 
the conclusion of a Latin oration he had to 
make in public. This was accordingly 
done : the doctor, however, did not suffer j 
himself to be disconcerted, but turning; 
round to the vice-chancellor, said, very 
gravely, in an audible voice, “ Laudatur alt i 
His.” 


jfrbruarp. 

Conviviality and good cheer may con¬ 
vert the most dreary time of the year into 
a season of pleasure; and association o! 
ideas, that great source of our keenest plea¬ 
sures, may attach delightful images to the 
howling wind of a bleak winter’s night, 
and the hoarse screeching and mystic hoot- i 
ing of the ominous owl.* 


F. P. H. 

Croydon, Dec. 17,1826. 


StllCCtlOtCS. 

General Wolfe. 

It is related of this distinguished officer, 

| that his death-wound was not received by 
the common chance of war. 

Wolfe perceived one of the sergeants of 
| his regiment strike a man under arms, (an 
act against which he had given particular 
orders,) and knowing the man to be a good 
soldierj reprehended the aggressor with 
much warmth, and threatened to reduce 
him to the ranks. This so far incensed the 
sergeant, that he deserted to the enemy, 
where he meditated the means of destroying 
the general. Being placed in the enemy’s 
left wing, which was directly opposed to 
the right of the British line, where Wolfe 
commanded in person, he aimed at his old 
commander with his rifle, and effected his 
deadly purpose. 


Winter. 

When icicles bang by the wall. 

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, 

And Tom bears logs into the hall, 

And milk comes frozen home in pail; 

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul. 

Then nightly sings the staring owl, 

Tu-who; 

Tu-whit tu-who, a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

When all aloud the wind doth blow, 

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw. 

And birds sit brooding in the snow. 

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw : 

Then roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, 

And nightly sings the staring owl, 

Tu-who ; 

Tu-whit tu-who, a merry note, 

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

Shakspeart. 

To “ keel” the pot is an ancient spelling 
for “ cool,” which is the past participle ol 
the verb : see Tooke’s “ Diversions of Pur- 
ley,” where this passage is so explained. 


* Dr. Forster’s Perennial Calendar. 


126 

















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


^Monument at iurerttt, testigne) b)> C&ortoaR&m, 

To the Memory of the Swiss Guards who were massacred at the Tuit.t.eries, 

on the Tenth of August, 1792. 


The engraving above is executed from 
a clay figure, modelled by a Svvfss artist 
from the original. It was obligingly sent 
to the editor, for the present purpose, by 
the gentleman to whom it belongs. The 
model was presented to him by a friend, who, 
in answer to his inquiries on the subject, 
wrote him a letter, of which the following 
is an extract:— 

“ The Terra Incognita you mention 
comes from Lucerne, in Switzerland, and is 
the model of a colossal work, cut in the 
solid rock, close to that city, on the grounds 
of general Pfyffer. It is from a design fur¬ 
nished by Thorwaldsen, which is shown 
close by. The ‘ L’envoi,' as don Armado 
calls it, is as follows:—‘The Helvetian 
lion, even ir. death, protects the lilies of 
France.’ The monument was executed by 
the Swiss, in memory of their countrymen, 


who were massacred, on the 10th of August, 
at the Tuilleries, in defending Louis XVI. 
from the sans culottes. The names of those 
who perished are engraved beneath the lion.” 

The particulars of the dreadful slaughter 
wherein these helpless victims fell, while 
defending the palace and the person of the 
unfortunate monaich, are recorded in dif¬ 
ferent works within the reach of every 
person who desires to be acquainted with 
the frightful details. About sixty who 
were not killed at the moment, were taken 
prisoners, and conducted to the town-hall 
of the commons of Paris, for summary 
trial: but the ferocious females who mingled 
in the mobs of those terrifying times, rushed 
in bodies to the place, with cries of ven¬ 
geance, and the unhappy men were de¬ 
livered up to their fury, and every indi¬ 
vidual was murdered on the spot. 


127 


K 































THE TABLE BOOK. 




®arricfe fllapS. 

No. VI. 

[From the “ Chaste Maid in Cheapside,” 
a Comedy, by Thomas Middleton, 
1620 .] 

Citizen to a Knight complimenting his 
Daughter. 

Pish, stop your words, good Knight, ’twill make her 
blush else, 

I Which are wound too high for the Daughters of the 
Freedom; 

Honour, and Faithful Servant! they are compliments 
For the worthy Ladies of White Hall or Greenwich ; 
Ev’n plain, sufficient, subsidy words serve us, Sir. 


Master Allwit (a Wittol ) describes his 
contentment. 

I am like a man 

Finding a table furnish’d to his hand, 

fAs mine is still for me), prays for the Founder, 

Hless the Right worshipful, the good Founder’s life : 

I thank him, he # has maintain’d my house these ten 
years; 

Not only keeps my Wife, but he keeps me. 

He gets me all my children, and pays the nurse 
Weekly or monthly, puts me to nothing, 

Rent, nor Church dues, not so much as the Scavenger; 
The happiest state that ever man was born to. 

I walk out in a morning, come to breakfast, 

Find excellent cheer, a good fire in winter; 

Look in my coal-house, about Midsummer eve. 

That’s full, five or six chaldron new laid up; 

Look in my back yard, I shall find a steeple 
Made up with Kentish faggots, which o’erlooks 
The water-house and the windmills. I say nothing. 
But smile, and pin the door. When she lies in, 

(As now she’s even upon the point of grunting), 

A Lady lies not in like her; there’s her imbossings, 
Embroiderings, spanglings, and I know not what, 

As if she lay with all the gaudy shops 

In Gresham’3 Burse about her ; then her restoratives, 

Able to set up a young ’Pothecary, 

And richly store the Foreman of a Drug shop; 

Her sugars by whole loaves, her wines by rundlets, 

I see these things, but like a happy man 
I pay for none at all, yet fools think it mine ; 

I have the name, and in his gold I shine ; 

And where some merchants would in soul kiss hell. 

To buy a paradise for their wives, and dye 
Their conscience in the blood of prodigal heirs. 

To deck their Night-piece ; yet, all this being done, 
Eaten with jealousy to the inmost bone ; 

These torments stand I freed of. I am as clear 
From jealousy of a wife, as from the charge. 

O two miiaculous blessings 1 *tis the Knight, 

Has ta’en that labour quite out of my hands. 


* A rich old Knight, who keeps Allwit’s Wife. 


I may sit still, and play ; he’s jealous for me. 
Watches her steps, sets spies. I live at ease. 

He has both the cost and torment; when the string 
Of his heart frets, I feed fat, laugh, or sing. 

• •••••• 

I’ll go bid Gossips • presently myself. 

That’s all the work I’ll do; nor need I stir, 

But that it is my pleasure to walk forth 
And air myself a little; I am tyed 
To nothing in this business ; what I do 
Is merely recreation, not constraint. 


Rescue from Bailiffs by the Watermen, 

- I had been taken by eight Serjeants, 

But for the honest Watermen, I am bound to ’em. 
They are the most requiteful’st people living ; 

For, as they get their means by Gentlemen, 

They’re still the forward’st to help Gentlemen. 

You heard how one ’scaped out of the Blackfriarsf 
But a while sinoe from two or three varlets. 

Came into the house with all their rapiers drawn. 

As if they’d dance the sword-dance on the stage. 
With candles in their hands, like Chandlers’ Ghosts ! 
Whilst the poor Gentleman, so pursued and banded. 
Was by an honest pair of oars safe landed. 


[From “ London Chanticleers,” a ruda 
Sketch of a Play, printed 1659, but 
evidently much older.] 

Song in praise of Ale. 

1 . 

Submit, Bunch of Grapes, 

To the strong Barley ear; 

The weak Wine no longer 
The laurel shall wear 

2 . 

Sack, and all drinks else. 

Desist from the strife; 

Ale’s the only Aqua Vitae, 

And liquor of life. 

3. 

Then come, my boon fellows, 

Let’s drink it around ; 

It keeps us from grave. 

Though it lays us on ground. 

4 . 

Ale’s a Physician, 

No Mountebank Bragger; 

Can cure the chill Ague, 

Though it be with the Stagger. 

5. 

Ale’s a strong Wrestler, 

Flings all it hath met; 

And makes the ground slippery. 

Though it be not wet. 


•To his Wife’s Lying-m. 
t Alsatia. I presume. 


128 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


6. 

Al* ig both Ceres, 

And food Neptune too ; 
Ale’s froth was the sea, 
From which Venus grew. 

7. 

Ale is immortal; 

And be there no stops 
In bonny lads’ quaffing. 

Can live without hops.* 

8 . 

Then come, my boon fellows. 
Let’s drink it around ; 

It keeps us from grave. 
Though it lays us on ground. 


C. L. 


£f)c Drama. 

CHARLOTTE CHARKE. 

The novel called “ Mr. Dumont,” by 
this unfortunate woman, was published in 
the year 1755 in one volume, twelves, by 
11. Slater, of Drury-lane, who may be pre¬ 
sumed to have been the bookseller that 
accompanied Mr. Whyte to her miserable 
dwelling, for the purpose of hearing her 
read the manuscript. Since the account at 
col. 125, I met with an advertisement of 
November, 1742, from whence it appears 
that she and her daughter, “Miss Charke,” 
performed at one of those places of public 
amusement at that period, when, to evade 
the law, under pretence of a musical en¬ 
tertainment, a play and the usual after- 
piece were frequently represented by way 
of divertisement, although they constituted 
the sole attraction. The notice referred to 
is altogether a curiosity : it runs thus :— 

“ For the Benefit of a Person who has a 
mind to get Money : At the New Theatre 
in James-street near the Haymarket, on 
Monday next, will be performed a Concert 
of vocal and instrumental Musick, divided 
into Two Parts. Boxes 3$. Pit 2s. Galleryls. 
Between the two parts of the Concert will 
be performed a Tragedy , call’d The Fatal 
Curiosity, written by the late Mr. Lillo, 
author of George Barnwell. The part of 
Mrs. Wilmot by Mrs. Charke (who ori¬ 
ginally performed it at the Haymarket;) 
The rest of the parts by a Set of People 
who will perform as well as they can , if 
not as well as they tvou'd, and the best can 


• The original distinction of Beer from the old Drink 
of our Forefathers, which was made without that in¬ 
gredient. 


do no more. With variety of Entertainments, 
viz. Act I. A Preamble on the Kettle drums 
by Mr. Job Baker, particularly, Larry 
Grovy, accompanied with French Horns. 
Act II. A new Peasant Dance by Mons, 
Chemont and Madem Peran, just arriv’d 
piping hot from the Opera at Paris. To 
which will be added a Ballad-Opera, call’d 
The Devil to Pay ; The part of Nell by 
Miss Charke who performed Princess 
Elizabeth at Southwark. Servants will be 
allow’d to keep places on the stage—Par¬ 
ticular care will be taken to perforin with 
the utmost decency, and to prevent mis¬ 
takes, the Bills for the day will be blue and 
black, &c.” * 


THE BLOODY HAND. 

For the Table Book. 

One December evening, the year before 
last, returning to T—, in the northern ex¬ 
tremity of W —, in a drisling rain, as I 
approached the second milestone, I observ¬ 
ed two men, an elder and a younger, walk¬ 
ing side by side in the horse-road. The 
elder, whose appearance indicated that of a 
labourer in very comfortable circumstances, 
was in the path directly in front of my 
horse, and seemed to have some intention 
of stopping me; on my advancing, how¬ 
ever, he quietly withdrew from the middle 
of the road to the side of it, but kept his 
eyes firmly fixed on me, which caused also, 
on my part, a particular attention to him. 
He then accosted me, “ Sir, I beg your 
pardon.’’—“ For what, my man ?”—“ For 
speaking to you, sir.”—“ What have you 
said, then ?”—“ I want to know the way to 
S—.”—“ Pass on beyond those trees, and 
you will see the spire before you.”—How 
far is it off, sir ?”—“ Less than two miles.” 
—“ Do you know it, sir?”—“ I was there 
twenty minutes ago.”—“ Do you know the 
gentleman there, sir, that wants a man to 
go under ground for him ?”—“ For what 
purpose?” (imagining, from the direction 
in which I met the man, that he came from 
the mining districts of S—, I expected that 
his object was to explore the neighbour¬ 
hood for coals.) His answer immediately 
turned the whole train of my ideas. “ To 
go under ground for him, to take oft’ the 
bloody hand from his carriage.”—“ And 
what is that to be done for?”—“ For a 
thousand pounds, sir. Have you not heard 
any thing of it, sir?”—“ Not a word.”— 
“ Well, sir, I was told that the gentleman 
lives here, at S—, at the hall, and that he 
offers a thousand pounds to any man that 


129 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


will take off the bloody hand from his car¬ 
riage/'—“ I can assure you this is the first 
word I have heard on the subject/’—“ Well, 
sir, I have been told so and then, taking 
off his hat, he wished me a good morning. 

I rode slowly on, but very suddenly 
heard a loud call, “ Stop, sir, stop 1” I 
turned my horse, and saw the man, who 
had, I imagined, held a short parley with 
his companion, just leaving him, and run¬ 
ning towards me, and calling out, “ Stop, 
sir.” Not quite knowing what to make of 
this extraordinary accost and vehement 
call, I changed a stout stick in my left 
hand to my light hand, elevated it, gathered 
up the reins in my left, and trotted my 
horse towards him ; he then walked to the 
side of the road, and took ©ff his hat, and 
said, “ Sir, I am told th»4 M tke gentleman 
can get a man to go under ground for him, 
for seven years, and never see the light, 
and let his nails, and his hair, and his 
beard grow all that time, that the king will 
then take off the bloody hand from his car* 
riage/’—“ Which then is the man who 
offers to do this ? is it you, or your com¬ 
panion ?”—“ I am the man, sir.”—“ O, you 
intend to undertake to do this ?”—“ Yes, 
sir.”—“ Then all that I can say is, that I 
now hear the first word of it from yourself.” 
At this time the rain had considerably in¬ 
creased, I therefore wished the man a good 
morning, and left him. 

I had not, however, rode above a hundred 
and fifty yards before an idea struck me, 
that it would be an act of kindness to ad¬ 
vise the poor man to go no further on such 
a strange pursuit; but, though I galloped 
after them on the way I had originally 
directed them, and in a few minutes saw 
two persons, who must have met them, had 
they continued their route to S-—, I could 
neither hear any thing of them, nor see 
them, in any situation which I could ima¬ 
gine that they might have taken to as a 
shelter from the heavy rain. I thus lost an 
opportunity of endeavouring to gain, from 
the greatest depths of ignorance, many 
points of inquiry I had arranged in my own 
mind, in order to obtain a developement 
of the extraordinary idea and unfounded 
offer, on which the poor fellow appeared to 
have so strongly set his mind. 

On further inquiry into the origin of this 
strange notion of the bloody hand in he¬ 
raldry, and why the badge of honour next 
to nobility, and perpetuated from the an¬ 
cient kings of Ulster, should fall, in two 
centuries, into indelible disgrace, I find 
myself in darkness equal to that of the 
I anticipated cavern of the poor deluded 


man, and hitherto without an aid sup°ria 
to himself. Under these circumstances, 
present the inquiry to you, and shall be 
among many others, greatly gratified to se| 
it set in a clear light by yourself, or somt 
friendly correspondent. 

I am, sir, 

1827. -. 


ifluStc. 

ORGANS IN CHURCHES. 

The Temple Church. 

After the Restoration, the number of 
workmen in England being found too few ! 
to answer the demand for organs, it was 
thought expedient to make offers of encou¬ 
ragement for foreigners to come and settle 
here; these brought over Mr. Bernard 

Schmidt and-Harris; the former, 

for his excellence in his art, deserves to live 
in the remembrance of all who are friends 
to it. 

Bernard Schmidt, or, as we pronounce 
the name, Smith, was a native of Germany, 
but of what city or province in particular 
is not known. He brought with him two 
nephews, the one named Gerard, the other 
Bernard; to distinguish him from these, 
the elder had the appellation of father 
Smith. Immediately upon their arrival. 
Smith was employed to build an organ for 
the royal chapel at Whitehall, but, as it 
was built in great haste, it did not answer 
the expectations of those who were judges 
of his abilities. He had been but a few 
months here before Harris arrived from 
France, with his son Renatus, who had 
been brought up in the business of organ¬ 
making under him; they met with little 
encouragement, for Dallans and Smith had 
all the business of the kingdom : but, upon 
the decease of Dallans in 1672, a competi¬ 
tion arose between these two foreigners, 
which was attended with some remarkable 
circumstances. The elder Harris was in 
no degree a match for Smith, but his son , 
Renatus was a young man of ingenuity j 
and perseverance, and the contest between i 
Smith and the younger Harris was carried I 
on with great spirit. Each had his friends ! 
and supporters, and the point of preference 
between them was hardly determined by 
that exquisite piece of workmanship by 
Smith, the organ now standing in the Tem¬ 
ple church; of the building whereof, the 
following is the history. 

On the decease of Dallans and the elder 
Harris, Renatus Hartis and father Smith 


iso 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


became great rivals in their employment, 
and there were several trials of skill betwixt 
them; but the famous contest was at the 
Temple church, where a new organ was 
going to be erected towards the latter 
end of king Charles ll.’s time. Both 
made friends for that employment; and as 
the society could not agree about who 
should be the man, the master of the Temple 
and the benchers proposed that each should 
set up an organ on each side of the church. 
In about half or three quarters of a year 
this was done: Dr. Blow, and Purcell, who 
was then in his prime, showed and played 
father Smith’s organ on appointed days to 
a numerous audience; and, till the other 
was heard, everybody believed that father 
Smith would certainly carry it. 

Harris brought Lully, organist to queen 
Catharine, a very eminent master, to touch 
his organ. This rendered Harris’s organ 
popular, and the organs continued to vie 
with one another near a twelvemonth. 

Harris then challenged father Smith to 
make additional stops against a set time; 
these were the vox humane, the cremona 
or violin-stop, the double courtel or bass 
dute, with some others. 

These stops, as being newly invented, 
gave great delight and satisfaction to a nu- 
mercus audience; and were so well imitated 
j on both sides, that it was hard to adjudge the 
advantage to either: at last it was left to 
the lord chief justice Jeffries, who was of 
that house; and he put an end to the con¬ 
troversy by pitching upon father Smith’s 
organ; and Harris’s organ being taken 
away without loss of reputation, Smith’s 
remains to this day. 

Now began the setting up of organs in 
the chiefest parishes of the city of London, 
where, for the most part, Harris had the 
advantage of father Smith, making two 
perhaps to his one; among them some are 
very eminent, viz. the organ at St. Bride’s, 
St. Lawrence near Guildhall, St. Mary Axe, 
&c. 

Notwithstanding Harris’s success, Smith 
was considered an able and ingenious 
workman; and, in consequence of this 
character, he was employed to build an 
organ for the cathedral of St. Paul. The 
organs made by him, though in respect of 
the workmanship they are inferior to those 
of Harris, and even of Dallans, are yet 
justly admired; and, for the fineness of 
their tone, have never yet been equalled. 

Harris’s organ, rejected from the Temple 
by judge Jeffries, was afterwards purchased 
for the cathedral of Christ-church, at Dub¬ 
lin, and set up there. Towards the close 


of George ll.’s reign, Mr. Byfield wa 9 
sent for from England to repair it, which 
he objected to, and prevailed on the chaptet 
to have a new one made by himself, he al¬ 
lowing for the old one in exchange. When 
he had got it, he would have treated with 
the parishioners of Lynn, in Norfolk, tor 
the sale of it: but they, disdaining the 
offer of a second-hand instrument, refused 
to purchase it, and employed Snetzler to 
build them a new one, for which they paid 
him seven hundred pounds. Byfield dying, 
his widow sold Harris’s organ to the parish 
of Wolverhampton for five hundred pounds, 
and there it remains to this day. An emi¬ 
nent master, who was requested by the 
churchwardens of Wolverhampton to give 
his opinion of this instrument, declared it 
to be the best modern organ he had ever 
touched.* 


MISERIES OF TRAVELLING. 

Steam versus Coach. 

For the Table Book. 

“ Now there ts nothing gives a man such spirits, 
Leavening his blood as Cayenne doth a curry, 

As going at full speed-” 

Dun Juan, , i0. v. 72. 

If the number of persons who have been 
killed, maimed, and disfigured for life, in 
consequence of stage-coach mishaps } could 
be ascertained, since the first establish¬ 
ment of steam-packets in this country 
and, on the other hand, the number who 
have been similarly unfortunate by steam- 
boilers bursting, we should find that the 
stage-coach proportion would be in the 
ratio of ten to one ! A solitary “ blow up ** 
of a steam-packet is “ noised and pro¬ 
claimed ” from the Land’s End to the other 
extremity of the island ; while hundreds of 
coach-accidents, and many of them fatal, 
occur, which are never heard of beyond the 
village, near to which the casualty takes 
place, or the neighbouring ale-house. 
These affairs it is to the interest of the 
proprietors to •* hush up,” by means of a 
gratuity to the injured, rather than have 
their property ruined by an exposure in a 
court of justice. Should a poor man have 
a leg or an arm broken, through the care¬ 
lessness of a drunken coachman, his po¬ 
verty prevents his having recourse to law. 
Justice, in these cases, nine times in 
ten, is entirely out of the question, and an 
arrangement, between him and the pro¬ 
prietors, is easily effected; the unfortunate 


• Hawkiua. 


13 L 
















r ~ ■ ■ ■ . ■ ■■■.. ■ . . .. — ■ 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


fellow rather receiving fifty or a hundred 
pounds “ hush money,” than bring his 
action, when, perhaps, from some technical 
informality in the proceedings, (should he 
find a lawyer willing to act for him, being 
poor,) he would be nonsuited , with all the 
costs of both parties on his own shoulders, 
and be, moreover, ruined for ever, in both 
purse and person. These remarks were 
suggested by reading an American work, 
some time since, on the above subject, 
from which I have extracted the following 

Stage-coach Adventures. 

Inside. —Crammed full of passengers— 
three fat, fusty, old men—a young mother 
and sick child—a cross old maid—a poll- 
parrot—a bag of red herrings—double- 
barreled gun, (which you are afraid is 
loaded)—and a snarling lap-dog, in addi¬ 
tion to yourself—awaking out of a sound 
nap, with the cramp in one leg, and the 
other in a lady’s band-box—pay the damage 
(four or five shillings) for “ gallantry’s 
sake”—getting out in the dark, at the 
i half-way-house, in the hurry stepping into 
the return coach, and finding yourself the 
next morning at the very spot you had 
started from the evening before—not a 
breath of air—asthmatic old man, and child 
. with the measles—windows closed in con¬ 
sequence—unpleasant smell—shoes filled 
'| with warm water—look up and find it’s the 
child—obliged to bear it—no appeal—shut 
I your eyes, and scold the dog—pretend 
j sleep, and pinch the child—mistake— 
pinch the dog, and get bit—execrate the 
child in return—black looks—“ no gentle¬ 
man ”—pay the coachman, and drop a 
piece of gold in the straw—not to be 
found—fell through a crevice—coachman 
says, “he’ll find it” — can’t — get out 
yourself—gone—picked up by the 'ostler.— 
No time for “ blowing up ”—coach off for 
next stage—lose your money—get in— 
lose your seat—stuck in the middle—get 
laughed at—lose your temper—turn sulky, 
and turned over in a horse-pond. 

Outside. —Your eye cut out by the lash 
of a clumsy coachman’s whip—hat blown 
off, into a pond, by a sudden gust of wind 
—seated between two apprehended mur¬ 
derers, and a noted sheep-stealer in irons, 
who are being conveyed to gaol—a drunken 
fellow, half asleep, fills off the coach, and, 
in attempting to save himself, drags you 
along with him into the mud—musical 
guard, and driver, “ horn mad ”—turned 
over—-one leg under a bale of cotton, the 
i other under the coach—hands in breeches 
pocr.ats—head in a hamper of wine—lets 


of broken bottles versus broken heads— cut 
and run—send for surgeon—wounds dress¬ 
ed—lotion and lint, four dollars—take 
post-chaise—get home—lay down, and 
laid up. 

Inside and Outside. —Drunken coach¬ 
man—horse sprawling—wheel off—pole 
breaking, down hill—axle-tree splitting— 
coach overturning—winter, and buried in 
the snow—one eye poked out with an um¬ 
brella, the other cut open by the broken 
window—reins breaking—.impudent guard 
—hurried at meals—imposition of inn¬ 
keepers—five minutes and a half to swallow 
three and sixpennyworth of vile meat— 
waiter a rogue—“ Like master, like man ” 
—half a belly full, and frozen to death—in 
ternal grumblings and outward complaints 
—no redress—walk forward while the 
horses are changing—take the wrong turn¬ 
ing—lose yourself and lose the coach— 
good-by to portmanteau—curse your ill 
luck—wander about in the dark and find 
the inn at last—get upon the next coach 
going the same road—stop at the next inn— 
brandy and water, hot, to keep you in 
spirits—warm fire—pleasant company— 
heard the guard cry “ All right?" —run out, 
just in time to sing out “ I’m left " as 
the coach turns the corner—after it “ full 
tear ”—come up with it, at the end of a 
mile—get up “ all in a blowze ”—catch 
cold—sore throat— inflammation—doctor 
—warm bath—fever—DrE. 

Gaspard. 


THE UGLY CLUB. 

From a New York Paper. 

The members of the Ugly Club are 
requested to attend a special meeting at 
Ugly-hall, 4, Wall street, on Monday- 
evening next, at half-past seven o’clock 
precisely, to take into consideration the 
propriety of offering to the committee of 
defence the services of their ugly carcasses, 
firm hearts, sturdy bodies, and unblistered 
hands.—His Ugliness being absent, this 
meeting is called by order of 

His Homeliness. 

Aug. 13. 


antiquities. 

SCIPIO’S SHIELD. 

In 1656, a fisherman on the banks of the 
Rhone, in the neighbourhood of Avignon, 


132 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


was considerably obstructed in his work by 
some heavy body, which he feared would 
injure the net; but by proceeding slowly 
and cautiously, he drew it ashore untorn, 
and found that it contained a round sub¬ 
stance, in the shape of a large plate or 
dish, thickly encrusted with a coat of hard¬ 
ened mud ; the dark colour of the metal 
beneath induced him to consider it as iron. 
A silversmith, accidentally present, encou¬ 
raged the mistake, and, after a few affected 
, difficulties and demurs, bought it for a 
trifling sum, immediately carried it home, 
and, after carefully cleaning and polishing 
his purchase, it proved to be of pure silver, 
perfectly round, more than two feet in dia¬ 
meter, and weighing upwards of twenty 
ounds. Fearing that so massy and valua- 
le a piece of plate, offered for sale at one 
time and at one place, might produce sus¬ 
picion and inquiry, he immediately, without 
waiting to examine its beauties, divided it 
into four equal parts, each of which he dis¬ 
posed of, at different and distant places. 

One of the pieces had been sold, at 
Lyons, to Mr. Mey, a wealthy merchant of 
that city, and a well-educated man, who 
directly saw its value, and after great pains 
and expense, procured the other three frag¬ 
ments, had them nicely rejoined, and the 
treasure was finally placed in the cabinet of 
ihe king of France. 

This relic of antiquity, no less re¬ 
markable for the beauty of its workman¬ 
ship, than for having been buried at the 
tjottom of the Rhone more than two thou¬ 
sand years, was a votive shield, presented 
to Scipio, as a monument of gratitude and 
affection, by the inhabitants of Carthago 
Nova, now the city of Carthagena, for his 
generosity and self-denial, in delivering one 
of his captives, a beautiful virgin, to her 
original lover. This act, so honourable to 
the Roman general, who was then in the 
prime vigour of manhood, is represented 
| on the shield, and an engraving from it 
may be seen in the curious and valuable 
work of Mr. Spon. 


The story of “ Scipio’s chastity,” which 
this shield commemorates, is related by 
I Livy to the following effect.—The wife of 
! the conquered king, falling at the general s 
feet, earnestly entreated that the female 
captives might be protected from injury 
and insult.—Scipio assured her, that she 
should have no reason to complain. 

** For my own part, w replied the queen, 
my age and innrmities almost ensure me 


against dishonour, but when I considev me 
age and complexion of my fellow captives,! 
(pointing to a crowd of females,) I feel 
considerable uneasiness.” 

“ Such crimes,” replied Scipio, “ are 
neither perpetrated nor permitted by the 
Roman people; but if it were not so, the 
anxiety you discover, under your present 
calamities, to preserve their chastity, would 
be a sufficient protection :” he then gave the 
necessary orders. 

The soldiers soon after brought him, 
what they considered as a rich prize, a vir¬ 
gin of distinction, young, and of such ex¬ 
traordinary beauty, as to attract the notice 
and admiration of all who beheld her. 
Scipio found that she had been betrothed, 
in happier days, to Allucius, a young Spa¬ 
nish prince, who was himself a captive. 
Without a moment’s delay, the conqueror 
sent for her parents and lover, and addressed 
the latter in the following words: 

“ The maid to whom thou wert shortly 
to have been married has been taken priso¬ 
ner : from the soldiers who brought her to 
me, I understand that thy affections are 
fixed upon her, and indeed her beauty con¬ 
firms the report. She is worthy of thy 
love ; nor would I hesitate, but for the stern 
laws of duty and honour, to offer her my 
hand and heart. I return her to thee, not 
only inviolate, but untouched, and almost j 
unseen; for I scarcely ventured to gaze on j 
such perfection ; accept her as a gift worthy ; 
receiving. The only condition, the only ; 
return I ask, is, that thou wilt be a friend 
to the Roman people.” 

The young prince in a transport of de¬ 
light, and scarcely able to believe what he 
saw and heard, pressed the hand of Scipio 
to his heart, and implored ten thousand 
blessings on his head. The parents of the 
happy bridegroom had brought a large sum 
of money, as the price of her redemption ; 
Scipio ordered it to be placed on the 
ground, and telling Allucius that he insisted 
on his accepting it as a nuptial gift directed 
it to be carried to his tent. 

The happy pair returned home, repeating 
the praises of Scipio to every one, calling 
him a godlike youth, as matchless in the 
success of his arms, as he was unrivalled 
in the beneficent use he made of his victo¬ 
ries. 

Though the story is known to most read¬ 
ers, its relation, in connection with the 
discovery of the valuable present from the^ 
conquered city to its illustrious victor,! 
seemed almost indispensable, and perhaps 
the incident can scarcely be too faroi* 
liar. 


133 








THE TABLE BOCK. 


! 


I 



3 aSrottje antique, founti in the Cfiamee, 

In DIGGING FOR THE FOUNDATION OF NEW LONDON BRIDGE, JANUARY, 1827. 


It is presumed that this articie, from n.s 
peculiar curiosity, will be welcomed by 
every lover and preserver of antiquities. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The remarkable vessel from which 
this drawing is taken, was discovered a few 
days since, by a labourer employed in 
sinking one of the coffer-dams for the new 
London bridge, embedded in clay, at a 
depth of about thirty feet from the bed of 
the river. It is of bronze, not cast, but sculp¬ 
tured, and is in so perfect a state, that the 
edges of the different parts are as sharp as 
if the chisel had done its office but yes¬ 
terday. The only portion which has suf¬ 
fered decay is the pin that attached the lid 
to the other part, which crumbled away as 
soon as exposed to the air. 

At first, it was conjectured that this vessel 
was used for a lamp; but the idea was 
soon abandoned, as there was no part cal¬ 
culated to receive the wick ; and the space 
to contain the oil was so small that it 
| would not have admitted of more oil than 
| was sufficient for one hour’s consumption, 

! or two, at farthest. 

One of the members of the Antiquarian 
•Society has given it as his opinion, that it 
w fi'i used for sacrificial purposes, and in¬ 
ti;./ed to receive wine, which, after being 


put in, was to be poured out through the 
mouth, the under jaw being evidently pro¬ 
truded to an unnatural distance on this 
account. 

The upper part of the head forms the 
lid, which the horns serve as a handle to 
raise ; the bottom of the neck is flat, so that 
it may stand securely. 

That it represents a head of Bacchus 
will be evident, at first glance, as it is en¬ 
circled with a torse of ivy ; but the features 
being those of a Nubian, or Carthaginian, 
prove that it must have an older date than 
that of the Romans, who borrowed their 
first ideas of Bacchic worship from the f 
Egyptians. Perhaps it might have been i 
part of their spoils from Carthage itself, ! 
and have been highly valued on that ac- ! 
count. Certain however it is, lhat this 1 
curiosity (destined for the British Museum) 
must have laid below the bosom of father 
Thames for many centuries; but how i* 
came there, and at such a depth in th» 
clay, we can only guess at; and till Jona¬ 
than Oldbuck, alias Monkbarns, rise from 
the dead to set us right, it is to be feared 
that there will be left nothing but conjec¬ 
ture respeciing it. 

There is some account, but not very well 
supported, oi the course of the Thames 
having once been diverted: should this 























































another ©feto of tin same ancient JSronje, 

Showing the Mouth, and the Orifice at the top of the Head. 


however be true, it is possible tnat tho 
head, of which we are now speaking, might 
have been dropped on the then dry bottom; 
the bed of the river must, in that case, ha' e 
been afterwards considerably raised. 

I remain, yours, respectfully, 

M. Blackmore. 

(Fandsivorth, Feb. 9, 1827. 

P. S. The Romans always represent 
their satyrs with Roman noses, and I be¬ 
lieve that Bacchus alone is crowned with 
ivy; the fauns and the rest being crowned 
with vine leaves. 


It would be easy to compose a disserta¬ 
tion respecting Bacchus, which would be 
highly interesting, and yet throw little light 
0 ^ this very remarkable vessel. The rela¬ 
tion of any thing tending to elucidate its 
probable age or uses will be particularly 
esteemed • 

In addition to the favour of Mr. Black- 
more’s letter and drawing, he obligingly 
; obtained the vessel itself, which being 
placed in the hands of Mr. S. W illiams, he 
executed the present engravings of the 
exact size of the original: it is, as Mr. 
Blackmore has already mentioned, in the 
finest possible preservation. 


Probably the insertion of this remark¬ 
able relique of antiquity, turned up from 
the soil of our metropolitan river, may 
induce communications to the Table Book 
of similar discoveries when they take plaoe. 
At no time were ancient remains more 
regarded : and illustrations of old manners j 
and customs, of all kinds, are here espe - 
daily acceptable. 


JACK O’ LENT. 

This was a puppet, formerly thrown at, 
in our own country, during Lent, like 
Shrove-cocks. Thus, in “The Weakest 
goes to the Wall,” 1600, we read of “a 
mere anatomy, a Jack of Lent and in 
Greene’s “ Tu quoque,’’ of “ a boy that is 
throwing at his Jick o’ Lent; ’ and again, 
in the comedy of ‘ Lady Alimony,” 1659 : 

-“ Throwi 'ig cudgels 

At Jack a Lents or Shrove-cocks.” 

Also, in Ben Jonson’s “Tale of a Tub:” 

.-“ On an Ash-Wednesday, 

When thou didst stand six weeks the Jack o’ Lent, 

For boys to hurl three throws a penny at thee.” 

So, likewise, in Beaumont and Fletcher’* 
* Tamer tamed 


135 






















































, — ■ - - 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


-- If I forfeit. 

Make me a Jack o' Lent, and break my shins 
For untagg’d points and counters.” 

Further, in Quarles’ “ Shepheard’s Ora¬ 
cles," 1646, we read : 

** How like a Jack a Lent 

He stands, for boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws, 
Or like a puppet made to frighten crows.’’* 

From the “ Jack o’ Lent,” we derive 
the familiar term among children, “ Jack 
o’ Lanthorn .’* 


g>brobt Cuesfoap 

AND 

TOebwsfoap. 

The copious particulars respecting these 
festivals, which have been brought together 
in another place,+ admit of some addition. 

In France and other parts of the conti¬ 
nent, the season preceding Lent is universal 
carnival. At Marseilles, the Thursday be¬ 
fore Lent is called le Jeudi gras, and Shrove 
Tuesday le Mardi gras. Every body joins 
in masquerading on these nights, and both 
streets and houses are full of masks the 
whole night long. The god of fritters, if 
such a god there be, who is worshipped in 
England only on Shrove Tuesday, is wor¬ 
shipped in France on both the Thursday 
and Tuesday. Parties meet at each other’s 
houses to a supper of fritters, and then set 
off masquerading, which they keep up to a 
very late hour in the morning. 

On Ash-VVednesday, which has here 
much more the appearance of a festival 
than of a fast, there is a ceremony called 
“ interring the carnival.’’ A whimsical 
figure is dressed up to represent the carni¬ 
val, which is carried in the afternoon in 
procession to Arrens, a small village on the 
sea-shore, about a mile out of the town, 
where it is pulled to pieces. This ceremony 
is attended in some way or other by every 
inhabitant of Marseilles, whether gentle or 
simple, man or woman, boy or girl. The 
very genteel company are in carriages, 
which parade backwards and forwards upon 
the road between the town and the village, 
for two or three hours, like the Sunday pro¬ 
cessions in Hyde-park. Of the rest of the 
company, some make parties to dine at 
Arrens, or at the public-houses on the road ; 


* Brand’s Popular Antiquities, 
t Tbs Every-Day Book 


others make water parties ,* but the majority 
only go and walk about, or sit upon the 
rocks to see and be seen. It was one of 
the most delightful evenings imaginable; 
the air was inexpressibly mild; the road where 
the carriages parade is about half way up 
the rocks, and this long string of carriages 
constantly moving, the rocks filled with 
thousands and thousands of spectators, and 
the tranquil sea gilded by the setting sun, 
and strewed over with numberless little 
barks, formed altogether one of the most 
beautiful and picturesque scenes that could 
be presented. We sat down on a little 
detached piece of rock almost encircled by 
the sea, that we might have full enjoyment 
of it, and there remained till some time 
after the glorious sun had disappeared for 
the night, when we walked home by a 
lovely bright moonlight, in a milder even¬ 
ing, though in the month of February, than 
we often find in England at Midsummer.* 


Naogeorgus, in the Popish Kingdome," 
mentions some burlesque scenes practised 
formerly on Ash Wednesday. People went 
about in mid-day with lanterns in their 
hands, looking after the feast days which 
they had lost on this the first day of the 
Lent fast. Some carried herrings on a pole, 
crying “ Herrings, herrings, stinking her¬ 
rings 1 no more puddings !’’ 

And hereto joyne they foolish playes, 
and doltish doggrel rimes, 

And what beside they can invent, 
belonging to the times. 

Others, at the head of a procession, car¬ 
ried a fellow upon staves, or “ stangs," to 
some near pond or running stream, and 
there plunged him in, to wash away what 
of feasting-time might be in him. Some 
got boys to accompany them through the 
town singing, and with minstrels playing, 
entered the houses, and seizing young girls 
harnessed them to a plough; one man held 
the handles, another drove them with a 
whip, a minstrel sung drunken songs, and 
a fellow followed, flinging sand or ashes as 
if he had been sowing, and then they drov# 

-both plough and maydens through 

some pond or river small. 

And dabbled all with durt, and wringing 
wett as they rnay bee 
To supper calle, and after that 
to daunsing lustilee 


* Miss Plumptiw. 




13G 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


(Shunquagesima. 

Carnival in Spain. 

4 ‘ Carnival,” properly so called, accord¬ 
ing to Mr. Blanco White, is limited to 
Quinquagesima Sunday,and the two follow¬ 
ing days, a period which the lower classes 
pass in drinking and rioting in those streets 
where the meaner sort of houses abound, 
and especially in the vicinity of the large 
courts, or halls, called Coriales, surrounded 
with small rooms or cells, where numbers 
of the poorest inhabitants live in filth, 
misery, and debauch. Before these horrible 
places, are seen crowds of men, women, 
and children, singing, dancing, drinking, 
and pursuing each other with handfuls of 
hair-powder. I have never seen, however, 
an instance of their taking liberties with 
any person above their class; yet, such 
bacchanals produce a feeling of insecurity, 
which makes the approach of those spots 
very unpleasant during the carnival. 

At Madrid, where whole quarters of the 
town, such as Avapi£s and Maravillas, are 
inhabited exclusively by the rabble, these 
“ Saturnalia ” are performed upon a larger 
scale. Mr. White says, I once ventured 
with three or four friends, all muffled in 
our cloaks, to parade the Avapies during 
the carnival. The streets were crowded 
Auth men, who, upon the least provocation, 
eal or imaginary, would have instantly 
used the knife, and of women equally 
ready to take no slight share in any quarrel: 
for these lovely creatures often carry a 
poniard in a sheath, thrust within the upper 
part of the left stocking, and held up by 
the garter. We were, however, upon our 
best behaviour, and by a look of compla¬ 
cency on their sports, and keeping at the 
most respectful distance from the women, 
came away without meeting with the least 
disposition to insolence or rudeness. 

A gentleman, who, either out of curio¬ 
sity or depraved taste, attends the amuse¬ 
ments of the vulgar, is generally respected, 
provided he is a mere spectator, and ap¬ 
pears indifferent to the females. The 
ancient Spanish jealousy is still observable 
among the lower classes ; and while not a 
sword is drawn in Spain upon a love- 
quarrel, the knife often decides the claims 
of more humble lovers. Yet love is by no 
means the main instigator of murder among 
us. A constitutional irritability, especially in 
the southern provinces, leads, without any 
more assignable reason, to the frequent 
shedding of blood. A small quantity of 
•vine, nav, the mere blowing of the easterly 
wind, called “ Solano,” is infallibly attended 


with deadly quarrels in Andalusia. The 
average of dangerous or mortal wounds, on 
every great festival at Seville, is, I believe, 
about two or three. We have, indeed, a 
well-endowed hospital named de los He- 
ridos, which, though open to all persons 
who meet with dangerous accidents, is, 
from this unhappy disposition of the people, 
almost confined to the wounded. The 
large arm-chair, where the surgeon in at¬ 
tendance examines the patient just as he is 
brought in, usually upon a ladder, is known 
in the whole town by the name of “Silla 
de los Guapos,” the Bullies’ chair. Every 
thing, in fact, attests both the generality 
and inveteracy of that horrible propensity 
among the Spaniards.* 


THE LIEGE ALMANAC. 

Tire celebrated almanac of “ Francis 
Moore, physician,” to whose predictions 
thousands are accustomed to look with im¬ 
plicit confidence and veneration, is rivalled, 
on the continent, by the almanac of 
Lifege, by “ Matthew Laensberg,” who 
there enjoys an equal degree of celebrity. 

W'hether the name of Laensberg is a real 
or an assumed name is a matter of great 
doubt. A tradition, preserved in the family 
of the first printers of the work, ascribes it 
to a canon of St. Bartholomew, at Libge, 
who live’d about the conclusion of the six¬ 
teenth century, or at the beginning of the 
seventeenth. This is further corroborated, 
by a picture of a canon of that church 
which still exists, and which is conjectured 
by many to represent the inventor of the 
celebrated almanac of Likge. Figure to 
yourself an old man, seated in an aim 
chair, his left hand resting on a globe, and 
his right holding a telescope. At his feet 
are seen different mathematical instruments, 
several volumes and sheets of paper, with 
circles and triangles drawn upon them. 
His eyes are large and prominent; he has 
a dull, heavy look, a nose in the form of a 
shell, and large ears, which are left un¬ 
covered by a greasy cap. His large mouth, 
half open, announces surliness and pe¬ 
dantry; frightful wrinkles furrow r his face, 
and his long bushy beard covers an enor¬ 
mous band. This man is, besides, muffled 
up in an old cassock, patched in several 
places. Under his hideous portrait is the 
inscription “ D. T. V. Bartholomeei Ca- 
ncnicus et Philosophise Professoi.” 

Such is the picture given by a person 


• Doblado’s Letters from Spa.a. 


137 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


who examined this portrait, and who, 
though he was at the pains to search the 
registers of the chapter of Libge, was unable 
to find any name that at all corresponded 
with the above designation. Hence it may 
be fairly concluded, that the canon, whose 
portrait has just been exhibited, assumed 
1 the name of Matthew Laensbert, or Laens- 
berg, as well as the title of professor of 
philosophy, for the purpose of publishing 
his almanac, with the prognostications, 
w’hich have rendered it so celebrated. 

| The earliest of these almanacs known to 
exist is of the year 1636. It bears the 
name of Matthew Lansbert, mathematician, 
and not Laensberg, as it is now written. 
In the middle of the title is seen the por¬ 
trait of an astronomer, nearly resembling 
that which is still placed there. After the 
printer’s name, are the words, “ with per¬ 
mission of the superior powers.” This is 
repeated in the eleven first almanacs, but 
in that for 1647, we find, “ with the favour 
and privilege of his highness.” This pri¬ 
vilege, granted by Ferdinand of Bavaria, 
prince of Lifege, is actually inserted. It 
gives permission to Leonard Streete to 
print Matthew Laensberg’s almanac, and 
Forbids other printers to make copies of it, 
upen pain of confiscation, and other penal¬ 
ties. 

The name of this prophet, spelt Lans¬ 
bert in the first almanacs, has since been 
regularly written Laensberg. It is to this 
privilege of the prince bishop of Libge that 
Voltaire alludes in these lines of his Epistle 
to the king of Denmark :— 

Et quand vous 4crirez sur l’almanac de Lifcge, 

Ne parlez des saisons qu'avec un privilege. 

The four first pages of the Libge almanac 
for 1636, are occupied by a piece entitled 
“ The Twelve Celestial Signs governing 
the Human Body.” Cancer, for instance, 
governs the breast, the belly, and the lungs, 
with all their diseases. This was at that 
time the fashionable system of astrology, 
which was succeeded by many others, 
equally ill-founded, and equally popular. 
Yet it is a fact, that could scarcely be be¬ 
lieved, were it not stated in an advertise¬ 
ment prefixed, that the physicians mani¬ 
fested a jealousy lest the prophet of Libge 
should extend his dominion over the heal¬ 
ing art. They obtained an order that every 
thing relating to the influence of the celes¬ 
tial signs on diseases should be suppressed, 
*>nd this retrenchment took place, for the 
first time, in 1679. The principal part, 
however, was preserved, and still ensures 
the success of this wonderful performance. 


It consists of general predictions concern¬ 
ing the variations of the seasons, and the 
occurrences of the year. In each month 
are marked the days when there will be 
rain, and those that will be dry; whether 
there will be snow or hail, high winds, 
storms, &c. Sterne alludes to this in his 
Tristram Shandy, when he says, “ I have 
observed this 26th of March, 1759, a rainy 
day, notwithstanding the almanac of Libge.” 

The general predictions mention the oc¬ 
currences that are to take place in every 
month. Accident has frequently been won¬ 
derfully favourable to the prophet; and he 
owes all his reputation and celebrity to the I 
luck of having announced the gaining of a 
battle, or the death of some distinguished 
person. An anecdote of Madame Du-barri, 1 
at that time all-powerful at the court of 
Louis XIV., is not a little singular. 

When the king was attacked with the 
malady which put an end to his life, that j 
lady was obliged to leave Versailles. She 
then had occasion, says the author of her I 
life, to recollect the almanac of Libge, 
which had given her great uneasiness, and 
of which she had suppressed all the copies 
she was able. Amongst the predictions for 
the month of April, in that almanac, was 
the following: “ A lady, in the highest 
favour, will act her last part.” She fre¬ 
quently said, “ I wish this odious month 1 
of April were over.” According to the 
prediction, she had really acted “ her last i 
part,” for the king died in the following 
month. May 1774.* 


DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA. 

In the year 1344, in the reign of Peter IV. 
king of Arragon, Ihe island of Madeira, 
lying in 32 degrees, was discovered, by an 
Englishman, named Macham, who, sailing 
from England to Spain with a lady whom 
he had carried off, was driven to the island 
by a tempest, and cast anchor in the har¬ 
bour or bay, now called Machico, after the 
name of Macham. His mistress being sea¬ 
sick, he took her to land, with some of his 
company, where she died, and the ship 
drove out to sea. As he had a tender 
affection for his mistress, he built a chapel 
or hermitage, which he called “Jesus,” 
and buried her in it, and inscribed on her 
tombstone his and her name, and the occa¬ 
sion of their arrival there. In the island 
are very large trees, of one of which he 


• Repo&itoi r of Art». 


138 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


and his men made a boat, and went to sea 
in it, and were cast upon the shore of 
Africa, without sail or oars. The Moors 
were infinitely surprised at the sight of 
them, and presented Maeham to their king, 
who sent him and his companions to the 
king of Castile, as a prodigy or miracle. 

I In 1395, Henry III. of Castile, by the 
information of Maeham, persuaded some 
of his mariners to go in search of this island, 
and of the Canaries. 

j In 1417, king John II. of Castile, his 
mother Catherine being then regent, one 
M. Ruben, of Bracamont, admiral of 
France, having demanded and obtained of 
the queen the conquest of the Canaries, 
with the title of king for a kinsman of 
his, named M. John Betancourt, he de¬ 
parted from Seville with a good army. 
And it is affirmed, that the principal mo¬ 
tive that engaged him in this enterprise 
was, to discover the island of Madeira, 
which Maeham had found. 

Tomb of Maciiam’s Anna. 

The following elegiac stanzas are founded 
on the preceding historical fact. Maeham, 
having consigned the body of his beloved 
mistress to the solitary grave, is supposed 
to have inscribed on it the following pa¬ 
thetic lines :— 

O’er my poor Anna’s lowly grave 

No dirge shall sound, no knell shall ring; 

But angels, as the high pines wave. 

Their half-heard 4 Miserere' sing I 

No flow’rs of transient bloom at eve. 

The maidens on the turf shall strew; 

Nor sigh, as the sad spot they leave, 

Sweets to the sweet a long adieu 1 

But in this wilderness profound. 

O’er her the dove shall build her nest; 

And ocean swell with softer sound, 

A Requiem to her dream of rest 1 

Ah ! when shall I as quiet be. 

When not a friend or human eye 

Shall mark, beneath the mossy tree. 

The spot where we forgotten lie ? 

To kiss her name on this cold stone. 

Is all that now on earth I crave ; 

For in this world I am alone— 

Oh 1 lay me with her in the grave. 


Ifalth. 

GOOD EATING. 

That “ a sharp stomach is the best 
gauce,’' is a saying as true as it is common. 
In Ulrick Hutton’s bock on the virtues of 


guaiacum, there is a very singular story 
on this subject. 

The relations of a rich German ecclesias¬ 
tic, carrying him to drink the waters for the 
recovery of his health, and passing by the 
house of a famous quack, he inquired what 
was the reverend gentleman's distemper? 
They told him a total debility, loss of appe¬ 
tite, and a great decay in his senses. The 
empiric, after viewing his enormous chin, 
and bodily bulk, guessed rightly at the 
cause of his distemper, and proposed, for a 
certain sum, to bring him home, on a day 
fixed, perfectly cured. The patient was 
put into his hands, and the doctor treated 
him in the following manner:—He fur¬ 
nished him every day with half a pound of 
excellent dry biscuit; to moisten this, he 
allowed him three pints of very good spring 
water; and he suffered him to sleep but a 
few hours out of the twenty-four. When 
he had brought him within the just propor¬ 
tion of a man, he obliged him to ring a 
bell, or work in the garden, with a rolling- 
stone, an hour before breakfast, and foui 
hours in the afternoon. At the stated day 
the doctor produced him, perfectly re¬ 
stored. 

Nice eating destroys the health, let it be 
ever so moderate ; for the stomach, as every 
man’s experience must inform him, finds 
greater difficulty in digesting rich dishes 
than meats plainly dressed. To a sound 
man sauces are needless; to one who is 
diseased, they nourish not him, but his dis¬ 
temper ; and the intemperance of his taste 
betrays him into the hands of death, which 
could not, perhaps, have mastered his con¬ 
stitution. Lewis Cornaro brought himself 
into a wretched condition, while a young 
man, by indulging his taste ; yet, when he 
had once taken a resolution of restraining 
it, nature did that which physic could not; 
it restored him to perfect health of body, 
and serenity of mind, both of which he en¬ 
joyed to extreme old age. 


Booksi. 

READING ALOUD. 

Bt Margaret Duchess of Newcastl*. 

1671. 

-To read lamely or crookedly, and 

not evenly, smoothly, and thoroughly, en¬ 
tangles the sense. Nay, the very sound of 
the voice will seem to alter the sense of the 
theme ; and though the sense will be there 
in despite of the ill voice, or ill reading, 
vet it will be concealed, or discovered to 



129 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


its disadvantages. As an ill musician, (or 
indeed one that cannot play at all,) instead 
ot playing, puts the fiddle out of tune, 
(and causeth a discord,) which, if well 
played upon, would sound harmoniously ; 
or if he can play but one tune, plays it on 
all sorts of instruments ; so, some will read 
with one tone or sound of voice, though 
the passions and numbers are different; 
and some again, in reading, wind up their 
voices to Such a passionate screw, that they 
whine or squeal, rather than speak or read : 
others fold up their voices with such dis¬ 
tinctions, that they make that triangular 
which is four-square; and that narrow, 
which should be broad; and that high, 
which should be low ; and low, that should 
be high : and some again read so fast, that 
the sense is lost in the race. So that writ¬ 
ings sound good or bad, as the readers, 
and not as their authors are : and, indeed, 
such advantage a good or ill reader hath, 
that those that read well shall give a grace 
to a foolish author; and those that read ill, 
do disgrace a wise and a witty one. But 
there are two sorts of readers; the one that 
reads to himself, and for his own benefit; 
the other, to benefit another by hearing it: 
in the first, there is required a good judg¬ 
ment, and a ready understanding : in the 
other, a good voice and a graceful delivery : 
so that a writer must have a double desire ; 
the one, that he may write well; the other, 
that he may be read well. 


Slpljcirisms. 

By Lavater. 

Who in the same given time can pro¬ 
duce more than many others, has vigour; 
who can produce more and better, has 
talents; who can produce what none else 
can, has genius. 

Who, without pressing temptation, tells 
a lie, will, without pressing temptation, act 
ignobly and meanly. 

Who, under pressing temptations to lie, 
adheres to truth, nor to the profane betrays 
aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit 
of wisdom and virtue. 

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous 
attempt of poverty to appear rich. 

Who has no friend and no enemy, is one 
of the vulgar ; and without talents, powers, 
or energy. 

The more honesty a man has, the less he 
affects the air of a saint—the affectation of 
sanctity is a blot on the face of piety. 


Love as if you could hate and might be 
hated, is a maxim of detested prudence in 
real friendship, the bane of all tenderness, 
the death of all familiarity. Consider the 
fool who follows it as nothing inferior to 
him who at every bit of bread trembles at 
the thought of its being poisoned. 

There are more heroes than saints (heroes 
I call rulers over the minds and destinies of 
men;) more saints than humane characters. 
He, who humanizes all that is within and 
around himself, adore : I know but of one 
such by tradition. 

He who laughed at you till he got to 
your door, flattered you as you opened it— 
felt the force of your argument whilst he 
was with you—applauded when he rose, 
and, after he went away, execrated you— 
has the most indisputable title to an arch¬ 
dukedom in hell. 

Let the four-and-twenty elders in heaven 
rise before him who, from motives of hu¬ 
manity, can totally suppress an arch, full- 
pointed, but offensive bon mot . 


iWanmr$. 

THE PARLIAMENT CLUBS. 

Before the year 1736, it had been usual 
for gentlemen of the House of Commons 
to dine together at the Crown-tavern in 
Palace-yard, in order to be in readiness to 
attend the service of the house. This club 
amounted to one hundred and twenty, be¬ 
sides thirty of their friends coming out of 
the country. In January, 1736, sir Robert 
Walpole and his friends began to dine in 
the same manner, at the Bell and Sun in 
King-street, Westminster, and their club 
was one hundred and fifty, besides absent 
members. These parties seem to have 
been the origin of Brookes’s and White’s 
clubs. 


RIGHT AND LEFT HAND. 

Dr. Zinchinelli, of Padua, in an essay 
“ On the Reasons why People use the 
Right Hand in preference to the Left,” will 
not allow custom or imitation to be the 
cause. He affirms, that the left arm cannot 
be in violent and continued motion without 
causing pain in the left side, because there 
is the seat of the heart and of the arterial 
system; and that, therefore, Nature hersell 
compels iran to make use of the right 
hand. 


140 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


THE DEATH OF LEILA. 

For the Table Book. 

Twm moonlight—L eila sat retir’d 
Upon the tow’ring beach. 

Watching the waves, “ like one inspir’d” 
With things beyond her reach : 

There was a calmness on the water 
Suited to Sorrow’s hapless daughter. 

For consolation seem’d to be 
Mixt up with its solemnity 1 

The stars were shedding far and wide 
Their twinkling lights of peerless blue; 

And o’er the undulating tide 
The breeze on balmy pinions flew ; 

The scene might well have rais'd the soul 
Above misfortune’s dark controul. 

Had not the hand of Death been laid 
On that belov’d and matchless maid 1 

I watch’d the pale, heart-broken girl, 

Her shatter’d form, her look insane,— 

I saw her raven locks uncurl 

With moisture from the peaceful main : 

I saw her wring her hands with grief. 

Like one depriv’d of Hope’s relief. 

And then she sigh’d, as if bereft 
Of the last treasure heav’n had left 1 

Slowly I sought the cheerless spot 
Where Leila lay, absorb’d in care. 

But she, poor girl! discern’d me not. 

Nor dreamt that friendship linger’d there ! 
Her grief had bound her to the earth. 

And clouded all her beauty’s worth ; 

And when her clammy hand I press’d, 

She seem’d of feeling dispossess’d ! 

Yet there were motion, sense and l fe, 
Remaining in that Blatter’d frame. 

As if existing by the strife 
Of feelings none but Love can name I 
I spoke, she answer’d not—I took 
Her hand with many a fearful look— 

Her languid eyes I gaz’d upon, 

And press’d her lips—but she was gone I 

B. W. R. 


a while they might be declared game by 
the legislature, which would materially ex¬ 
pedite their extirpation. 

II. Make use of their fur. Rat-skin 
robes for the ladies would be beautjfm, 
warm, costly, and new. Fashion requires 
only the two last qualities; it is hoped 
the two former would not be objection¬ 
able. 

III. Inoculate some subjects with the 
small-pox, or any other infectious disease, 
and turn them loose. Experiments should 
first be made, lest the disease should as¬ 
sume in them so new a form as to be capa¬ 
ble of being returned to us with interest. 
If it succeeded, man has means in his hand 
which would thin the hyenas, wolves, 
jackals, and all gregarious beasts of prey. 

N. B. If any of our patriotic societies 
should think proper to award a gold medal, 
silver cup, or other remuneration to either 
of these methods, the projector has left his 
address with the editor.* 


BUNGAY HAND-BILL. 

C Copy .) 

PONY LOST. 

On February 21st, 1822, this devil bade 
me adieu. 

LOST, stolen, or astray, not the least 
doubt but run away, a mare pony that is 
all bay :—if I judge pretty nigh, it is about 
eleven hands high;—full tail and mane, a 
pretty head and frame; — cut on both 
shoulders by the collar, not being soft nor 
hollow :—it is about five years old, which 
may be easily told ;—for spirit and for 
speed, the devil cannot her exceed. 

Whoever can give information or bring 
the said runaway to me, John Winter, 
Glass-stainer and Combustible-maker, Up¬ 
per Olland Street, Bungay, shall be hand 
somely rewarded for their trouble 


Islington , 1827. 


©mm'ana. 

RATTING. 

There are three methods proposed for 
lessening the number of rats. 

I. Introduce them at table as a delicacy. 
They would probably be savoury food, and 
if nature has not made them so, the cook 
may. Rat pie would be as good as rook 
pie; and four tails intertwisted like the 
serpents of the delphic tripod, and rising 
into a spiral obelisk, would crest the crust 
more fantastically than pigeon’s feet. After 


NOMINATIVE CASE. 

Sancho, prince of Castile, being present 
at a papal consistory at Rome, wherein the 
roceedings were conducted in Latin, which 
e did not understand, and hearing loud 
applause, inquired of his interpreter wha 4 
caused it: “ My lord,” replied the inter, 
preter, “ the pope has caused you to b< 
proclaimed king of Egypt.” “ It does no’ 
become us,” said the grave Spaniard, “ k 
be wanting in gratitude; rise up, and pro 
claim his holiness caliph of Bagdad.” 


• Dr. Aikin’s Athenaeum. 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


DISCOUNT FOR CASH. 

The following anecdote is related in a 
journal of the year 1789 :— 

A service of plate was delivered at the 
duke of Clarence’s house, by his order, ac¬ 
companied by the bill, amounting to 1500J., 
which his royal highness deeming exor¬ 
bitant, sent back, remarking, that he con¬ 
ceived the overcharge to be occasioned by 
the apprehension that the tradesman might 
be kept long out of his money. He added, 
that so far from its being his intention to 
pay by tedious instalments, or otherwise 
distress those with whom he dealt, he had 
laid it down as an invariable principle, to 
discharge every account the pnoment it be¬ 
came due. The account was returned to 
his royal highness the next morning, with 
three hundred pounds taken off, and it was 
instantly paid. 


SPORTING. 

A wit said of the late bishop of Durham, 
when alive, “ His grace is the only man in 
England who may kill game legally without 
a stamped license: if actually taken with 
a gun in his hand, he might exclaim in the 
words of his own grants — * I Shute , by 
divine permission.’ ” 


iWarrf). 

“ Stop and Read.” 

We have seen this requisition on the 
walls till we are tired: in a book it is a 
> novelty, and here, I hope it may enforce its 
claim. For thy sake, gentle reader, I am 
anxious that it should; for, if thou hast a 
tithe of the pleasure I had, from the peru¬ 
sal of the following verses, I expect com¬ 
mendation for bidding thee 5t stop and 
read.” 

The FipvST of March 

The bud is in the bough 
And the leaf is in the bud. 

And Earth’s beginning now 
In her veins to feel the blood, 

Which, warm’d by summer’s sun 
In th’ alembic of the vine. 

From her founts will overrun 
lit ftraddy gosh of wine. 


The perfume and the bloom 
That shall decorate the flower. 

Are quickening in the gloom 
Of their subterranean bower; 

And the juices meant to feed 
Trees, vegetables, fruits. 

Unerringly proceed 

To their preappointed roots. 

How awful the thought 
Of the wonders under ground, 

Of the mystic changes wrought 
In the silent, dark profound; 

How each thing upwards tends 
By necessity decreed. 

And a world’s support depends 
On the shooting of a seed ! 

The Summer’s in her ark. 

And this sunny-pinion’d day 
Is commission’d to remark 

Whether Winter holds her sway ; 

Go back, thou dove of peace. 

With the myrtle on thy wing, 

Say that floods and tempests cease. 

And the world is ripe for Spring. 

Thou hast fann’d the sleeping Earth 
Till her dreams are all of flowers, 

Aad the waters look in mirth 
For their overhanging bowers ; 

The forest seems to listen 
For the rustle of its leaves. 

And the very skies to glisten 
In the hope of summer eves. 

Thy vivifying spell 
Has been felt beneath the wave. 

By the dormouse in its cell. 

And the mole within its cave; 

And the summer tribes that creep. 

Or in air expand their wing. 

Have started from their sleep. 

At the summons of the Spring. 

The cattle lift their voices 
From the valleys and the hills. 

And the feather’d race rejoices 
With a gush of tuneful bills; 

And if this cloudless arch 

Fills the poet’s song with glee, 

O thou sunny first of March, 

Be it dedicate to thee 1 

| 

This beautiful poem has afforded me 
exquisite gratification. Till I saw it printed 
in Mr. Dyce’s “ Specimens of British Po¬ 
etesses,” I was ignorant that a living lady 
had written so delightfully. Without a 
friend at my elbow to instruct me whethei 
if should prefix “ Miss ” or “ Mrs.” to hei 
felicitous name, I transcribe—as I find if 
in Mr. Dyce’s volume— Felicia Hewans 


142 


























the table book. 




Ok J>torj> of tfoe ^cotrl; ^oRurr. 

“ Upon my soul it’s a fact.” 

Matthews —and Self. 

tion, a hae twa seagnatures, an’ a’d gi. 
awa’ the morn.” I'or once I had told no 
lie in denying Mr. B. to his visitor, and, 
therefore, in no dread of detection from 
cough, or other vivh voce evidence, I usher¬ 
ed the “ valiant Scot ” into the sanctum of a 
lawyer’s clerk. 

There is a very laudable benevolent 
institution in London, called the “ Scottish 
Hospital,” which, on proper representa¬ 
tions made to it, signed by three of ib 
members, (forms whereof are annexed, in 
blank, to the printed petition, which is 
given gratuitously to applicants,) will pass 
poor natives of Scotland to such parts o. 
their father-land as they wish, free of ex¬ 
pense, and will otherwise relieve their 
wants; but each member is only allowed ’ 


Fur the Table Book. 

“ Is the master at home, sir?’’ said a 
broad-shouldered Scotchman (wearing a 

regimental coat of the-regiment, and 

with his bonnet in his hand) to myself, 
who had answered a ring at the office-bell, 
i replied that he was not. “ Weel, that’s 
onlucky, sir,” said he, “ for ye see, sir, a 
hae goten a pertection here, an’ a hae 
been till a’ the Scotchmen that a can hear 
ony thing o’, but they hae a’ signed for the 
month; an’ a hae ashorteness o’ brith, that 
wunna lat me wurk or du ony thing; an’ 
a’d be vary glard gin a cud git doon to 
Scoteland i’ the nixt vaissel, for a hanna’ a 
baubee; an’, as a sid afore, a canna wurk, 
an* gin maister B. wud jist sign ma pertec- 


143 


L 





































































































TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


to sign ons petition each month. This poor 
fellow had come in hopes of obtaining Mr. 
B.’s signature to his request to be sent 
home ; and, while waiting to procure it, 
told me the circumstances that had reduced 
him to ask it. 

He was a native of-, where the rents 

had lately been raised, by a new laird, far 
beyond the capabilities of the tacksmen. 
They had done their best to pay them—had 
struggled long, and hard, with an ungrate¬ 
ful soil—but their will and industry were 
lost; and they were, finally, borne down 
by hard times, and harsh measures. ’Twas 
hard to leave the hearths which generations 
of their forefathers had shadowed and hal¬ 
lowed—’twas yet harder to see their infants’ 
lips worrying the exhausted breast, and to 
watch the cheeks of their children as they 
grew pale from want—and to see their 
frolics tamed by hunger into inert stupidity. 
An American trader had just touched at 
their island, for the purpose of receiving 
emigrants, and half its inhabitants had 
domiciled themselves on board, before her 
arrival had been known twelve hours. Our 
poor Scot would fain have joined them, 
with his family and parents, but he lacked 
the means to provide even the scanty store 
of oatmeal and butter which they were re¬ 
quired to ship before they could be allowed 
to step on deck ; so, in a fit of distress and 
despair, he left the home that had never 
been a day out of his sight, and enlist¬ 
ed with a party of his regiment, then at 

-, for the sole purpose of sending 

to the afflicted tenants of his “ bit housey,” 
the poor pittance of bounty he received, 
to be a short stay ’twixt them and starva¬ 
tion. 

lie had been last at St.John’s, New¬ 
foundland ; “ and there,” said he, indig¬ 
nantly, “ they mun mak’ a cook’s orderly 
o’ me, as gin a war’ nae as proper a man 
as ony o’ them to carry a musket; an’ they 
sint me to du a’ the odd jobes o’ a chap 
that did a wife’s-wark, tho’ there were a 
gude fivety young chaps i’ the regiment that 
had liked it wul aneugh, and were better 
fetting for the like o’ sican a place than 
mysel.—Ar.d so, sir,” he continued, “ thar 
a was, working mysel intill a scalding 
heat, and than a’d geng out to carry in the 
cauld water; an’ i’ the deeing o’t, a got a 
cauld that sattled inwardly, an’ garr’d me 
hae a fivre an’ spit blood. Weel, sir, aifter 
mony months, a gote better; but oh ! a was 
jinco weak, and but a puir creature frae a 
strong man afore it: but a did na mak 
muckle o’t, for a thought ay, gin ony thing 
cam o’t to disable me, or so, that a should 


hae goten feve-pence or sax-pence a-d*y 
an' that had been a great help.” 

-Oh! if the rich would but Uke 

the trouble to learn how many happy hearts 
they might make at small expense—ind 
fashion their deeds to their knowledg?-— 
how many prayers might nightly ascend 
with their names from grateful bosoms to 
the recording angel’s ears—and how much 
better would the credit side of their account 
with eternity appear on that day, when 

the great balance must be struck !- 

There was a pause—for my narrator’s 
breath failed him ; and I took the oppor¬ 
tunity of surveying him. He was about 
thirty, with a half hale, half hectic cheek ; 
a strong red beard, of some three days’ 
growth, and a thick crop of light hair, 
such as only Scotchmen have—one of the 
Cain’s brands of our northern brethren— 
it curled firmly round his forehead ; and . 
his head was set upon his broad shoulders 
with that pillar of neck which Adrian in 
particular, and many other of the Roman 
emperors, are represented with, on their 
coins, but which is rarely seen at present. 
He must, when in full health, have 
stood about five feet seven ; but, now, he 
lost somewhat of his height in a stoop, 
contracted during his illness, about the 
chest and shoulders, and common to most 
people affected with pulmonary complaints : 
his frame was bulky, but the sinews seemed 
to have lost their tension ; and he looked 
like “ one of might,” who had grappled 
strongly with an evil one in sore sickness. 
He bore no air of discontent, hard as his lot 
was ; yet there was nothing theatrical in 
his resignation. All Scotchmen are pre- 
destinarians, and he fancied he saw the 
immediate hand of Providence working out 
his destiny through his misfortunes, and 
against such interference he thought it vain 
to clamour. Far other were my feelings 
when I looked on his fresh, broad face, and 
manly features, his open brow, his width 
of shoulders, and depth of chest, and heard 
how the breath laboured in that chest for 

inefficient vent- 

“ May be,” said he—catching my eye 
in its wanderings, as he raised his own 
from the ground,—“ May be a’d be better, 
gin a were doon i’ wun nain place.” I 
was vext to my soul that my look had 
spoken so plainly as to elicit this remark. 
Tell a man in a consumption that he looks 
charmingly, and you have opened the 
sluices of his heart almost as effectually, to 
your ingress, as if you had really cured 
him. And yet I think this poor fellow 
said what he did, rather to please one which 


U4 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


he ?aw took an interest in him, than to 
flatter himself into a belief of recovery, or 
from any such existing belief; for, shortly 
after, when I asked him what he would do 
in Scotland, “ A dunna ken wat a mun 
du,” he replied ; “ a canna du ony labour¬ 
ing wark, an’ a ha na goten ony trade; 
but, ye see, sir, we like ay to die whar’ 
wer’re born ; and my faither, an’ my gran’- 
faither afore him forbye, a’ my ither kin, 
i an’ the mither that bore me, there a’ 1 ’ the 

nook o*-kirk-yaird ; an’ than my wife 

an twa bairnies -There was a pause 

in the soldier’s voice; he had not learnt 
the drama of mendicity or sentimentality, 
but, by — ! there was a tear in his eye.*— 
I hate a scene as much as Byron did, but I 
admire a feeling heart, and pity a sorrow¬ 
ful one-the tear did not fall. I 

looked in his face when I heard his voice 
again ; his eye glistened, and the lash was 

wet, but the tear was gone-And there 

stood I, whose slender body scarcely com¬ 
prehended one half of the circumference of 
his muscular frame.—“ And the hand of 
Death is here !” said I ; and then I turned 
my eyes upon myself, and almost wondered 
how my soul dwelt in so frail a tenement, 
while his was about to escape from such a 
seeming fastness of flesh. 

After some further conversation, he told 
me his regiment had at one time been 
ordered olf for Africa against the Ashan- 
tees ; and sure never mortal man regretted 
counter orders on such grounds as he did 
those which balked his expectations of a 
visit to Sierra Leone.—“ A thought,” said 
he, “ wur regiment w'oud ha gien to 
Aifrica against the Aishantees—an a was 
in hopes it wud-it’s a didly cli¬ 

mate, an’ there was nae money goten out 
o’ the laist fray ; but thin—perhaps its 
jist as well to die in ae place as anither— 
but than we canna bring wursels to feel it, 
tho’ we may think it—an’ than ye see, sir, 
as a sid afore, a hae twa bairnies, an gin a’d 
laid doon w T i’ the rast, the mither o’ them 
might hae goten the widow’s pension for 

them an’ hirsel.”-The widow’s 

pension ! sixpence a-day for a woman and 
two children—and death to the fourth per¬ 
son as the only price of it! Hear this, 
shade of Lempribre! Manlius and the 
Horatii died to save a country, and to pur¬ 
chase earthly immortality by their deaths 
•—but here’s a poor fellow willing to give up 


# [“_Tke accusing spirit flew up to heaven’s 

chancery with the oath, and blushed as he gave it in 
the recording anoel, as he wrote it down, dropped a 
tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever!” — 
S'eme. Ed. -1 


the ghost, by sword, plague, pestilence ot 
famine, to secure a wife and two children 
two-pence each, per day ! 

Look to it, ye three-bottle beasts, 01 
men—as the courtesy of a cringing world 
calls you—look to it, when ye toast the 
next loidly victor “with three times three!’’ 
—Shout ’till the roof rings, and then think, 
amid the din of your compeers, of the 
humble Head—of those who walk silently in 
the path of the grave, and of the widowed 
and fatherless. Commanders die for glory, 
for a funeral procession, or a title, or wealth 
for those they leave behind; but who 
speaks of the private, who dies with a 
wound for every pore?—he rots on the earth; 
or, with some scores or hundreds of his 
comrades, a few inches beneath it; and his 
wife gets—“ sixpence a day !** 

Poor fellow, thought I, as I looked on my 
narrator—were I a king—but kings cannot 
scrape acquaintance with every man in tne 
ranks of their forces—but had I been your 
officer, I think you should not have wanted 
your pension for the few days that are to 
shine on you in this world ; and, had you 
fallen, it should have gone hard with me, 
but your wife and two children should have 
had their twopence each per day—and, 
were I a man of fortune, I would be proud 
to keep the life in such a heart, as long as 
God would permit—and so saying, or 
thinking—and blinking away the dimness 
of humanity from my eye—I thrust my hand 
into my pocket, and gave him Sixpence. 

-Reader ! smile not; I am but a poor 

harum scarum headed mortal— y t was all I 
had, “ in possession, expectancy, remainder, 
or reversion ”— 

J. J. K. 


Jn'gblaati SLcgrntJ. 

The following poem originates in a le¬ 
gend which is still popular in many parts 
of the highlands of Scotland : that a female 
branch of the noble family of Douglas 
contracted an imprudent marriage with a 
kerne, or mountain peasant, who was 
drowned in the Western Islands, where he 
had escaped for concealment from the per¬ 
secutions of the offended family of his wife. 
She survived him eighteen years, and 
wandered a maniac over the mountains, 
wheie, as superstition alleges, she is even 
now to be seen at daybreak. The stanzas 
are supposed to be the extempore recita¬ 
tions of an old bard to a group of attentive 
villagers. 


145 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


T11E LADY OF THE HILL. 

Poor girl! she seem’d of an unearthly mould, 

A thing superior to the frowns of fate; 

But never did my tearful eyes behold 
A maid so fair, and so disconsolate ; 

Yet was she once a child of high estate, 

And nurst m spendour, till an envious gloom 
Sunk her beneath its harsh o’erpowerir.g weight: 
Robb’d her pale features of their orient bloom. 

And with a noiseless pace, mov’d onwards to the 
tomb. 

She walk’d upon the earth, as one who knew 
The dread mysterious secrets of the grave; 

For never o’er her eye of heavenly blue 
Lighten’d a smile; but like the ocean %vave 
That roars, unblest with sunshine, through the cave 
Rear’d in the depths of Snowden, she had flown 
To endless grief for refuge; and would rave, 

And tell to the night-winds her tale unknown, 

Or wander o’er the heath, deserted and alone. 

And when the rain beat hard against the hill, 

And storms rush’d by upon their wing of pow’r. 
Lonely she’d stray beside the bubbling rill, 

Or fearless list the deep-voic’d cataract’s roar ; 

And when the tempest’s wrath was heard no more 
She wander’d home, the mountain sod to dress 
With many a wreath, and many a summer flow’r , 

And thus she liv’d, the sister of distress, 

The solitude of love, nurst in the wilderness. 

She was the child of nature ; earth, sea, sky, 

Mountain and cataract, fern-clad hill and dale 
Possess’d a nameless charm in her young eye, 

Pure and eternal, for in Deva’s vale 
Her heart first listen’d to a lover’s tale. 

Breath’d by a mountain kerne ; and every scene 
That wanton’d blithely in the od’rous gale, 

Had oft beheld her lord’s enamour’d mien, 

As tremblingly she sought each spot where he had 
been. 

But she is gone 1 The cold earth is her pillow, 

And o’er her blooms the summer’s sweetest fiow’r ; 
And o’er her ashes weeps the grateful willow 
She lov’d to cherish in a happier hour— 

Mute is the voice that breath’d from Deva’s bow’r 
Chill is the soul of the neglected rover; 

We saw the death-cloud in destruction low’r 
O’er her meek head, the western waves roll’d over 
The corse of him she lov’d, her own devoted lover. 

But eft, when the faint sun is in the west. 

And the hush’d gales along the ocean die, 

Strange sounds reecho from her place of rest. 

And sink into the heart most tenderly— 

The bird of evening hour, the humming bee, 

And the wild music of the mountain rill, 

Seem breathing sorrow as they murmur by, 

And whispering to the night, while all is still, 

The tale ef the poof g'rl—the “ Lady of the Hill.” 

W. F. D.— Indicator. 


iHarriage Customs. 

HIGHLAND WEDDINGS. 

By John Hay Allan, Esq. 

There is not probably, at the present 
day a more social and exhilarating con¬ 
vocation than a highland wedding among 
the lower orders. The ancient hospitality 
and kindliness of character fills it with 
plenty and good humour, and gathers from 
every side all who have the slightest claim 
in the blood, name, and friendship of the 
bride or bridegroom. That olden attach¬ 
ment, which formerly bound together the 
superiors and their dependants, yet so far 
influences their character as to bring them 
together at the same board upon this occa¬ 
sion. When a wedding is to take place, 
the attendance of the chief, or laird, as well 
as that of the higher tacksmen, is always 
solicited by the respective parties, and 
there are few who would refuse this mark 
of consideration and good-will. The clans¬ 
men are happy in the honour which they 
receive, and the “ Duinne-Uasal” is pleased 
with the regard and respect which renders 
the countenance of his presence necessary 
to his people. 

Upon the day of the wedding, the friends 
of the bridegroom and the bride assemble 
at the house of their respective parents, 
with all the guns and pistols which can be 
collected in the country. If the distance of 
the two rendezvous is more than a day’s 
march, the bridegroom gathers ..is friends 
as much sooner as is necessary to enable 
them to be with the bride on the day and 
hour appointed. Both parties are exceed 
ingly proud of the numbers and of the rank 
which their influence enables them to 
bring; they therefore spare no pains to 
render the gathering of their friends as full 
and as respectable as possible. The com¬ 
pany of each party dines at the house of 
their respective parents. Every attainable 
display of rustic sumptuousness and rustic 
gallantry is made to render the festival 
worthy of an occasion which can happen 
but once in a life. The labour and the care 
of months have been long providing the 
means wherewith to furnish the feast with 
plenty, and the assistants with gayety ; and 
it is not unfrequent that the savings of a 
whole year are expended to do honour to 
this single day. 

When the house is small, and the com¬ 
pany very numerous, the partitions are fre¬ 
quently taken down, and the whole “ biel ” 
thrown into one space. A large table, the 


146 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


entire length of the house, is formed of deal 
ulanks laid upon tressels, and covered with 
a succession of table-cloths, white though 
coarse. The quantity of the dinner is an¬ 
swerable to the space which it is to cover: 
it generally consists of barley broth, or 
cock-a-leeky, boiled fowls, roasted ducks, 
oints of meat, sheep’s heads, oat and barley 
cakes, butter, and cheese; and in summer, 
frothed buttermilk, and slam. In the glens 
where goats are kept, haunches of these 
animals and roasted kids are also added to 
ihe feast. In the olden time, venison and all 
kinds of game, from the cappercalich to the 
grouse, were also furnished ; but since the 
breach of the feudal system, and its privi¬ 
leges, the highland lairds have become like 
other proprietors in the regulation of their 
game, and have prohibited its slaughter to 
their tenants upon pain of banishment. 

Yet the cheer of the dinner is not so re¬ 
markable as the gear of the guests. No 
stranger who looked along the board could 
recognise in their “ braws ” the individuals 
whom the day before he had seen in the 
mill, the field, or the “ smiddie.” The men 
are generally dressed to the best of their 
power in the lowland fashion. There are 
still a few who have the spirit, and who 
take a pride, to appear in the noble dress 
of their ancestors. These are always con¬ 
sidered as an honour and an ornament to 
the day. So far however has habit altered the 
custom of the people, even against their own 
approbation, that notwithstanding the con¬ 
venience and respect attached to the tar¬ 
tans, they are generally laid aside. But 
though the men are nothing deficient in the 
disposition to set themselves off in the low¬ 
land fashions, from ihe superior expense of 
cloth and other materials of a masculine 
dress, they are by no means so gay as the 
lasses. Girls, who the yester even were 
seen bare-headed and bare-footed, lightly 
dressed in a blue flannel petticoat and dark 
linen jacket, are now busked in white 
frocks, riband sashes, cotton stockings on 
their feet, and artificial flowers on their 
heads. The “ merchant’s” and the miller’s 
daughters frequently exhibit the last fashion 
from Edinburgh, and are beautified and 
garnished with escalloped trimmings, tabbed 
sleeves, tucks, lace, gathers, and French 
frills! As it has been discovered that 
tartan is nothing esteemed in London, little 
or none is to be seen, except in the red 
plaid or broached tunic of some old wife, 
whose days of gayfcty are past, but who still 
loves that with which she was gay in her 
youth. It is to be regretted that Dr. Sa¬ 
muel Johnson had not lived to witness 


these dawnings of reason and improvement, 
his philosophical mind might have rejoiced 
in the symptoms of approaching “ civiliza¬ 
tion ’’ among the highlanders. 

The hour of dinner is generally about one 
o’clock; the guests are assembling for two 
hours before, and each as he enters is prc. 
sented with a glass of “uisga” by way of 
welcome. When the company is seated, 
and the grace has been said, the bottle 
makes a regular round, and each empties a 
bumper as it passes. During the meal 
more than one circle is completed in the 
same manner; and, at the conclusion, an¬ 
other revolutionary libation is given as a 
finale. As soon after dinner as his march 
will allow, the bridegroom arrives: his ap¬ 
proach is announced at a distance by a 
continual and running discharge of fire¬ 
arms from his party. These signals ate 
answered by the friends of the bride, and 
when at length they meet, a general but 
irregular feu-de-joie announces the arrival. 
The bridegroom and his escort are then re¬ 
galed with whiskey, and after they have 
taken some farther refreshment the two par 
ties combine, and proceed in a loose pro¬ 
cession to the “clachan.” 

Sometimes, and particularly if there hap¬ 
pens to be a few old disbanded sergeants 
among them, the whole “ gathering” marches 
very uniformly in pairs; and there is 
always a strict regulation in the support 
of the bride, and the place of the bride¬ 
groom and his party. The escort of the 
former takes precedency in the procession, 
and the head of the column is generally 
formed of the most active and best armed 
of her friends, led by their pipes. Imme¬ 
diately after this advanced guard, come the 
bride and the females of her party, accom¬ 
panied by their fathers, brothers, and othe 
friends. The bride is supported on one 
side by a bridesman, and on the other by a 
bridesmaid ; her arms are linked in theirs, 
and from the right and left hand of the 
supporters is held a white scarf or hand¬ 
kerchief, which depends in a festoon across 
the figure of the bride. The privilege of 
supporting the bride is indispensably con¬ 
fined to the bridesman and bridesmaid, 
and it would be an unacceptable piece of 
oliteness for any other persons, however 
igh their rank, to offer to supply their 
place. The bridegroom and his party, witt 
their piper, form the rear of the processioq 
and the whole is closed by two young girls 
who walk last at the array, bearing in a 
festoon between them a white scarf, similar 
to that held before the bride. During the 
march the pipes generally play the old 


147 





THE TABLE BOOK 


Scots air, u Fye, lets a’ to the Bridal,” and 
the parties of the bride and bridegroom 
endeavour to emulate each other in the 
discharge cf their fire-arms. In this order 
the bridal company reaches the church, and 
each pipe as it passes the gate of the sur¬ 
rounding cemetry becomes silent. In the 
old time the pipers played round the out¬ 
side of the elachan during the performance 
of the service, but of later years this custom 
has been discontinued. The ritual of the 
mairiage is very simple: a prayer for the 
happiness and guidance of the young 
couple who are about to enter upon the 
troubled tide of life; a short exhortation 
upon the duties of the station which they 
are to undertake, and a benediction by tne 
imposition of the hands of the minister, is 
all the ceremonial of the union, and an¬ 
nounces to them that they are “ no longer 
two, but one flesh.” 

In the short days of winter, and when 
the bridegroom has to come from a distance, 
it is very frequent that the ceremony is not 
performed until night The different cir¬ 
cumstances of the occasion are then doubly 
picturesque and affecting: while the caval¬ 
cade is yet at a distance, the plaintive peal¬ 
ing of the pipes appioaching upon the still¬ 
ness of the night, the fire-arms flashing 
upon the darkness, and their reports re¬ 
doubled by the solitary echoes of the moun¬ 
tains, and when, at length, the train draws 
near, the mingled tread of hasty feet, the 
full clamour of the pipes, the mixed and 
confused visionry of the white figures of the 
girls, and the dark shadows of the men, 
with here and there the waving of a plaid 
and the glinting of a dirk, must be striking 
to a stranger, but wake inexpressible emo¬ 
tions in the bosom of a Gael, who loves the 
people and the customs of his land. 

The scene is still more impressive at the 
elachan. I have yet before me the groups 
of the last wedding at which I was present 
in the highlands. The church was dimly 
lighted for the occasion; beneath the pulpit 
stood the minister, upon whose head eighty- 
five winters had left their trace: his thinned 
hair, bleached like the “cana,” hung in ring¬ 
lets on his neck; and the light falling 
feebly from above, shed a silvery gleam 
across his lofty forehead and pale features, 
as he lifted his look towards heaven, and 
st»etched his hands above the betrothed 
pair who stood befo’e him. The bride¬ 
groom, a hardy young highlander, the fox- 
hunter of the district, was dressed in the 
full 'a tans; and the bride, the daughter of 
a neighbouring shepherd, was simply at¬ 
tired in white, with a bunch of white roses 


in her hair. The dark cheek and keen eye 
of the hunter deepened its hue and its ligh. 
as he held the hand which had been placed 
in his, while the downcast face of the bride 
scarcely showed distinctly more than her far. 
forehead and temples, and seemed, as the 
light shone obliquely upon them, almost as 
pale as the roses which she wore ; her slim 
form bent upon the supporting arm of the 
bridesmaid — the white frill about her 
neck throbbing with a light and quick 
vibration. 

After the ceremony of the marriage is 
concluded, it is the privilege of the brides¬ 
man to salute the bride. As the party 
leave the church, the pipes again strike up, 
and the whole company adjourns to the 
next inn, or to the house of some relation 
of the bride’s ; for it is considered “ un¬ 
lucky ” for her own to be the first which 
she enters. Before she crosses the thresh¬ 
old, an oaten cake is broken over her head 
by the bridesman and bridesmaid, and dis¬ 
tributed to the company, and a glass of 
whiskey passes round. The whole party 
then enter the house, and two or three 
friends of the bridegroom, who act as mas¬ 
ters of the ceremonies, pass through the 
room with a bottle of whiskey, and pour 
out to each individual a glass to the health 
of the bride, the bridegroom, and their 
clans. Dancing then commences to the 
music of the pipes, and the new-married 
couple lead off the first reel. It is a cus¬ 
tomary compliment for the person of highest 
rank in the room to accompany her in the 
next. During the dancing the whiskey- 
bottle makes a revolution at intervals ; and 
after the reels and strathspeys have been 
kept up for some time, the company re¬ 
tires to supper. The fare of the supper 
differs little from that of the dinner; and 
the rotatiou of the whiskey-bottle is as 
regular as the sun which it follows. 

[At highland festivals the bottle is always 
circulated sun-ways, an observance which 
had its rise in the Druidical “deas’oil,” and 
once regulated almost every action of the 
Celts.] 

When the supper is announced, each 
man leads his partner or some female friend 
to the table, and seating himself at her side, 
takes upon himself her particular charge 
during the meal; and upon such occasions, 
as the means of the bride and bridegroom 
do not permit them to bear the expenses of 
the supper, he is expected to pay her share 
of the reckoning as well as his own. After 
supper the dancing again commences, and 
is occasionally inspired by the before- 
noticed circumvolutions of the “ Uisga na 


148 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


Baidh.* The oride and bridegroom, and 
such as choose repose rather than merri¬ 
ment, retire to take a couple of hours’ rest 
before dawn ; but the majority keep up the 
dancing till day. Towards morning many 
of the company begin to disperse; and 
when it is well light, breakfast is given to. 
all who remain. Tea, multitudes of eggs, 
cold meat, a profusion of oat cakes, barley 
‘ seones," and sometimes wheat bread, 
brought, perhaps, a distance of thirty miles, 
constitute the good cheer of this meal. When 
it is concluded, the bride takes leave of the 
majority of her friends, and accompanied 
only by her particular intimates and rela¬ 
tions, sets off with the bridegroom and his 
parly for her future residence. She is ac¬ 
companied by her neighbours to the march 
of her father, or the tacksman under whom 
he lives, and at the burn-side (for such is 
generally the boundary) they dance a 
parting reel: when it is concluded, the 
oride kisses her friends, they return to their 
dwellings, and she departs for her new 
nome. When, however, the circumstances 
of the bridegroom will permit, all those 
wno were present at the house of the biide, 
are generally invited to accompany her on 
oer way, and a renewal of the preceding 
festivities takes place at the duelling of 
the bridegroom. 

Upon these occasions it is incredible the 
fatigue which the youngest girls will un¬ 
dergo : of this one instance will give a 
sufficient proof. At a wedding which hap¬ 
pened at Cladich by Loch Awe side, there 
were present as bridesmaids, two girls, not 
above fourteen years of age, who had 
walked to the bridal from fnbherara, a dis¬ 
tance of nine miles. They attended the 
bride to the clachan of Inishail, and back to 
her father’s house, which is four miles far¬ 
ther. During the night none were more 
blithe in the dance, and in the morning 
after breakfast they accompanied the rest 
of the party to the house of the bridegroom 
at Tighndrum ; the distance of this place is 
eighteen miles : and thus, when they had 
finished their journey, the two young brides¬ 
maids had walked, without rest, and under 
the fatigue of dancing, a distance of thirty- 
one miles. 

Such is the general outline of a highland 
wedding. In some districts, a few other of 
the ancient customs are yet retained : the 
throwing of the stocking is sometimes 
practised ; but the blessing of the bridal 
couch disappeared with the religion of the 
popes.* 

*.,No 'to the Bridal of Cablchairn, by J. H. Allan, 

. 1 ’ 8 


FLINGING THE STOCKING. 

Mr. Brand collects a variety of par¬ 
ticulars respecting this wedding custom. 

A curious little book, entitled “ The 
West-country Clothier undone by a Pea¬ 
cock,” says, “ The sack-posset must b a 
eaten and the stocking flung, to see who can 
first hit the bridegroom on the nose.” Mis- 
son, a traveller in England at the begin¬ 
ning of the last century, relates, Concerning 
this usage, that the young men took the 
bride’s stocking, and the girls those of the 
bridegroom ; each of whom, sitting at the 
foot of the bed, threw the stocking over 
their heads, endeavouring to make it fall 
upon that of the bride, or her spouse : if 
the bridegroom’s stockings, thrown by the 
girls, fell upon the bridegroom’s head, it 
was a sign that they themselves would soon 
be married : and a similar prognostic was 
taken from the falling of the bride’s stock¬ 
ing, thrown by the young men. The usage 
is related to the same effect in a work en¬ 
titled “ Hymen,” &c. (8vo. 1760.) “ The 

men take the bride’s stockings, and the 
women those of the bridegroom : they then 
seat themselves at the bed’s feet, and throw 
the stockings over their heads, and when¬ 
ever any one hits the owner of them, it is 
looked upon as an omen that the person 
will be married in a short time: and though 
this ceremony is looked upon as mere play' 
and foolery, new marriaiges are often occa-! 
sioned by such accidents. Meantime the 
posset is got ready and given to the married 
couple. When they awake in the morn¬ 
ing, a sack-posset is also given them.” A 
century before this, in a “ A Sing-Song on 
Clarinda’s Wedding,” in It. Fletcher’s 
“ Translations and Poems, 1656,” is the 
following stanza :— 

“ This clutter ore, Clarinda lay 
Half-bedded, like the peeping day 
Behind Olimpus’ cap; 

Whiles at her head each twitt’ring girlfl 
The fatal stocking quick did whirle 
To know the lucky hap.” 

And the “Progress of Matrimony,' in 
“ The Palace Miscellany,” 1733, says, 

“ Then come all the younger folk in, 

With ceremony throw the stocking ; 

Backward, o’er head, in turn they toss’d it, 

Till in sack-posset they had lost it. 

Th’ intent of dinging thus the hose. 

Is to hit him or her o’ th’ nose: 

Who hits the mark, thus, o’er left shoulder 
Must married be, ere twelve months older.' 

This adventuring against the most pro¬ 
minent feature of the face is further mem 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


.wtied in “ The Country Wedding,” a 
poem, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, for 
March 1735, vol. v. p. 158. 

4 Bid the lasses and lads to the merry brown bowl, 
While rashers of bacon shall smoke on the coal: 

Then Roger and Bridget, and Robin and Nan, 

Hit ’em each on the nose, with the hose if you can.'" 

Dunton’s “British Apollo,” 1708, con¬ 
tains a question and answer concerning 
this old usage. 

“ Q. Apollo, say, whence ’tis I pray. 

The ancient custom came. 

Stockings to throw (I’m sure you know) 

At bridegroom and his dame ? 

** A When Britons bold, bedded of old, 

Sandals were backward thrown ; 

The pair to tell, that, ill or well. 

The act was all their own.” 

If a more satisfactory explanation of the 
custom could be found, it should be at the 
reader’s service. The practice prevails on 
the continent as well as in this country, 
but its origin is involved in obscurity. 


(Sarrirfe paj>5. 

No. VII. 

[From “ Fortune by Land and Sea,” a 
Comedy, by T. Heywood, and W. Row- 
ley, 1655.] 

Old Forest forbids his Son to sup with 
some riotous gallants ; who goes notivith- 
standingy and is slain. 

Scene, a Tavern. 

Ralnsworth, Foster , Goodwin. To them enters Frank 
Forest. 

Rain. Now, Frank, how stole you from your father’s 
arms? 

You have been school’d, no doubt. Fie, fie upon’t. 

Ere I would live in such base servitude 
To an old greybeard; ’sfoot. I’d hang myself. 

A man cannot be merry, and drink drunk. 

But he must be control’d by gravity. 

Frank. 0 pardon him ; you know, he is my father. 
And what he doth is but paternal love. 

Though I be wild, I’m not yet so past reasesa 
His person to despise, though I his counsel 
Cannot severely follow. 

Rain. ’Sfoot, he is a fool. 

Frank. A fooll you are a— 

Fost. Nay, gentlemen— 

Frank. Yet I restrain my tongue. 

Hoping you speak out of some spleenful rashofts. 

And no deliberate malice ; and it may be 
You are sorry that a word so ua reverent. 


To wrong so good an aged gentleman, 

Should pass you unawares. 

Rain. Sorry, Sir Boy ! you will not take exceptions ? 
Frank. Not against you with willingness, w'hom I 
Have loved so long. Yet you might think me a 
Most dutiless and ungracious son to give 
Smooth countenance unto my father’s wrong. 

Come, I dare swear 

’Twas not your malice, and I take it so. 

Let’s frame some other talk. Hear, gentlemen— 
Rain. But hear me, Boy 1 it seems. Sir, you are 
angry— 

Frank. Not thoroughly yet— 

Rain. Then what would anger thee ? 

Frank. Nothing from you. 

Rain. Of all things under heaven 
What would’st thou loathest have me do ? 

Frank. I would 

Not have you wrong my reverent father; and 
I hope you will not. 

Rain. Thy father’s an old dotard. 

Frank. I would not brook this at a monarch’s hand. 
Much less at thine. 

Rain. Aye, Boy ? then take you that. 

Frank. Oh I am slain. 

Good. Sweet Cuz, what have you done ? Shift fo» 
yourself. 

Rain. Away.— Exeunt. 

Enter Two Drawers. 

1st Dr. Stay the gentlemen, they have killed a mas 
O sweet Mr. Francis. One run to his father’s. 

2d Dr. Hark, hark, I hear his father’s voice below 
’tis ten to one he is come to fetch him home to supper 
and now he may carry him home to his grave. 

Enter the Host, old Forest, and Susan his daughter 
Cfjtf. You must take comfort. Sir. 

For. Is he dead, is he dead, girl? 

Sus. Oh dead. Sir, Frank is dead. 

For. Alas, alas, my boy! I have not the heart 
To look upon his wide and gaping wounds. 

Pray tell me, Sir, does this appear to you 
Fearful and pitiful—to you that are 
A stranger to my aead boy ? 

Host. How can it otherwise ? 

For. O me most wretched of all wretched men ! 

If to a stranger his warm bleeding wounds 
Appear so grisly and so lamentable. 

How will they seem to me that am his father ? 

Will they not hale my eye-brows from their rounds. 
And with an everlasting blindness strike them ? 

Sus. Oh, Sir, look here. 

For. Dost long to have me blind ? 

Then I’ll behold them, since I know thy mind. 

Oh me 1 

Is this my son that doth so senseless lie. 

And swims in blood ? my soul shall fly with his 
Unto the land of rest. Behold I crave, 

Being kill’d with grief, we both may have one grave 
Sus. Alas, my father’s dead too 1 gentle Sir, 

Help to retire his spirits, over travail’d 
With age and sorrow. 

Host. Mr. Forest- 


150 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


S'lt Father— 

For. What says my girl? good mo -row. What’s a 
clock. 

That yon are up so early? call up Frank; 
l'ell him he lies too long a bed this morning. 

He was wont to call the sun up, and to raise 
The early lark, and mount her ’mongst the clouds. 
Will he not up ? rise, rise, thou sluggish boy. 

Sus. Alas, he cannot, father. 

For. Cannot, why ? 

Sus. Do you not see bis bloodless colour pale ? 

For. Perhaps he’s sickly, that he looks so pale. 

Sus. Do you not feel his pulse no motion keep, 

•low still he lies ? 

For. Then is he fast asleep. 

Sus. Do you not see his fatal eyelid close? 

For . Speak softly; hinder not his soft repose. 

Sus. Oh see you not these purple conduits run ? 
Know you these wounds ? 

For. Oh me 1 my mnrder’d son ! 

Enter young Mr. Forest. 

Y. For. Sister ! 

Sus. O brother, brother 1 

Y. For. Father, how cheer you, Sir ? why, you were 
wont 

To store for others comfort, that by sorrow 
Were any ways distress’d. Have you all wasted. 

And spared none to yourself? 

0. For. O Son, Son, Son, 

See, alas, see where thy brother lies. 

He dined with me to day, was merry, merry. 

Aye, that corpse was ; he that lies here, see be ft, 

Thy murder’d brother and m.y son was. Oh 
Dost thou not weep for him ? 

F. For. I shall find time ; 

When you have took some comfort. I’ll begin 
To mourn his death, and scourge the murderer t> #.*j. 

0. For. Oh, when saw father such a tragic si,;*?'. 
And did outlive it ? never, son, ah never, 

From mortal breast ran such a precious river. 

F. For. Come, father, and dear sister, join with me ; 
Let us all learn our sorrows to forget. 

He owed a death, and he hath paid that debt. 

If I were to be consulted as to a Re¬ 
print of our Old English Dramatists, I 
should advise to begin with the collected 
Plays of Hey wood. He was a fellow Actor, 
and fellow Dramatist, with Shakspeare. 
He possessed not the imagination of the 
latter ; but in all those qualities which 
gained for Shakspeare the attribute of 
gentle , he was not inferior to him. Gene¬ 
rosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths 
of passion ; sweetness, in a word, and gen¬ 
tleness ; Christianism; and true hearty 
Anglicism of feelings, shaping that Chris¬ 
tianism ; shine throughout his beautiful 
writings in a manner more conspicuous 
than in those of Shakspeare, but only more 
conspicuous inasmuch as in Heywood these 
qualities are primary,in the other subordinate 
*o poetry. I love them both equally, but 


Shakspeare has most of my wonder. Hey 
wood should be known to his countrymen, 
as he deserves. His plots are almost inva. 
nably English. I am sometimes jealous, 
that Shakspeare laid so few of his scenes at 
home. I laud Ben Jonson, for that in one 
instance having framed the first draught of 
his Every Man in his Humour in Italy, 
he changed the scene, and Anglicised his 
characters. The names of them in the 
First Edition, may not be unamusing 


Men. 

Lorenzo, Sen. 
Lorenzo, Jun. 
Prospero. 
Thorello. 


Women. 

Guilliana. 

Biancha. 

Hesperida. 

Tib (the same in English.. 


Stephano (Master Stephen.) 

Dr. Clement (Justice Clement.) 

Bobadilla (Bobadil.) 

Musco. 

Cob (the same in English.) 

Peto. 

Pizo. 

Matheo (Master Mathew.) 

How say you, Reader? do not Master 
Kitely, Mistress Kitely, Master Knowell, 
Brainworm, &c. read better than these Cis- 
alpines ? 

C.L. 



MIp Boots. 

For the Table Book . 

On January 6th, 1815, died at Lynr. 
Norfolk, at an advanced age, (supposes 


151 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


about seventy, this eccentric individual, 
whose proper name, William Monson, hud 
tecome nearly obliterated by his profes¬ 
sional appellation of Billy Boots ; having 
followed the humble employment of shoe¬ 
black for a longer period than the greater 
>art of the inhabitants could remember, 
le was reported, (and he always professed 
himself to be,) the illegitimate son of a 
nobleman, whose name he bore, by a Miss 
Cracroft. Of his early days little is known, 
except from the reminiscences of conversa¬ 
tion which the writer of this article at times 
held with him. From thence it appears, 
that having received a respectable educa¬ 
tion, soon after leaving school, he quitted 
his maternal home in Lincolnshire, and 
threw himself upon the world, from whence 
he was sought out by some of his paternal 
brothers, with the intention of providing 
and fixing him in comfortable circumstan¬ 
ces ; but this dependent life he abhorred, 
and the wide world was again his element. 
After experiencing many vicissitudes, 
(though possessing defects never to be 
overcome,—a diminutive person,—a shuf¬ 
fling, slip-shod gait,—and a weak, whining 
voice,) he joined a company of strolling 
players, and used to boast of having per¬ 
formed “Trueman,” in “George Barnwell:” 
from this he imbibed an ardent histrionic 
cacoethe/iy which never left him, but occu¬ 
pied many of his leisure moments, to the 
latest period of his life. Tired of rambling, 
lie fixed his residence at Lynn, and adopt- 
, ing the useful vocation of shoe-black, be¬ 
came conspicuous as a sober, inoffensive, 
and industrious individual. Having, by 
these means, saved a few guineas, in a luck¬ 
less hour, and Vvhen Verging towards his 
fiftieth year, he took to himself a wife, a 
dashing female of more favourable appear¬ 
ance than reputation. In a fews days from 
the tying of the gordian knot, his precious 
metal and his piecious rib took flight to¬ 
gether, never to return; and forsaken Biby 
whined away his disaster, to every pit) ing 
inquirer, and continued to brush and spout 
till time had blunted the keen edge of 
sorrow. 

Notwithstanding this misfortune, Billy 
made no rash vow of forswearing the sex, 
but ogled every mop-squeezer in the town, 
who would li>ten to his captivating elo¬ 
quence, and whenever a roguish Blo isa- 
tino» consented to encourage his addresses, 
he was seen early and late, like a true de¬ 
votee snuffing a pilgrimage to the shrine of 
his devotions. In a summer evening after 
the labour of the day, on these occasions, 
and on these occasions only, he m'ed t 0 

- 


clean himself and spruce up, ; .n his best 
suit, which was not improperly termed hi.» 
courting suit—a w r orn-out scarlet coat 
reaching to his heels, with buttons of tht 
largest dimensions—the other part of his 
dress corresponding. When tired of the 
joke, his faithless inamorata, on some frivo¬ 
lous pretence, contrived to discard him, 
leaving him to “ fight his battles o’er again,” 
and seek some other bewitching fair one, 
who in the end served him as the former ; 
another and another succeeded, but still 
poor Billy was ever jilted, and still lived a 
devoted victim to the tender passion. 

Passionately fond of play-books, of which 
he had a small collection—as uninviting to 
the look as himself in his working dress— 
and possessing a retentive memory, he 
would recite, not merely the single charac¬ 
ter, but whole scenes, with all the dramatis 
personae. His favourite character, however, 
was “ Shylockand here, when soothed 
and flattered, he exhibited a rich treat to 
his risible auditors in the celebrated trial 
scene, giving the entire dialogue, suiting 
the action and attitude to the words, in a 
style of the most perfect caricatural origi¬ 
nality. At other times, he would seleci 
“ The Waterman,” and, as “ Tom Tug,” 
warble forth, “Then farewell my trim-built 
wherry,” in strains of exquisitely whininy 
melody. But, alas! luckless wight! his 
only reward was ridicule, and for applause 
he had jokes and quizzing sarcasms. 

Like most of nature’s neglected eccen¬ 
trics, Billy was a public mark of derision, 
at which every urchin delighted to aim. 
When charges of “ setting the river Thames 
on fiie !” and “ roasting his wife on a grid- 
'ron !” were vociferated in his ears, proudly 
conscious of his innocence of such heinous 
crimes, his noble soul would swell with 
-age and indignation; and sometimes stones, 
at other times his brushes, and oftentimes 
his pot of blacking, were aimed at the 
ruthless offender, who frequently escaped, 
while the unwary passer-by received the 
marks of his vengeance. When unmolested, 
he was harmless and inoffensive. 

Several attempts, it is said, were made 
towards the latter part of his life to settle 
an annuity on him ; but Billy scorned sucl. 
independence, and maintained himself till 
death by praiseworthy industry. After a 
few days’ illness, he sank into the grave, 
unhonoured and unnoticed, except by the 
following tribute to his memory, written by 
a literary and agricultural gentleman in the 
neighbourhood of Lynn, and inserted in 
the “ Norwich Mercury” newspaper of that 
period. K> 


i 


152 




THE TABLE BOOK. 


Elegiac Lines on William Monson, 
late of Lynn, an eccentric Charac¬ 
ter; COMMONLY y’cLEPT BlLLY BOOTS. 

Imperial Fate, who, with promiscuous course, 

Exerts o’er high and low his influence dread ; 
Impell’d his shaft with unrelenting force, 

And laid thee, Billy, ’mongst the mighty dead ! 

Yet ’though, when borne to thy sepulchral home. 

No pomp funereal grac’d thy poor remains, 

Some “frail memorial ” should adorn thy tomb, 

Some trifling tribute from the Muse’s strains. 

Full fifty years, poor Billy! hast thou budg’d, 

A care-worn shoe-black, up and down the streets ; 
From house to house, with slip-shod step hast trudg’d, 
’Midst summer’s rays, and winter’s driving sleets. 

Report allied thee to patrician blood, 

Yet, whilst thy life to drudg’ry was confin’d, 

Thy firmness each dependent thought withstood, 

And prov’d,—thy true nobility of mind. 

With shuffling, lagging gait, with visage queer, 

Which seem’d a stranger to ablution’s pow’r, 

In tatter’d garb, well suited to t'ny sphere. 

Thou o’er life’s stage didst strut thy fretful hour. 

O’er boots and shoes, to spread the jetty hue. 

And give the gliss,—thou Billy, wert the man. 

No boasting rivals could thy skill outdo— 

Not “ Day and Martin,” with their fam’d japan. 

On men well-bred and perfectly refin’d, 

An extra nolish could thine art bestow ; 

At feast or ball, thy varnish’d honours shin’d. 

Made spruce the trader, and adorn’d the beau. 

When taunting boys, whom no reproof could tame. 

On thee their scoffs at cautious distance shed, 

A shoe or brush, impetuous wouldst thou aim. 

Wing’d with resentment, at some urchin’s l ead. 

With rage theatric often didst thou glow, 

(Though ill adapted for the scenic art;) 

As Denmark’s prince soliloqu.z’d in woe, 

Or else rehears’d vindictive Shylock's part. 

Brushing and spouting, emulous of fame. 

Oft pocketing affronts instead of cash, 
j) logo's phrase, sometimes thou inight’st exclaim 
With too much truth,—“ who steals my purse steals 
trash.” 

Peace to thine ashes I harmless in thy way. 

Long wert thou emp'ror of the shoe-black uain, 

And with thy fav’rite Shakspeare we may «(iv. 

We “ne’er shall look upon thy like again ” 


Cbe Urania. 

“ THE GREAT UNKNOWN » 
KNOWN. 

Friday the 23d of February, 1827, is tc he 
regarded as remarkable, because on that day 
“ The Great Unknown” confessed himself. 
The disclosure was made at the first annual 
dinner of the “ Edinburgh Theatrical 
Fund,” then held in the Assembly Rooms, 
Edinburgh — Sir Walter Scott in the 
chair. 

Sir Walter Scott, after the usual toasts 
to the King and the Royal Family, re¬ 
quested, that gentlemen would fill a bum¬ 
per as full as it would hold, while he would 
say only a few words. He was in the habit 
of hearing speeches, and he knew the feel¬ 
ing with which long ones were regarded. 
He was sure that it was perfectly unneces¬ 
sary for him to enter into any vindication of 
the dramatic art, which they had come here 
to support. This, however, he considered 
to be the proper time and proper occasion 
for him to say a few words on that love of 
representation which was an innate feeling 
in human nature. It was the first amuse¬ 
ment that the child had—it grew greater as 
he grew up ; and, even in the decline of 
life, nothing amused so much as when a 
common tale is well told. The first thing 
a child does is to ape his schoolmaster, by 
flogging a chair. It was an enjoyment na¬ 
tural to humanity. It was implanted in 
our very nature, to take pleasure from such 
representations, at proper times, and on 
proper occasions. In all ages the theatri¬ 
cal art had kept pace with ti e improvement 
of mankind, and with the progress of letters 
and the fine arts. As he had advanced 
from the ruder stages of society, the love of 
dramatic representations had increased, and 
all works of this nature had been improved 
in character and in structure. They had 
only to turn their eyes to the history of an¬ 
cient Greece, although he did not pretend 
to be vety deeply versed in ancient history. 
Its first tragic poet commanded a body of 
troops at Marathon. The second and next, 
weie men who shook Athens with their 
discourses, as their theatrical works shock 
the theatre itself. If they turned to F ar.ee, 
in the time of Louis XIV., that era hi 
the classical history of that country, they 
would find that it was refeired tc by all 
Frenchmen as the golden age of the d'.aix.r,. 
there. And also in England, in the Lire 
of queen Elizabeth, the drama began to 
mingle deeply and wisely in the genera, 
politics of Europe, not only not receiving 


153 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


atrs from others, hut giving laws to the 
world, and vindicating the rights of man- 
Kind. ( Cheers There had been various 
times when the dramatic art subsequently 
fell into disrepute. Its professors had been 
stigmatized: and laws had been passed 
against them, less dishonourable to them 
than to the statesmen by whom they were 
proposed, and to the legislators by whom 
they were passed. What were the times in 
which these laws were passed? Was it not 
when virtue was seldom inculcated as a 
moral duty, that we were required to relin¬ 
quish the most rational of all our amuse¬ 
ments, when the clergy were enjoined 
celibacy, and when the laity were denied 
the right to read their Bibles ? He thought 
that it must have been from a notion of 
penance that they erected the drama into an 
ideal place of profaneness, and the tent of 
sin. He did not mean to dispute, that 
there were many excellent persons who 
thought differently from him, and they were 
entitled to assume that they were not guilty 
of any hypocrisy in doing so. He gave 
them full credit for their tender consciences, 
in making these objections, which did not 
appear to him relevant to those persons, 
if they were what they usurped themselves 
to be ; and if they were persons of worth 
and piety, he should crave the liberty to tell 
them, that the first part of their duty was 
charity, and that if they did not choose to 
go to the theatre, they at least could not 
deny that they might give away, from their 
superfluity, what was required for the relief 
of the sick, the support of the aged, and 
the comfort of the afflicted. These were 
duties enjoined by our religion itself. 
{Loud cheers.') The performers were in a 
particular manner entitled to the support or 
regard, when in old age or distress, of those 
who had partaken of the amusements of 
those places which they rendered an orna¬ 
ment to -society. Their art was of a pecu¬ 
liarly delicate and precarious nature. They 
had to serve a long apprenticeship. It was 
very long before even the first-rate geniuses 
could acquire the mechanical knowledge of 
the stage business. They must languish 
long in obscurity before they could avail 
themselves of their natural talents; and 
after that, they had but a short space of 
time, during which they were fortunate if 
they couid provide the means of comfort in 
the decline of life. That came late, and 
lasted but a short time; after which they 
were left dependent. Their limbs failed, 
their teeth were loosened, their voice was 
lost, and they were left, after giving happi¬ 
ness to others, in a most disconsolate state. 


The public were liberal and generous to 
those deserving their protection. It was a sad 
thing to be dependant on the favour, or, he 
might say, in plain terms, on the caprice 
of the public ; and this more particularly 
for a class of persons of whom extreme 
prudence was not the character. There 
might be instances of opportunities being 
neglected; but let them tax themselves, 
and consider the opportunities they had 
neglected, and the sums of money they had 
wasted ; let every gentleman look into his 
own bosom, and say whether these were 
circumstances which would soften his own 
feeling, were he to be plunged into distress. 
He put it to every generous bosom—to 
every better feeling—to say what consola¬ 
tion was it to old age to be told that you 
might have made provision at a time which 
had been neglected— {loud cheers) —and to 
find it objected, that if you had pleased you 
might have been wealthy. He had hitherto 
been speaking of what., in theatrical lan¬ 
guage, was 'called “ stars,” but they were 
sometimes fallen ones. There were another 
class of sufferers naturally and necessarily 
connected with the theatre, without whom 
it was impossible to go on. The sailors had 
a saying, “ every man cannot be a boats¬ 
wain.” If there must be persons to act 
Hamlet , there must also be people to act 
Laertes, the King , Rosencrantz , and Guil- 
denstern, otherwise a drama cannot go on. 
If even Garrick himself were to rise from 
the dead, he could not act Hamlet alone. 
There must be generals, colonels, command¬ 
ing officers, and subalterns; but what were 
the private soldiers to do ? Many had mis¬ 
taken their own talents, and had been driven 
in early youth to try the stage, to which 
they were not competent. He would know 
what to say to the poet and to the artist. 
He would say that it was foolish, and he 
would recommend to the poet to become a 
scribe, and the artist to paint sign-posts 
{Loud laughter.) But he could not send the 
player adrift; for if he could not play Ham¬ 
let , he must play Guildenstern. Where 
there were many labourers, wages must be 
low, and no man in such a situation could 
decently support a wife and family, and 
save something of his income for old age. 
What was this man to do in latter life 1 
Were they to cast him off like an old hinge, 
or a piece of useless machinery, which had 
done its work ? To a person who had con¬ 
tributed to our amusement, that would be 
unkind, ungrateful, and unchristian. His 
wants were not of his own making, bu- 
arose from the natural sources of sickness 
and old age It could not be denied tha 


154 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


ti ere was one class ot sufferers to whom no 
imprudence could be ascribed, except on 
first entering on the profession. After 
putting his hand to the dramatic plough, 
ne could not draw back, but must continue 
at it, and toil, till death released him; or 
charity, oy its milder assistance, stepped in 
to render that want more tolerable. He 
had little more to say, except that he sin¬ 
cerely hoped that the collection to-day, 
from the number of respectable gentlemen 
present, would meet the views entertained 
by the patrons. He hoped it would do so. 
They should not be disheartened. Though 
they could not do a great deal, they might 
do something. They had this consolation, 
that every thing they parted with from their 
superfluity would do some good. They 
would sleep the better themselves when 
• hey had been the means of giving sleep to 
others. It was ungrateful and unkind that 
those who had sacrificed their youth to our 
amusement should not receive the reward 
due to them, but should be reduced to hard 
fare in their old age. They could not 
think of poor Falstaff going to bed without 
his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on bones 
as marrowless as those of Banquo. ( Loud 
cheers and, laughter .) As he believed that 
they were all as fond of the dramatic art 
as he was in his younger days, he would 
propose that they should drink “ The 
Theatrical Fund,’’ with three times three. 

Mr. Mackay rose on behalf of his bre¬ 
thren, to return their thanks for the toast 
just drank. 

Lord Meadowbank begged to bear 
testimony to the anxiety which they all felt 
for the interests of the .nstitution which it 
was for this day’s meeting to establish. For 
himself, he was quite surprised to find his 
humble name associated with so many 
others, more distinguished, as a patron of 
the institution. But he happened to hold 
a high and important public station in the 
country. It was matter of regret that he 
had so little the means in his power of be¬ 
ing of service; yet it would aftord him at 
all times the greatest pleasure to give as¬ 
sistance. As a testimony of the feelings 
with which he now rose, he begged to pro¬ 
pose a health, which he was sure, in an as¬ 
sembly of Scotsmen, would be received, 
not with an ordinary feeling of delight, but 
with rapture and enthusiasm. lie knew 
that it would be painful to his feelings^ if 
he were to speak of him in the terms which 
his heart prompted ; and that he had shel¬ 
tered himself under his native modesty from 
the applause which he deserved. But it 
was gratifying at last to know that these 


clouds were now dispelled, and that the 
“ great unknown ”—“ the mighty Magician’* 
■—{here the room literally rung with applauses 
for some minutes) —the Minstrel of ou< 
country, who had conjured up, not the 
phantoms of departed ages, but realities, 
now’ stood revealed before the eyes and 
affections of his country. In his presence 
it would ill become him, as it would be 
displeasing to that distinguished person, to 
say, if he were able, what every man must 
feel, who recollected the enjoyment he had 
had from the great efforts of his mind and 
genius. It had been left for him, by his 
writings, to give his country an imperish¬ 
able name. He had done more for that 
country, by illuminating its annals, by illus¬ 
trating the deeds of its warriors and states¬ 
men, than any man that ever existed, or 
was produced, within its territory. He had 
opened up the peculiar beauties of his na¬ 
tive land to the eyes of foreigners. He had 
exhibited the deeds of those patriots and 
statesmen to whom we owed the freedom 
we now enjoyed. He would give “ The 
health of Sir Walter Scott.” 

This toast was drank with enthusiastic 
cheering. 

Sir Walter Scott certainly did not 
think, that, in coming there that day, he 1 
would have the task of acknowledging, 
before 300 gentlemen, a secret which, con¬ 
sidering that it was communicated to more 
than 20 people, was remarkably well kept. ! 
He was now before the bar of his country, 
and might be understood to be on trial 
before lord Meadowbank, as an offender; 
yet he was sure that every impartial jury 
would bring in a verdict of “ not proven.” 
He did not now think it necessary to enter 
into reasons for his long silence. Perhaps 
he might have acted from caprice. He had j 
now to say, however, that the merits of these 
works, if they had any, and their faults, 
were entirely imputable to himself. (Long \ 
and loud cheering.) He was afraid to think 
on what he had done. Look on’t again 
I dare not.” He had thus far unbosomed 
himself, and he knew that it would be re- J 
ported to the public. He meant, when he ! 
said that he was the author, that he was the 
total and undivided author. With the ex¬ 
ception of quotations, there was no. a single 
word that was not derived from himself, or 
suggested in the course of his reading. The 
wand was now broken and the rod buried.. 
They would allow him further to say, with 
Prospero, “ Your breath it is that has filled 
my sails,” and to crave one single toast in 
the capacity of the author of those novels , 
and he would dedicate a bumper to the 


155 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


health of one who had represented some of 
those characters, of which he had endea¬ 
voured to give the skeleton, with a degree 
of liveliness which rendered him grateful, 
lie would propose the health of his friend 
' Bailie Nicol Jarvie ; (loud applause ;) and 
he was sure that, when the author of JVa- 
ver/eyand Rob Roy drank to Nicol Jarvie , 
it would be received with that degree of 
applause to which that gentleman had al- 
ways been accustomed, and that they would 
take care that, on the present occasion, it 
should be prodigious! (Long and vehe¬ 
ment applause.) 

Mr. Mackay, who spoke with great hu¬ 
mour in the character of Bailie Jarvie .— 
“ My conscience! My worthy father, the 
Deacon, could not have believed that his 
son could hae had sic a compliment paid 
to him by the Great Unknown .” 

Sir Walter Scott. —“ Not unknoivn 
now, Mr. Bailie.” 

After this avowal, numerous toasts were 
duly honoured ; and on the proposal of 
“ the health of Mrs. Siddons, senior, the 
most distinguished ornament of the stage,” 
Sir Walter Scott said, that if any thing 
could reconcile him to old age, it was the 
reflection that he had seen the rising as well 
as the setting sun of Mrs Siddons. He 
remembered well their breakfasting near 
to the theatre—waiting the whole day— 
the crushing at the doors at six o’clock— 
and their going in and counting their fin¬ 
gers till seven o’clock. But the very first 
step—the very first word which she uttered, 
was sufficient to overpay him for all his 
labours. The house was literally electrified; 
and it was only from witnessing the effects 
of her genius, that he could guess to what 
a pitch theatrical excellence could be ear¬ 
ned. Those young fellows who had only 
>een the setting sun of this distinguished 
performer, beautiful and serene as that was. 
must give the old fellows who had seen its 
i ise leave to hold their heads a little higher. 

Sir Walter Scott subsequently gave 
“ Scotland, the Land of Cakes.” He would 
uive every river, every loch, every hill, from 
Tweed to Johnnie Groat’s house—every 
1 tss in her cottage, and countess in her 
< istle ; and may her sons stand by her, as 
iheir fathers did before them, and he who 
would not di ink a bumper to his toast, may 
ne never drink whiskey more. 

Mr. H. G. Belt, proposed the health of 
“Janies Sneridan Knowles.” 

Sir Walter Scott. —Gentlemen, I crave 
i bumper all over. The last toast reminds 
me of a neglect of duty. Unaccustomed to 
a public dutv of this kind, errors in con¬ 


ducting the ceremonial of it may be excused, 
and omissions pardoned. Perhaps I have 
made one or two omissions in the course of 
the evening, for which I trust you wall grant 
me your pardon and indulgence. One 
thing in paiticular I have omitted, and I 
would now wish to make amends for it by 
a libation of reverence and respect to the 
memory of Shakspeare. He was a man ot 
universal genius, and from a period soon 
after his own era to the present day, he has 
been uni/ersally idolized. When I come 
to his honoured name, I am like the sick 
man who hung up his crutches at the shrine, 
and was obliged to canfess that he did not 
walk better than before. It is indeed diffi. 
cult, gentlemen, to compare him to any 
other individual. The only one to whom 
I can at all compare him, is the wonderful 
Arabian dervise, who dived into the body 
of each, and in that way became familiar 
with the thoughts and secrets of their 
hearts. He was a man of obscure origin, 
and as a player, limited in his acquirements; 
but he was born evidently with a universal 
genius. His eyes glanced at all the varied 
aspects of life, and his fancy portrayed with 
equal talents the king on the throne, and 
the clown who crackled his chestnuts at a 
Christmas fire. Whatever note he took, 
he struck it just and true, and awakened a i 
corresponding chord in our own bosoms. | 
Gentlemen, I propose “ The memory of 
William Shakspeare.” 

Glee- “ Lightly tread his hallowed 
ground.” 

Sir Walter rose after the glee, and 
begged to propose as a toast the health 
of a lady whose living merits were not a 
little honourable to Scotland. This toast 
(said he) is also flattering to the national 
vanity of a Scotchman, as the lady whom I 
intend to propose is a native of this coun 
try. From the public her works have met 
with the most favourable reception. One 
piece of hers, in particular, was often acted 
here of late years, and gave pleasure of no 
mean kind to many brilliant and fashion¬ 
able audiences. In her private character, 
she (he begged leave to say) was as remark¬ 
able as in a public sense she was for he- 
genius. In short, he would, in one word, 
name—“ Joanna Baillie.” 

Towards the close of the evening, Sir 
Walter observed:—There is one who 
ought to be remembered on this occasion. 
He is indeed well entitled to our great 
recollection—one, in short, to whom the 
drama in this city owes much He suc¬ 
ceeded, not without trouble, avd perhap 
at some considerable sacrifice, in organiz- 






























THE TABLE BOOK 


mg a theatre. The younger part of the 
company may not recollect the theatre to 
which 1 allude; but there are some who 
with me may remember, by name, the the¬ 
atre in Carrubber’s-close. There Allan 
Ramsay established his little theatre. His 
own pastoral was not fit for the stage, but 
t has its own admirers in those who love 
the Doric language in which it is written ; 
and it is not without merits of a very pecu¬ 
liar kind. But, laying aside all considera¬ 
tions of his literary merit, Allan was a good, 
jovial, honest fellow, who could crack a 
bottle with the best. “ The memory of 
Allan Ramsay.” 

Mr. P. Robertson. —I feel that I am 
about to tread on ticklish ground. The 
talk is of a new theatre, and a bill may be 
presented for its erection, saving always, 
and provided the expenses be defrayed and 
carried through, provided always it be not 
opposed. Bereford-park, 01 some such 
place, might be selected, provided always 
due notice was given, and so we might 
have a playhouse, as it were, by possibility. 

Sir Walter Scott. —Wherever the new 
theatre is built, I hope it will not be large. 
There are two errors which we commonly 
commit—the one arising from our pride, 
the other from our poverty. If there are 
twelve plans, it is odds but the largest, 
without any regard to comfort, or an eye to 
the probable expense, is adopted. There 
was the college projected on this scale, and 
undertaken in the same manner, and who 
shall see the end of it? It has been build¬ 
ing all my life, and may probably last 
during the lives of my children, and my 
children’s children. Let it not be said 
when we commence a new theatre, as was 
said on the occasion of laying the founda¬ 
tion-stone of a certain building, “ Behold 
the endless work begun.” Play-going folks 
should attend somewhat to convenience. 
The new theatre should, in the first place, 
be such as may be finished in eighteen 
months or two years ; and, in the second 
place, it should be one in which we can 
tiear our old friends with comfort. It is 
better that a theatre should be crowded now 
and then, than to have a large theatre, 
with benches continually empty, to the 
discouragement of the actors, and the dis¬ 
comfort of the spectators. 

Sir Walter immediately afterwards said, 
u Gentlemen, it is now wearing late, and 1 
shall request permission to retire. Like 
Partridge, I may say, ‘ non sum qualis exam: 
At my time of day, I can agree with Lord 
Jglfcby, as to the rheumatism, and say, 
“There ’9 a twinge.’ I hope, therefore, you 


will excuse me for leaving the chair.”— 
(The worthy baronet then retired amidst 
long, loud, and rapturous cheering.) 

These extracts* contain the substance of 
Sir Walter Scott’s speeches on this memo¬ 
rable occasion. Iiis allusions to actors and 
the drama are, of themselves, important; 
but his avowal of himself as the author of 
the “ Waverley Novels,” is a fact of pecu¬ 
liar interest in literary history. Particular 
circumstances, however, had made known 
the “ Great Unknown ” to several persons 
in London some months previously, though 
the fact had not by any means been gene¬ 
rally circulated. 


lot jBeates. 

POWELL, THE FIRE-EATER. 

“ Oh 1 for a muse of fire /” 

One fire burns out another burning 
The jack-puddings who swallow flame at 
“ the only booth ” in every fair, have ex¬ 
tinguished remembrance of Powell the fire- 
eater—a man so famous in his own day, 
that his name still lives. Though no jour¬ 
nal records the time of his death, no line 
eulogizes his memory, no stone marks his 
burial-place, there are two articles written 
duting his lifetime, which, being noticed 
here, may “ help his fame along” a little 
further. Of the first, by a correspondent 
of Sylvanus Urban, the following is a stiffi 
cient abstract. 

Ashbourn, Derbyshire , Jan. 20, 1755 

Last spring, Mr. Powell, the famous fire- 
eater, did us the honour of a visit at this 
town ; and, as he set forth in his printed 
bills, that he had shown away not only be¬ 
fore most of the crowned heads in Europe, 
but even before the Royal Society of Lon¬ 
don, and was dignified with a curious and 
very ample silver medal, which, he said, was 
bestowed on him by that learned body, as 
a testimony of their approbation, for eating 
what nobody else could eat, I was prevailed 
upon, at the importunity of some friends, 
to go and see a sight, that so many great 
kings and philosophers had not thought 
below their notice. And, I confess, though 
neither a superstitious nor an incurious 
man, I was not a little astonished at his 
wonderful performances in the fire-eating 
way. 


• From the report of the “Edinburgh Evening Con- 
rant” of Saturday, 24th Feb. 1827» “ Th* Sta 

of the Tuesday following. 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


Aftei many restless days and nights, and 
the profoundest researches into the nature 
of tnings, I almost despaired of accounting 
for the strange phenomenon of a human 
md perishable creature eating red hot coals, 
aken indiscriminately out of a large fire, 
oroiling steaks upon his tongue, shallowing 
huge draughts of liquid fire as greedily as 
a country squire does roast beef and strong 
beer. Thought I to myself, how can that 
element, which we are told is ultimately to 
devour all things, be devoured itself, as 
familiar diet, by a mortal man ?—Here I 
stuck, and here I might have stuck, if I 
had not met with the following anecdote 
by M. Panthot, doctor of physic and mem¬ 
ber of the college of Lyons :— 

“ The secret of fire-eating was made 
public by a servant to one Richardson, an 
Englishman, who showed it in France about 
the year 1667, and was the first performer 
of the kind that ever appeared in Europe. 
It consists only in rubbing the hands, and 
thoroughly washing the mouth, lips, tongue, 
teeth, and other parts that are to touch the 
fire, with pure spirit of sulphur. This burns 
and cauterizes the epidermis, or upper skin, 
till it becomes as hard as thick leather, and 
every time the experiment is tried it be¬ 
comes still easier than before. But if, after 
it has been very often repeated, the upper 
skin should grow so callous and horny as 
to become troublesome, washing the parts 
affected with very warm water, or hot wine, 
will bring away all the shrivelled or parched 
epidermis. The flesh, however, will con¬ 
tinue tender and unfit for such business till 
it has been frequently rubbed over again 
with the same spirit. 

“ This preparative may be rendered 
much stronger and more efficacious, by 
mixing equal quantities of spirit of sulphur, 
sal ammoniac, essence of rosemary, and 
juice of onions. 

“ The bad effects which frequently swal¬ 
lowing red-hot coals, melted sealing wax, 
rosin, brimstone, and other calcined and 
inflammable matter, might have had upon 
his stomach, were prevented by drinking 
plentifully of warm water and oil, as soon 
as he left the company, till he had vomited 
all up again.” 

My author further adds, that any person 
who is possessed of this secret, may safely 
walk over burning coals, or red-hot plough¬ 
shares ; and he fortifies his assertion by the 
example of blacksmiths and forgemen, 
many of whom acquire such a degree of 
callosity, by often handling hot things, 
that they will carry a glowing bar of iron 
.n their naked hands, without hurt. 


Whether Mr. Powell will take it kindlv 
of me thus to have published his secret, 
cannot tell; but as he now begins to d*cp 
into years, has no children that I know cf. 
and may die suddenly, or without making 
a will, I think it is a great pity so genteel 
an occupation should become one of the 
artes perditce, as possibly it may, if proper 
care is not taken ; and therefore hope, after 
this information, some true-hearted English¬ 
man will take it up again for the honour of 
his country, when he reads in the news¬ 
papers, Yesterday died , much lamented , the 
famous Mr. Powell. He was the best, if 
not the only fire-eater in this world, and it 
is greatly to be feared his art is dead with 
him. 


Notwithstanding the preceding disclosure 
of Powell’s “ grand secret,” he continued 
to maintain his good name and reputation 
till after Dr. Johnson was pensioned, in the 
year 1762. We are assured of the fact by 
the internal evidence of the following ar¬ 
ticle, preserved by a collector of odd things, 
who obtained it he knew not how :— 

Genius unrfwarded. 

We have been lately honoured with the 
presence of the celebrated Mr. Powell, 
who, I suppose, must formerly have existed 
in a comet; and by one of those unfore¬ 
seen accidents which sometimes happen to 
the most exalted characters, has dropped 
from its tail. 

His common food is brimstone and fire, 
which he licks up as eagerly as a hungry 
peasant would a mess of pottage; he feeds 
on this extraordinary diet before princes 
and peers, to their infinite satisfaction ; and 
such is his passion for this terrible element, 
that if he were to come hungry into your 
kitchen, while a sirloin was roasting, he 
would eat up the fire, and leave the beef. 

It is somewhat surprising, that the friends 
of real merit have not yet promoted him, 
living, as we do, in an age favourable to 
men of genius: Mr. Johnson has been re¬ 
warded with a pension for writing, and 
Mr. Sheridan for speaking well; but Mr. 
Powell, who eats well , has not yet been 
noticed by any administration. Obliged to 
wander from place to place, instead ol 
indulging himself in private with his fa¬ 
vourite dish, he is under the uncomfortable 
necessity of eating in public, and helping 
himself from the kitchen fire of some paltry 
alehouse in the country. 

O tempora 1 O mores 1 * 


• Lounger's Common Place Book 


158 















the table book 



$tarcf> jfatr, at »rottg!>, aZttstinmelanJr. 

I 

II 


~"br tha 'inble Booh 

This fair is held always on ihe second 
Thursday in March : it is a good one for 
cattle; and, in consequence of the great 
fhow, the inhabitants are obliged to shut 
up their windows; for the cattle and the 
drivers are stationed in all parts of the 
town and few except the jobbers venture 
out uring the time of selling. 

rom five to six o’clock the preceding 
! evening, carts, chiefly belonging to York¬ 
shire clothiers, begin to arrive, and con¬ 
tinue coming in until the morning, when, 
; at about eight or nine, the cattle fair be¬ 
gins, and lasts till three in the afternoon. 
Previously to any article being sold, the 
fair is proclaimed in a manner depicted 
olerably w-ell in the preceding sketch. At 
ten. two individuals, named Matthew Horn 


and John Deighton, having furnished them¬ 
selves w itli a fiddle and clarinet,walk through 1 
the different avenues of the town three 1 
times, playing, as they walk, chiefly “ God 
save the King;” at the end of this, some 
verses are repeated, which I have not the 
pleasure of recollecting; but I well remem¬ 
ber, that thereby the venders are autho¬ 
rized ‘to commence selling After it is re¬ 
ported through the different stalls that 
“ they’ve walked the fair,” business usually 
commences in a very brisk manner. 

Mat. Horn has the best cake booth in the 
fair, and takes a considerable deal more 
money than any “spice wife,” fas women 
are called who attend to these dainties.) 
Jack Deighton is a shoemaker, and a tole¬ 
rably good musician. Coals are also 
brought for sale, which, with cattle, mainly 
constitute the morning fair. [ 




















































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


At the dose of the cattle fair, the town is 
swept clean, and lasses walk about with their 
“ sweethearts ,” and the fair puts on another 
appearance. “Cheap John’s here the day,” 
with his knives, combs, bracelets, &c. &c. 
The “ great Tom Mathews,’’ with his gal- 
lanty show, generally contrives to pick up 
a pretty bit of money by his droll ways. 
Then “ Here’s spice Harry, gingerbread, 
Harry—Harry—Harry !” from Richmond, 
with his five-and-twenty lumps of ginger¬ 
bread for sixpence. Harry stands in a 
cart, with his boxes of “ spice ” beside him, 
attracting the general attention of the whole 
fair, (though he is seldomer here than at 
Brough-hill fair.) There are afew shows, viz. 
Scott’s sleight of hand, horse performances, 
See. &c ; and, considering the size of the 
town, it has really a very merry-spent fair. 
At six o’clock dancing begins in nearly all 
the public-houses, and lasts the whole of 
“ a merry neet.” 

Jack Deighton mostly plays at the 
greatest dance, namely, at the Swan inn ; 
and his companion, Horn, at one of the 
others; the dances are merely jigs, three 
reels, and four reels, and country dances, 
and no more than three sets can dance at a 
time. It is a matter of course to give the 
fi Idler a penny or two-pence each dance; 
sometimes however another set slips in 
after the tune’s begun, and thus trick the 
player. By this time nearly all the stalls 
are cleared away, and the “ merry neet ” is 
the only place to resort to for amusement. 
The fiddle and clarinet are to be heard 
every where; and it is astonishing what 
money is taken by the fiddlers. Some of 
the “ spice wives,” too, stop till the next 
morning, and go round with their cakes at 
intervals, which they often sell more of than 
before. 

At this festival at Brough, the husband¬ 
men have holiday, and many get so tipsy 
that they are frequently turned off from 
their masters. Several of the “ spice 
wives ” move away in the afternoon to 
Kirby Stephen, where there is a very large 
fair, better sui'ed to their trade, for it com¬ 
mences on the day ensuing. Unfortunately, 

I was never present at the proclamation. 
From what I saw, l presume it is in con¬ 
sequence of a charter, and that these people 
offer their services that the fair keepers may 
commence selling their articles sooner. I 
never heard of their being paid for their 
trouble. They are constantly attended by 
a crowd of people, who get on the carts 
and booths, and, at the end, set up a loud 
“ huzza l” 

W H. H. 


THE TWELVE GEMS 
Of the Twelve Months. 

For the Table Booh. 

It is a Polish superstition, that each 
month has a particular gem attached to it, 
which governs it, and is supposed to influ¬ 
ence the destiny of persons born in that 
month; it is therefore customary among 
friends, and lovers particularly, to present 
each other, on their natal day, with some 
trinket containing their tutelary gem, ac¬ 
companied with its appropriate wish; this 
kind fate, or perhaps kinder fancy, gene¬ 
rally contrives to realize according to their 
expectations. 

January. 

Jacinth , or Garnet denotes constancy and 
fidelity in every engagement. 

February. 

Amethyst preserves mortals from strong 
passions, and ensures peace of mind. 

March. 

Bloodstone denotes courage and secrecy 
in dangerous enterprises. 

April. 

Sapphire , or Diamond denotes repentance 
and innocence. 

May. 

Emerald , successive love. 

June. 

Agate ensures long life and health. 

July. 

Ruby, or Cornelian ensures the forgetful¬ 
ness or cure of evils springing from friend¬ 
ship or love. 

August. 

Sardonic ensures conjugal felicity. 

September. 

Chrysolite preserves from, or cures folly. 

October. 

Aquamarine, or Opal denotes misfortune 
and hope. 

November. 

Topaz ensures fidelity and friendship*. 

December. 

Turquoise , or Malakite denotes the most 
brilliant success and happiness in every 
circumstance of life. 

£. M. S. 


1 GO 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


(Sarricfe pap$. 

No. VIII. 

[From tlie “Game at Chess,” a Comedy, 
by Thomas Middleton, 1624.] 

Popish Priest to a great Court Lady , 
lohom he hopes to make a Convert of. 

Let me contemplate; 

With holy wonder season my access, 

And by degrees approach the sanctuary 
Of unmatch’d beauty, set in grace and goodness. 
Amongst the daughters of men I have not found 
4 more Catholical aspect. That eye 
Doth promise single life, and meek obedience. 

Upon those lips (the sweet fresh buds of youth) 

The holy dew of prayer lies, like pearl 
Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn 
Upon the bashful rose. How beauteously 
A gentle fast (not rigorously imposed) 

Would look upon that cheek ; and how delightful 
The courteous physic of a tender penance, 

(Whose utmost cruelty should not exceed 
The first fear of a bride), to beat down frailty 1 


[From the “ Virgin Widow,” a Comedy, 
1649 ; the only production, in that kind, 
of Francis Quarles, Author of the Em¬ 
blems.] 

Song. 

How blest are they that waste their weary hours 
In solemn groves and solitary bowers, 

Where neither eye nor ear 

Can see or hear 

The frantic mirth 

And false delights of frolic earth; 

Where they may sit, and pant, 

And breathe their pursy souls ; 

Where neither grief consumes, nor griping want 
Afflicts, nor sullen care controuls. 

Away, false joys ; ye murther where ye kiss : 

There is no heaven to that, no life to this. 

[From “ Adrasta,” a Tragi-comedy, by 
John Jones, 1635.] 

Dirge. 

Die, die, ah die ! 

We all must die : 

'Tis Fate’s decree; 

Then ask not why. 

When we were framed, the Fates consnltedly 
Did make this law, that all things born should die. 

Yet Nature strove, 

And did deny 
We should be slaves 
To Destiny. 

At which, they heapt 
■ilach miserv 


That Nature’s self 
Did wish to die : 

And thank their goodness, that they would fores-:# 
To end our cares with such a mild decree. 

Another 

Come, Lovers, bring your cares. 

Bring sigh-perfumed sweets ; 

Bedew the grave with tears. 

Where Death with Virtue meets 
Sigh for the hapless hour. 

That knit two hearts in one; 

And only gave Love power 
To die, when ’twas begun. 


[From “Tancred and Gismund,” acted be 
fore the Court by the Gentlemen of the 
Inner Temple, 1561.] 

A Messenger brings to Gismund a enn 
from the King her Father , enclosing the 
heart of her Lord , whom she had espoused 
without his sanction. 

Mess. Thy father, 0 Queen, here in this cup hatl 
sent 

The thing to joy and comfort thee withal. 

Which thou lovedst best: ev’n as thou wast content 
To comfort him with his best joy of all. 

(iis. I thank my father, and thee, gentle Squire , 

For this thy travail; take thou for thy pains 
This bracelet, and commend me to the King. 

* * * * 

So, now is come the long-expected hour, 

The fatal hour I have so looked for. 

Now hath my father satisfied his thirst 
With guiltless blood, which he so coveted. 

What brings this cup? aye me, I thought no less , 

It is my Earl’s, my County’s pierced heart 
Dear heart, too dearly hast thou bought my love 
Extremely rated at too high a price. 

Ah my dear heart, sweet wast thou in thy life. 

But in thy death thou provest passing sweet. 

A fitter hearse than this of beaten gold 
Could not be lotted to so good a heart. 

My father therefore well provided thus 
To close and wrap thee up in massy gold 
And therewithal to send thee unto me. 

To whom of duty thou dost best belong. 

My father hath in all his life bewrayed 
A princely care and tender love to me 
But this surpasseth, in his latter days 
To send me this mine own dear heart to me. 

Wert not thou mine, dear heart, whilst that iny love 
Danced and play’d upon thy golden strings ? 

Art thou not mine, dear heart, now that my love 
Is fled to heaven, and got him golden wings ? 

Thou art mine own, and still mine own shall be 
Therefore my father sendeth thee to me. 

Ah pleasant harbourer of my heart’s thought I 
Ah sweet delight, the quickener of my soul! 

Seven times accursed be the hand that wrought 


161 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Thee this despite, to mangle thee so foul 
Yet in this wound I see my own true love, 

And in this wound thy magnanimity. 

And in this wound I see thy constancy. 

Go, gentle heart, go rest thee in thy tomb; 

Receive this token as thy last farewell. 

She kisscth it. 

Thy own true heart anon will follow thee. 

Which panting hasteth for thy company. 

Thus hast thou run, poor heart, thy mortal race. 

And rid thy life from fickle fortune’s snares. 

Thus hast thou lost this world and worldly cares , 

And of thy foe, to honour thee withal. 

Receiv'd a golden grave to thy desert. 

Nothing doth want, to thy just funeral, 

But my salt tears to wash thy bloody wound ; 

Which to the end thou mightst receive, behold, 

My father sends thee in this cup of gold: 

And thou shalt have them ; though I was resolved 
To shed no tears; but with a cheerful face 
Once did I think to wet thy funeral 
Only with blood, and with no weeping eye. 

This done, my soul forthivith shall fly to thee; 

For therefore did my father send thee me. 

; ! Nearly a century after the date of this 
Drama, Dryden produced his admirable 
j version of the same story from Boccacio. 

The speech here extracted may be compared 
\ with the corresponding passage in the Si- 
gismonda and Guiscardo, with no disad¬ 
vantage to the elder performance. It is 
quite as weighty, as pointed, and as pas¬ 
sionate. 

C. L. 


^trromawp. 

THE DEAN OF BADAJOS. 

By the Abbe Blanchet. 

The dean of the cathedral of Badajos 
was more learned than all the doctors of 
Salamanca, Coimbra, and Alcala, united; 
he understood all languages, living and 
dead, and was perfect master of every 
science divine and human, except that, 
unfortunately, he had no knowledge of 
masric. He was inconsolable when he re- 

o 

dected on his ignorance in that sublime 
art, till he was told that a very able ma¬ 
gician resided in the suburbs of Toledo, 
named don Torribio. He immediately 
saddled his mule, departed for Toledo, and 
aiighted at the door of no very superb 
dwelling, the habitation of that great man. 

“ Most reverend magician,” said he, 
addressing himself to the sage, “ I am 
the dean of Badajos. The learned men of 
Spain afl allow me to be their superior; 


but I am come to request from you a much 
greater honour, that of becoming your 
pupii. Deign to initiate me in the mys¬ 
teries of your art, and doubt not but ) ou 
shall receive a grateful acknowledgment, 
suitable to the benefit conferred, and youi 
own extraordinary merit.” 

Don Torribio was not very polite, though 
he valued himself on being intimately ac¬ 
quainted with the highest company below, 
lie told the dean he was welcome to seek i 
elsewhere for a master; for that, for his j 
part, he was weary of an occupation which 
produced nothing but compliments and 
promises, and that he should but dishonour 
the occult sciences by prostituting them to 
the ungrateful. 

“ To the ungrateful!” exclaimed the dean : 

“ has then the great don Torribio met 
with persons who have proved ungrateful? 
And can he so far mistake me as to rank 
me with such monsters ?” He then repeated 
all the maxims and apophthegms which he 
had read on the subject of gratitude, and 
every refined sentiment his memory could 
furnish. In short, he talked so well, that 
the conjuror, after having considered a 
moment, confessed he could refuse nothing 
to a man of such abilities, and so ready at 
pertinent quotations. 

“ Jacintha,” said don Torribio to his old 
woman, “ lay down two partridges to the 
fire. I hope my friend the dean will do 
me the honour to sup with me to night.’' 
At the same time he took him by the hand 
and led him into the cabinet; when here, he 
touched his forehead, uttering three mys¬ 
terious words, which the reader will please 
to remember, “ Oriobolan, Pistafrier , 
Oncigriuuf.” Then, without further pre¬ 
paration, he began to explain, with all 
possible perspicuity, the introductory ele¬ 
ments of his profound science. The new 
disciple listened with an attention which 
scarcely permitted him to breathe; when, 
on a sudden, Jacintha entered, followed by 
a little old man in monstrous boots, and 
covered with mud up to the neck, who 
desired to speak with the dean on very 
important business. This was the postilion 
of his uncle, the bishop of Badajos, who 
had been sent express after him, and w'ho 
had galloped without ceasing quite to 
Toledo, before he could overtake him. He 
came to bring him information that, some 
hours after his departure, his grace had 
been attacked by so violent an apoplexy 
that the most terrible consequences were 
to be apprehended. The d^an heartily, 
that is inwardly , (so as to occasion no 
scandal,) execrated the disorder, the patient, 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


and ihe courier, wno had certainly all three 
chosen the most impertinent time possible, 
lie dismissed the postilion, bidding him 
make haste back to Badajos, whither he 
would presently follow him; and instantly 
Teturned to his lesson, as if there were 
fio such things as either uncles or apo¬ 
plexies. 

A few days afterwards the dean again 
received news from Badajos : but this was 
jWorlh hearing. The principal chanter, and 
jtwo old canons, came to inform him that his 
jUncle, the right reverend bishop, had 
Reen taken to heaven to receive the reward 
( of his piety; and the chapter, canonically 
assembled, had chosen him to fill the vacant 
bishopric, and humbly requested he would 
jconsole, by his presence, the afflicted church 
of Badajos, now become his spiritual bride. 

Don Torribio, who was present at this 
harangue, endeavoured to derive advantage 
from what he had learned; and taking 
aside the new bishop, after Having paid 
him a well-turned compliment on his pro¬ 
motion, proceeded to inform him that he 
had a son, named Benjamin, possessed of 
much ingenuity, and good inclination, but 
in whom he had never perceived either 
taste or talent for the occult sciences. He 
had, therefore, he said, advised him to turn 
his thoughts towards the church, and he 
had now, he thanked heaven, the satisfac¬ 
tion to hear him commended as one of the 
most deserving divines among all the 
clergy of Toledo. He therefore took the 
liberty, most humbly, to request his grace 
to bestow on don Benjamin the deanery of 
Badajos, which he could not retain together 
with his bishopric. 

“ I am very unfortunate,” replied the 
prelate, apparently somewhat embarrassed ; 
“ you will, I hope, do me the justice to 
believe that nothing could give me so great 
a pleasure as to oblige you in every request; 
but the truth is, I have a cousin to whom I 
am heir, an old ecclesiastic, who is good 
for nothing but to be a dean, and if 1 do 
not bestow on him this benefice, I must 
embroil myself with my family, which would 
be far from agreeable. But,” continued 
lie, in an affectionate manner, “ will you 
Hot accompany me to Badajos ? Can you be 
so cruel as to forsake me at a moment when 
it is in my power to be of service to you ? 
Be persuaded, my honoured master, we 
will go together. Think of nothing but the 
improvement of your pupil, and leave me 
to provide for don Benjamin; nor doubt, 
out sooner or later, I will do more for him 
than you expect. A paltry deanery in the 
remotest part of Estremadura is not a 


benefice suitable to the son of such a mar 
as yourself.” 

The canon law 7 would, no doubt, have 
construed the prelate’s offer into simony. 
The pioposal however was accepted, nor 
was any scruple made by either of these 
two very intelligent persons. Don Torribio 
followed his illustrious pupil to Badajos, 
where he had an elegant apartment as- 
signed him in the episcopal palace; and 
was treated with the utmost respect by the 
diocese as the favourite of his grace, and a 
kind of grand vicar. Under the tuition of 
so able a master the bishop of Badajos 
made a rapid progress in the occult sciences. 
At first he gave himself up to them, with 
an ardour which might appear excessive; 
but this intemperance grew by degrees 
more moderate, and he pursued them with 
so much prudence that his magical studies 
never interfered with the duties of his 
diocese. He was well convinced of the 
truth of a maxim, very important to be 
remembered by ecclesiastics, whether ad¬ 
dicted to sorcery, or only philosophers and 
admirers of literature—that it is not suffi¬ 
cient to assist at learned nocturnal meetings, 
or adorn the mind with embellishments oi 
human science, but that it is also the duty 
of divines to point out to others the way 
to heaven, and plant in the minds of their 
hearers, wholesome doctrine and Christian 
morality. Regulating his conduct by these 
commendable principles, this learned pre¬ 
late was celebrated throughout Christendom 
for his merit and piety : and, “ when he 
least expected such an honour,” was pro¬ 
moted to the archbishopric of Composlella. 
The people and clergy of Badajos lamented, 
as may be supposed, an event by which 
they were deprived of so worthy a pastor; 
and the canons of the cathedral, to testify 
their respect, unanimously conferred on 
him the honour of nominating his suc¬ 
cessor. 

Don Torribio did not neglect so alluring 
an opportunity to provide for his son. He 
requested the bishopric of the new arch¬ 
bishop, and was refused with all imaginable 
politeness. He had, he said, the greatest 
veneration for his old master, and was both 
sorry and ashamed it was “ not in his 
power” to grant a thing which appeared so 
very a trifle, but, in fact, don Ferdinand de 
Lara, constable of Castile, had asked the 
bishopric for his natural son; and though 
he had never seen that nobleman, he had, 
he said, some secret, important, and what 
was more, very ancient obligations to him. 
It was therefore an indispensable duty to 
prefer an old benefactor to a new one 


163 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


But don Torribio ought not <o be discou¬ 
raged at this proof of his justice; as he 
: might learn by that, what he had to expect 
when his turn arrived, which should cer¬ 
tainly be the first opportunity. This anec¬ 
dote concerning the ancient obligations of 
the archbishop, the magician had the good¬ 
ness to believe, and rejoiced, as much as 
he was able, that his interests were sacri¬ 
ficed to those of don Ferdinand. 

Notlfmg was now thought of but pre¬ 
parations for their departure to Compostella, 

! where they were to reside. These, how¬ 
ever, were scarcely worth the trouble, 
considering the short time they were des¬ 
tined to remain there; for at the end of a 
few months one of the pope’s chamberlains 
arrived, who brought the archbishop a 
cardinal’s cap, with an epistle conceived in 
the most respectful terms, in which his 
holiness invited him to assist, by his 
counsel, in the government of the Christian 
world ; permitting him at the same time 
to dispose of his mitre in favour of whom 
he pleased. Don Torribio was not at 
Compostella when the courier of the holy 
father arrived. He had been to see his 
| son, who still continued a priest in a small 
parish at Toledo. But he presently re¬ 
turned, and was not put to the trouble of 
asking for the vacant archbishopric. The 
: prelate ran to meet him with open arms, 
|“ My dear master,” said he, “ I have two 
’pieces of good news to relate at once. 
jYour disciple is created a cardinal, and 
your son shall— shortly —be advanced to 
the same dignity. I had intended in the 
imean time to bestow upon him the arch- 
] oishopric of Compostella, but, unfortunately 
- for him, and for me, my mother, whom we 
left at Badajos, has, during your absence, 
written me a cruel letter, by which all my 
measures have been disconcerted. She will 
not be pacified unless I appoint for my 
successor the archdeacon of my former 
church, don Pablas de Salazar, her in¬ 
timate friend and confessor. She tells me 
it will “ occasion her death” if she should 
not be able to obtain preferment for her 
dear father in Cod. Shall 1 be the death 
of my mother ?” 

Don Torribio was not a person who 
could incite or urge his friend to be guilty 
of parricide, nor did he indulge himself in 
the least resentment against the mother of 
the prelate. To say the truth, however, 
this mother was a good kind of woman, 
nearly superannuated. She lived quietly 
with her cat ar.d her maid servant, and 
scarcely knew the name of her confessor. 
Was it likely, then, that she had procured 


don Pablas his archbishopric ? Was it not 
more than probable that he was indebted 
for it to a Gallician lady, his cousin, at 
once devout and handsome, in whose 
company his grace the archbishop had 
frequently been edified during his residence 
at Compostella? Be this as it may, cion 
Torribio followed his eminence to Rome. 
Scarcely had he arrived at that city ere the 
pope died. The conclave met—all the 
voices of the sacred college were in favour 
of the Spanish cardinal. Behold him there¬ 
fore pope. 

Immediately after the ceremony of his 
exaltation, don Torribio, admitted to a 
secret audience, wept with joy while he 
kissed the feet of his dear pupil. He 
modestly represented his long and faithful 
services, reminded his holiness of those 
inviolable promises which he had renewed 
before he entered the conclave, and instead 
of demanding the vacant hat for don Ben¬ 
jamin, finished with most exemplary mo¬ 
deration by renouncing every ambitious 
hope. He and his son, he said, would 
both esteem themselves too happy if his 
holiness would bestow on them, together 
with his benediction, the smallest temporal 
benefice ; such as an annuity for life, suf¬ 
ficient for the few wants of an ecclesiastic 
and a philosopher. 

During this harangue the sovereign 
pontiff considered within himself how to 
dispose of his preceptor. He reflected he 
was no longer necessary; that he already 
knew as much of magic as was sufficient 
for a pope. After weighing every circum¬ 
stance, his holiness concluded that don 
Torribio was not only an useless, but a 
troublesome pedant; and this point deter¬ 
mined, he replied in the following words: { 

“ We have learned, with concern, that 
under the pretext of cultivating the occult 
sciences, you maintain a horrible intercourse 
with the spirit of darkness and deceit; we 
therefore exhort you, as a father, to expiate 
your crime by a repentance proportionable 
to its enormity. Moreover, we enjoin you 
to depart from the territories of the church 
within three days, under penalty of being 
delivered over to the secular arm, and its 
merciless flames.” 

Don Torribio, without being alarmed, 
immediately repeated the three mysterious 
words which the reader was desired to 
remember; and going to a window, cried 
out with all his force, “ Jacintha, you need 
spit but one partridge; for my friend, the 
dean, will not sup here to-night.” 

This was a thunderbolt to the imaginary 
pope. He immediately recovered fiom thi 









THE TABLE BOOK 


trance, into which he had been thrown by 
the three mysterious words. He perceived 
that, instead of being in the Vatican, he 
was still at Toledo, in the closet of don 
Torribio; and he saw, by the clock, it was 
not a complete hour since he entered that 
fatal cabinet, where he had been entertained 
by such pleasant dreams. 

In that short time the dean of Badajos 
had imagined himself a magician, a bishop, 
a cardinal, and a pope; and he found at 
last that he was only a dupe and a knave. 
All was illusion, except the proofs he had 
given of his deceitful and evil heart. He 
instantly departed, without speaking a 
single word, and finding his mule where he 
had left her, returned to Badajos. 


For the Table Book. 

“ You look but on the outside of affairs.” 

Kino John. 

Jh ! why do we wake from the alchymist’s dream 
To relapse to the visions of Doctor Spurzheim ? 

And why from the heights of philosophy fall, 

For the profitless plans of Phrenology Gall ? 

To what do they tend ? 

What interest befriend ? 

By disclosing all vices, we burn away shame. 

And virtuous endeavour 
Is fruitless for ever. 

If it lose the reward that self-teaching may claim. 

On their skulls let the cold blooded theorists seek 
Indications of soul, which we read on the cheek ; 

In the glance—in the smile—in the bend of the brow 
We dare not tell when, and we cannot tell how. 

More pleasing our task, 

No precepts we ask ; 

’Tis the tact, ’tis the instinct, kind Nature has lent, 
For the guide and direction of sympathy meant. 

And altho’ in our cause no leam’d lecturer proses. 

We reach the same end, thro’ a path strew’d with roses. 
'Twixt the head and the hand, be the contact allow’d. 
Of the road thro’ the eye to the heart we are proud. 
When we feel like the brutes, like the brutes we may 
show it. 

But no lumps on the head mark the artist or poet. 

The gradations of genius you never can find, 

Since no matter can mark the refinements of mind. 

Tis the coarser perceptions alone that you trace, 

But what swells in the heart must be read in the face. 
That index of feeling, that key to the soul. 

No art can disguise, no reserve can control. 

’Tis the Pha-os of love, tost on oceans of doubt, 

'Tis the Beal-fare of rage—when good sense puts about. 
A3 the passions may paint it—a heaven or a hell. 

And ’tis always a study —not model as well. 


TO TIIE RHONE 
For the Table Book 

Thou art like our existence, and thy waves, 
Illustrious river ! seem the very type 
Of those events which drive us to our graves, 

Or rudely place us in misfortune’s gripe ! 

Thou art an emblem of our changeful state. 

Smooth when the summer magnifies thy charing, 
But rough and cheerless when the winds create 
Rebellion, and remorseless winter arms 
The elements with ruin I In thy course 

The ups and downs of fortune we may trace— 
One wave submitting to another’s force. 

The boldest always foremost in the rare: 

And thus it is with life—sometimes its calm 
Is pregnant with enjoyment’s sweetest balm; 

At other times, its tempests drive us down 
The steep of desolation, while the frown 
Of malice haunts us, till the friendlier tomb 
Protects the victim she would fain consume I 

B. W. R. 

Upper Park Terrace. 


ADVICE. 

i $ t , _ 

Would a man wish to offend his friends. 
—let him give them advice. 

Would a lover know the surest method 
by which to lose his mistress ?—let him 
give her advice. 

Would a courtier terminate his sove¬ 
reign's partiality ?—let him offer advice. 

In short, are we desirous to be univer- : 
sally hated, avoided, and despised, the 
means are always in our power.—We have 
but. to advise, and the consequences are in¬ 
fallible. 

The friendship of two young ladies 
though apparently founded on the rock o 
eternal attachment, terminated in the fol¬ 
lowing manner ; “ My dearest girl, I do 
not think your figure well suited for danc¬ 
ing ; and, as a sincere friend of yours, I 
advise you to refrain from it in future.” The 
other naturally affected by such a mark of 
sincerity, replied, “ I feel very much obliged 
to you, my deal, for your advice ; this 
proof of your friendship demands some re¬ 
turn : I would sincerely recommend you 
to relinquish your singing, as some of your 
upper notes resemble the melodious squeak¬ 
ing of the feline race.” 

The advice of neither was followed—the 
one continued to sing, and the other to 
dance—and they never met but as ene¬ 
mies. 

























THE TABLE BOOK 



Cornmp of ©urftam. 


Fur the Table Book. 

Tommy Sly, whose portrait is above, is 
d well-known eccentric character in the city 
of Durham, where he has been a resident 
in the poor-house for a number of years. 
We knew not whether his parents were rich 
or poor, where he was born, or how he 
upent his early years—all is alike “ a mys¬ 
tery and all that can be said of him is, 
hat he is “ daft.” Exactly in appearance 
s he is represented in the engraving,— 
he dresses in a coat of many colours, at¬ 
tends the neighbouring villages with spice, 
sometimes parades the streets of Durham 
with “ pipe-clay for the lasses,” and on 
“ gala days” wanders up and down with a 
cockade in his hat, beating the city drum, 
which is good-naturedly lent him by the 
corporation. Tommy, as worthless and 
J insignificant as he seems, is nevertheless 


“ put out to usehis name has often 
served as a signature to satirical effusions; 
and at election times he has been occasion- 
ally employed by the Whigs to take the dis¬ 
tinguished lead of some grand Tory proces¬ 
sion, and thereby render it ridiculous ; and 
by way of retaliation, he has been hired by 
the Tories to do the same kind office for 
the Whigs. He is easily bought or sold, 
for he will do any thing for a few halfpence. 
To sum up Tommy’s character, we may say 
with truth, that he is a harmless and in¬ 
offensive man; and if the reader of this 
brief sketch should ever happen to be in 
Durham, and have a few halfpence to spare, 
he cannot bestow his charity better than by 
giving it to the “ Custos Rotulorum ” of 
the place—as Mr. Humble once ludicrously 
called him—poor Tommy Sly. 

Ex Dunelmensis. 


166 















































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Copograpljj). 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

Burial Fees. 

The following particulars from a paper 
before me, in the hand-writing of Mr. 
Gell, were addressed to his “ personal re¬ 
presentative” for insti'icticn, in his absence, 
during a temporary re-iiement from official 
duty in August, 1810. 

Fees 

In the Cloisters - - - - -£19 6 0 

If a grave-stone more £4 4 0 

In the Abbey ----- - 54 18 0 

If a grave-stone more 7 7 0 

Peers , both in the Cloisters and 
Abbey, the degree of rank 
making a difference, Mr Cat¬ 
ling had perhaps write to 
Mr. Gell, at post-office, 

Brighton, telling the paity 
that it will be under £150. 

They might, therefore, leave 
that sum, or engage to pay 
Mr. Gell. 

Mi. Glanvill can tell about the 
decorations. 

Penalty for burying in linen 2 10 0 

Always take full particulars of 
age and death. 


The abbey-church of Westminster may 
be safely pronounced the most interesting 
ecclesiastical structure in this kingdom. 
Considered as a building, its architecture, 
rich in the varieties of successive ages, and 
marked by some of the most prominent 
beauties and peculiarities of the pointed 
style, affords an extensive field of gratifica¬ 
tion to the artist and the antiquary. Rising 
in solemn magnificence amidst the palaces 
and dignified structures connected with the 
seat of imperial government, it forms a 
distinguishing feature in the metropolis of 
England. Its history, as connected with a 
great monastic establishment, immediately 
under the notice of our ancient monarchs, 
and much favoured by their patronage, 
abounds in important and curious particu¬ 
lars. 

But this edifice has still a stronger 
claim to notice—it has been adopted as a 
national structure, and held forward as an 
object of national pride. Whilst contem¬ 
plating these vpnerable walls, or exploring 


the long aisles and enriched chapels, th* 
interest is not confined to the customary 
recollections of sacerdotal pomp: ceremo¬ 
nies of more impressive interest, and of the 
greatest public importance, claim a priority 
of attention. The grandeur of architectural 
display in this building is viewed with ad¬ 
ditional reverence, when we remember that 
the same magnificence of effect has imparted 
increased solemnity to the coronation of 
our kings, from the era of the Norman 
conquest. 

At a very early period, this abbey-church 
was selected as a place of burial for the 
English monarchs; and the antiquary and 
the student of history view their monu¬ 
ments as melancholy, but most estimable 
sources of intelligence and delight. In the 
vicinity of the ashes of royalty, a grateful 
and judicious nation has placed the remains 
of such of her sons as have been most 
eminent for patriotic worth, for valour, or 
for talent; and sculptors, almost from the 
earliest period in which their art was ex¬ 
ercised by natives of England, down to the 
present time, have here exerted their best 
efforts, in commemoration of those thus 
celebrated for virtue, for energy, or for in¬ 
tellectual power.* 


£>t Babflj’S Bap. 

THE LEEK. 

Written by WTlliam Leathart, Llyivydd 

Sung at the Second Anniversary of the 
Society of Undeb Cymry, St. David’s 
Day, i825. 

Air — Pen Rhaw. 

I. 

If bards tell true, and hist’ry’s page 
Is right.—why, then, I would engage 
To tell you all about the age. 

When Caesar used to speak ; 

When dandy Britons painted,—were 
Dress’d in the skin of wolf or bear, 

Or in their own, if none were there, 

Before they wore the leek. 

Ere Alfred hung in the highway. 

His chains of gold by night or day . 

And never had them stol’n away, 

His subjects were so meek. 

When wolves they danc’d o’er field and fen; 

When austere Druids roasted men;— 

But that was only now and then, 

Ere Welshmen wore the leek. 


* Mr. Brayley; in Neale's Hist. andAntiq. » West 
minster Abbey 


167 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


II. 

Like all good things—this could not last. 
And Saxon gents, as friends, were ask’d. 
Our Pictish foes to drive them past 
The wall:—then home to seek. 
Instead of home, the cunning chaps 
Resolv’d to stop and dish the APs, 

Now here they are, and in their caps 
To day they wear the leek. 

Yet tho’ our dads, they tumbled out. 

And put each other to the rout. 

We sons will push the bowl about;— 
We’re here for fun or freak. 

Let nought but joy within us dwell; 

Let mirth and glee each bosom swell; 
And bards, in days to come, shall tell. 
How Welshmen love the leek. 


TIIE WELSH HARP. 

Mr. Leath art is the author of “ Welsh 
Pennillion , with Translations into English, 
adapted for singing to the Harp, an 
eighteenpenny pocket-book of words of 
ancient and modern melodies in Welsh and 
English, with a spirited motto from Mr. 
Leigh Hunt.—“ The Ancient Britons had 
in them the seeds of a great nation even in 
our modern sense of the word. They had 
courage, they had reflection, they had ima¬ 
gination. Bovver at last made a vassal of 
their prince. There were writers in those 
times, harpers, and bards, who made the 
instinct of that brute faculty turn cruel out 
of fear. They bequeathed to their country¬ 
men the glory of their memories ; they and 
time together have consecrated their native 
hills, so as they never before were conse¬ 
crated.” 

According to the prefatory dissertation 
of Mr. Leathart’s pleasant little manual, 
“ Pennillion singing ” is the most social 
relic of ancient minstrelsy in existence. It 
originated when bard ism flourished in this 
island; when the object of its members 
was to instil moral maxims through the 
medium of poetry, and the harp was then, 
as it still is, the instrument to which they 
chanted. There is evidence of this use of 
the harp in Osar and other Latin writers. 
The bards were priest and poet; the harp 
was their inseparable attribute, and skill in 
playing on it an indispensable qualification. 
A knowledge of this instrument was neces¬ 
sary, in order to establish a claim to the 
title of gentleman; it occupied a place in 
every mansion ; and every harper was en¬ 
titled to valuable privileges. A “ Pen- 
eerdd,” or chief of song, and a “ Bardd 
Teulu,” or domestic bard, were among the 
necessary appendages to the king’s court. 


The former held his lands free, was stationed 
by the side of the “judge of the palace, 
and lodged with the heir presumptive. lie 
was entitled to a fee on the tuition of all 
minstrels, and to a maiden fee on the mar¬ 
riage of a minstrel’s daughter. The fine for 
insulting him was six c@ws and eighty 
pence. The domestic bard also held his 
land free; he had a harp from the king, 
which he was enjoined never to part with ; 
a gold ring from the queen, and a beast out 
of every spoil. In the palace he sang im¬ 
mediately after the chief of song, and in 
fight at the front of the battle. It is still 
customary for our kings to maintain a Welsh 
minstrel. 

One of the greatest encouragers of music 
was Gruffydd ap Cynan, a sovereign of 
Wales, who, in the year 1100, summoned a 
grand congress to revise the laws of min¬ 
strelsy, and remedy any abuse that might 
have crept in. In order that it should be 
complete, the most celebrated harpers in 
Ireland were invited to assist, and the re¬ 
sult was the establishing the twenty-four 
canons of music; the MS. of which is 
in the library of the Welsh school, in 
Gray’s Inn-lane. It comprises several tunes 
not now extant, or rather that cannot be 
properly deciphered, and a few that are 
well known at the present day. A tune is 
likewise there to be found, which a note 
informs us was usually played before king 
Arthur, when the salt was laid upon the 
table; it is called* “ Gosteg yr Ilalen,” or 
the Prelude of the Salt. 

The regulations laid down in the above 
MS. are curious. A minstrel having en¬ 
tered a place of festivity was not allowed 
to depart without leave, or to rove about at 
any time, under the penalty of losing his 
fees. If he became intoxicated and com¬ 
mitted any mischievous trick, he was fined, 
imprisoned, and divested of his fees for 
seven years. Only one could attend a 
person worth ten pounds per annum, or 
two a person worth twenty pounds per an¬ 
num, and so forth. It likewise ordains the 
quantum of musical knowledge necessary 
for the taking up of the different degrees, 
for the obtaining of which three years seems 
to have been allowed. 

The Welsh harp, or “ Telyn,” consists of 
three distinct rows of strings, without 
pedals, and was, till the fifteenth century, 
striing with hair. The modern Welsh harp 
has two rows of strings and pedals. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Itinerary, 
speaking of the musical instruments of the 
Welsh, Irish, and Scotch, says, Wales uses 
the harp, “ erwth,” and bag-pipes; Scot- 


1(58 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


land the harp, “ crwth,” and drum ; Ireland 
the harp and drum only ; and, of all, Wales 
only retains her own. 

The “ crwth” is upon the same principle 
as the violin ; it has however six strings, 
four of which are played upon with a bow, 
the two outer being struck by the thumb as 
an accompaniment, or bass; its tone is a 
mellow tenor, but it is now seldom hoard, 
the last celebrated player having died about 
forty years since, and with him, says the 
editor of the Cambrian Register, “ most 
probably the true knowledge of producing 
its melodious powers.” From the player of 
this instrument is derived a name now 
common, viz. “ Crowther” and “Crowder” 
(Crwthyr); it may be translated “fiddler,” 
and in this sense it is used by Butler in his 
Hudibras. 

Within the last few years, the harp has 
undergone a variety of improvements, and 
it is now the most fashionable instrument; 
yet in Wales it retains its ancient form and 
triple strings; “ it has its imperfections,” 
observes Mr. Parry, “ yet it possesses one 
advantage, and that is its unisons,” which 
of course are lost when reduced to a single 
row. 

There would be much persuasion neces¬ 
sary to induce “ Cymru ” to relinquish her 
old fashioned “ Telyn,” so reluctant are a 
national people to admit of changes. W hen 
the violin superseded the “ crwth,” they 
could not enjoy the improvement. 

Pennillion chanting consists in singing 
stanzas, either attached or detached, of 
various lengths and metre, to any tune 
which the harper may play ; for it is irre¬ 
gular, and in fact not allowable, for any 
particular one to be chosen. Two, three, 
or four bars having been played, the singer 
takes it up, and this is done according as 
the Pennill, or stanza, may suit; he must 
end precisely with the strain, he therefore 
commences in any part he may please, do 
the stranger it has the appearance of begin¬ 
ning in the middle of a line or verse, but 
this is not the case. Different tunes require 
a different .number of verses to complete it; 
sometimes only one, sometimes four or six. 
It is then taken up by the next, and thus 
it proceeds through as many as choose to 
join in the pastime, twice round, and ending 
with the person that began. 

These convivial harp meetings are gene¬ 
rally conducted with great regularity, and 
are really social ; all sing if they please, or 
all are silent. To some tunes there are a 
great number of singers, according to the 
ingenuity required in adapting Pennillion 
Yet even this custom is on the decline. 


In South Wales, the custom lias been 
long lost; on its demise they encouraged 
song writing and singing, and they are still 
accounted the best (without the harp) in 
the principality. In Noith W T ales song¬ 
singing was hardly known before the time 
of IIuw Morus, in the reign of Charles 1 , 
nor is it now so prevalent as in the south. 

In the year 1176, lihys ap Gruffydd 
held a congress of bards and minstrels at 
Aberteifi, in which the Noith Welsh bards 
came off as victors in the poetical contest, 
and the South Welsh were adjudged to 
excel in the powers of harmony. 

For the encouragement of the harp and 
Pennillion chanting, a number of institu¬ 
tions have lately been formed, and the 
liberal spirit with which they are conducted 
will do much towards the object ; among 
the principal are the “ Cymmrodorion,” or 
Cambrian Societies of Gwynedd, Powys, 
Dyfed, Gwent, and London; the “Gwyned- 
digion,” and “ Canorion, 0 also in London. 
The former established so long since as 
1771, and the “Undeb Cymry,”oi United 
Welshmen, established in 1823, for the 
same purpose. In all the principal towns 
of Wales, societies having the same object 
in view have been formed, among which 
the “ Brecon Minstrelsy Society ” is par¬ 
ticularly deserving of notice. The harp 
and Pennillion singing have at all times 
come in for their share of encomium by the 
poets, and are still the theme of many a 
sonnet in both languages. 

From more than a hundred pieces in Mr. 
Leathart’s “ Pennillion,” translations of a 
few pennills, or stanzas, are taken at ran¬ 
dom, as specimens of the prevailing senti¬ 
ments. 

The man who loves the sound of harp, 

Of song 1 , and ode, and all that’s dear, 

Where angels hold their blest abode. 

Will cherish all that’s cherish'd there. 

But he who loves not tune nor strain, 

Nature to him no love has given. 

You’ll see him while his days remain, 

Hateful both to earth and heaven. 


Fair is yon harp, and sweet the song. 
That strays its tuneful strings along, 
And would not such a minstrel too, 
This heart to sweetest music woo ? 
Sweet is the bird’s melodious lay 
in summer morn upon the spray. 

But from my Gweno sweeter far. 

The notes of friendship after war. 

Woe to him, whose every bliss 
Centers in the burthen’d bowl; 

Of all burthens none like this, 

Sin’s sad burthen on the soul* 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ti» of craft and lies the seeker. 

Murder, theft, and wantonness. 

Weakens strong men, makes weak weaker, 
Shrewd men foolish, foolish—less. 


Ah ! what avails this golden coat. 
Or all the warblings of my throat, 
While I in durance pine ? 

Give me again what nature gave, 
'Tis all I ask, ’tis all I rave, 
Thee, Liberty divine ! 


To love his language in its pride. 

To love his land—tho’ all deride, 

Is a Welshman’s ev’ry care, 

And love those customs, good and old, 
Practised by our fathers bold. 


We travel, and each town we pass 
Gives manners new, which we admire, 

We leave them, then o’er ocean toss’d 

Thro’ rough or smooth, to pleasure nigher, 
Still one thought remains behind, 

’Tis home, sweet heme, our hearts desire. 


Wild in the woodlands, blithe and free, 
Dear to the bird is liberty; 

Dear to the babe to be caress’d, 

And fondled on his nurse’s breast, 

Oh 1 could I but explain to thee 
How dear is Merion’s land to me. 


Low, ye hills, in ocean lie, 

That hide fair Merion from mine eye. 
One distant view, oh 1 let me take. 
Ere my longing heart shall break. 


Another dress will nature wear 
Before again I see my fair; 

The smiling fields will flowers bring, 

And on the trees the birds will sing; 

Bat still one thing unchang’d shall be. 

That is, dear love, my heart for thee. 

The original Welsh of these and other 
translations, with several interesting parti¬ 
culars, especially the places of weekly harp- 
meetings and Pennillion-singing in London, 
may be found in Mr. Leathart’s agreeable 
compendium. 

THE WINTER’S MORN. 

Artist unseen ! that dipt in frozen dew 

Hast on the glittering glass thy pencil laid, 

Ere from yon sun the transient visions fade. 
Swift let me trace the forms thy fancy drew ! 

Thy towers and palaces of diamond hue. 

Rivers and lakes of lucid crystal made, 

And hung in air hoar trees of branching shad**. 
That liquid pearl distil;—thy scenes ienew. 


Whate’er old oards, or later fictions feigr* 

Of secret grottos underneath the wave. 

Where nereids roof with spar the amber cave , 
Or bowers of bliss, where sport the fairy train, 
•Who frequent by the moonlight wanderer seen 
Circle with radiant gems the dewy green. 

SoTHEBY. 


Character^. 

MRS. AURELIA SPARR. 

For the Table Book , 

Mrs. Aurelia Sparr is a maiden lady, 
rather past fifty, but fresh and handsome 
for her age: she has a strong understand¬ 
ing, a retentive memory, a vast deal of 
acquired knowledge, and with all she is the 
most disagreeable woman breathing. At 
first she is amusing enough to spend an 
evening with, for she will tell you anecdotes 
of all your acquaintance, and season them 
with a degree of pleasantry, which is not 
wit, though something like it. But as a 
jest-book is the most tiresome reading in 
the world, so is a narrative companion the 
most wearisome society. What, in short, 
is conversation worth, if it be not an ema¬ 
nation from the heart as well as head ; the 
result of sympathy and the aliment of 
esteem ? 

Mrs. Aurelia Sparr never sympathized 
with any body in her life: inexorable to 
weaknesses of every kind, more especially 
to those of a tender nature, she is for 
ever taxing enthusiasm with absurdity, 
and resolving the ebullition of vivacity into 
vanity, and the desire to show off. She is 
equally severe to timidity, which she for 
ever confounds with imbecility. We are 
told, that “ Gentle dulness ever loved a 
joke.” Now Mrs. Aurelia Sparr is neither 
gentle nor dull; it would be a mercy to her 
hearers if she were either, or both: never¬ 
theless, she chuckles with abundant glee 
over a good story, is by no means particulai 
as to the admission of unpleasant images 
and likes it none the worse for being a 
little gross. But woe to the unlucky wight 
who ventures any glowing allusion to love 
and passionate affection in her hearing! 
Down come the fulminations of her wrath, 
and indecency—immorality—sensuality— 
&c. &c. &c.—are among the mildest of the 
epithets, or, to keep up the metaphor, (a 
metaphor, like an actor, should always 
come in more than once,) the bolts which 
the tempest of her displeasure hurls down 
upon its victim. The story of Paul and 


170 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Virginia she looks upon *s very improper, 
while the remembrance of some of the 
letters in Humphrey Clinker dimples her 
broad face with retrospective enjoyment. 

If pronouns had been tangible things, 
Mrs. Aurelia Sparr would long ago have 
worn out the first person singular. Her 
sentences begin as regularly with “ I,” as 
the town-crier’s address does with “ O yes,” 
or as a French letter ends with “ l’assurance 
des sentimens distingues.” While living 
with another lady in daily and inevitable 
intercourse, never was she known to say, 
“ W'e shall see—we shall hear—we can go 
—we must read.” It was always “ I, I, I.” 
In the illusion of her egotism, she once 
went so far as to make a verbal monopoly 
of the weather, and exclaimed, on seeing 
the rosy streaks in the evening sky, “ I 
think I shall have a fine day to-morrow.” 
If you forget yourself so far, in the queru- 
j 'ous loquacity of sickness, as to tell her of 
| any ailment, as “ My sore-throat is worse 
than ever to-night ”—she does not rejoin, 
“ What will you take?” or “ Colds are 
always worse of an evening, it may be 
oetter to-morrowor propose flannel or 
gargle, or any other mode of alleviation, 
like an ordinary person ; no! she flies back 
from you to herself with the velocity of a 
coiled-up spring suddenly let go ; and says, 
“ I had just such another sore-throat at 
Leicester ten years ago, I remember it was 
when I had taken down my chintz bed- 
curtains to have them washed and glazed.” 
Then comes a mammoth of an episode, 
huge, shapeless, and bare of all useful mat¬ 
ter: telling all she said to the laundress, 
with the responses of the latter. You are 
not spared an item of the complete process, 
first, you are blinded with dust, then soaked 
in lye, then comes the wringing of your 
imagination and the calico, then the bitter¬ 
ness of the gall to refresh the colours ; then 
you are extended on the mangle, and may 
fancy yourself at the court of king Pro¬ 
crustes, or in a rolling-press. All the while 
you are wondering how she means to get 
round to the matter in question, your sore- 
throat.—Not she ! she cares no more for 
your sore-throat than the reviewers do for a 
book with the title of which they head an 
article; your complaint was the peg, and 
her discourse the voluminous mantle to be 
hung on it. Some people talk with others, 
and they are companions; others at their 
company, and they are declaimers or sati¬ 
rists ; others to their friends, and they are 
conversationists or gossips, according as 
they talk of things or persons. Mrs. Aure¬ 
lia Sparr talks neither to vnu, nor with you, 


norat you. Listen attentively, or show your 
weariness by twenty devices of fidgetiness 
and preoccupation, it is all the same to 
Mrs. Aurelia Sparr. She talks spontane¬ 
ously, from an abstract love of hearing her 
own voice; she can no more help talking, 
than a ball can help rolling down an in¬ 
clined plane. She will quarrel with you 
at dinner, for she is extremely peevish and 
addicted to growling over her meals; and 
by no means so nice as to what comes out 
of her mouth as to what goes into it; and 
then, before you can fold your napkin, push 
back your chair and try to make good youi 
escape, she begins to lay open the errors, 
failures, and weaknesses of her oldest and 
best friends to your cold-blooded inspection, 
with as little reserve as an old practitioner 
lecturing over a “ subject.” Things that no 
degree of intimacy could justify her in im¬ 
parting, she pours forth to a person whom 
she does not even treat as a friend ; but 
talk she must, and she had no other topic 
at hand. Thus, at the end of a siege, guns 
are charged with all sorts of rubbish for lad 
of ammunition. 

Mrs. Aurelia Sparr not only knows all 
the modem languages, but enough oi the 
ancient to set up a parson, and every dialect 
of every county she has ever been in. I. 
you ask her the name of any thing, she wil. 
give you a polyglot answer; you may have 
the satisfaction to know how the citizens ol 
every town and the peasants of every pro¬ 
vince express themselves, on a matter you 
may never have occasion to name again 
But I earnestly recommend you never to 
ask anything; it is better to go without 
hearing one thing you do want to hear 
than to be constrained to hear fifty things 
that are no more to you than I to Hecuba— 
not half so much as Hecuba is to me. Mrs. 
Aurelia Sparr is not easy to deal with; 
she looks upon all politeness as affectation, 
and all affectation as perfidy : she palsies 
all the courtesies of life by a glum air or 
disbelief and dissatisfaction. When one 1 
sees nobody else, one forgets that such 
qualities as urbanity, grace, and benignity 
exist, and is really obliged to say civil 
things to one’s self, to keep one’s hand in. 
Mrs. Aurelia Sparr is more eminent as a 
chronicler than as a logician ; some of her 
conclusions and deductions are not self- 
evident. For instance—she interprets a rea¬ 
sonable conformity to the dress and man¬ 
ners of persons of other countries, while 
sojourning among them, into “ hating one’s 
own country.” Command of temper is 
u an odious, cold disposition.” Address 
and dexterity in female works, what goo4 


171 














THE TAm.E BOOK. 


uidies in England term notability, are 
deemed by her “ frivolous vanity,” &c. &c. 
!kc. She has learnt chemistry, and she 
distils vexation and bitterness from every 
person and every event—geometry, and 
she can never measure her deportment to 
circumstances—algebra, merely to multi¬ 
ply the crosses of all whose fate makes them 
parallel with her—navigation, and she does 
but tack from one absurdity to another, 
without making any way—mathematics, 
and she never calculates how much more 
agreeable a little good-nature would make 
her than all her learning—history, and 
that of her own heart is a blank—per¬ 
spective, without ever learning to place self 
at the “ vanishing point”—and all lan¬ 
guages, without ever uttering in any one of 
^hem a single phrase that could make the 
eyes of the hearer glisten, or call a glow on 
the cheek of sympathy. Every body allows 
that Mrs. Aurelia Sparr is very clever— 
poor, arid praise, what is it worth? 


UMim. 

EWART’S OLD PORT. 

To J. C- y, Esq. 

On receiving from him a Present of 
a Wine-strainer.—1825. 

This life, dear C-y,—who can doubt?— 

Resembles much friend Ewart’s* wine; 

When first the ruby drops flow out. 

How beautiful, how clear they shine! 

And thus awhile they keep their tint, 

So free from ev’n a shade,—that some 

Would smile, did you but dare to hint. 

That darker drops would ever come. 

But soon, alas, the tide runs short;— 

Each minute makes the sad truth plainer j 

Till Life, like Ewart’s crusty Port, 

When near its close, requires a strainer. 

This, Friendship, can, alone, supply,— 

Alone can teach the drops to pass, 

If not with all their rosiest dye, 

At least, unclouded, through the glass. 

Nor, C-y, could a boon be mine, 

Of which this heart were fonder, vainer, 

Than thus, if Life be like old wine, 

To have thy friendship for its strainer! 

E. 

• A vender of capital old Port in Swallow-street. 

For many years the goodness of Mr. 
Fwart’s old Port has been duly appreciated 
bv his Drivate friends. The preceding 


verses, in The Times of Monday, (March 5, 
1827,) have disclosed “the secret,” and 
now, probably, he will “ blush to find i! 
fame.” The knowledge of his “ ruby 
drops” should be communicated to all who 
find it necessary to “ use a little wine for 
their stomach’s sake, and their often infir¬ 
mities.” Can the information be conveyed 
in more agreeable lines ? 


Beautp. 

A NATURAL COMPLIMENT. 

As the late beautiful duchess of Devon¬ 
shire was one day stepping out of her car- 
riage, a dustman, who was accidentally 
standing by, and was about to regale him¬ 
self with his accustomed whiff of tobacco, 
caught a glance of her countenance, and 
instantly exclaimed, “ Love and bless you, 
my lady, let me light my pipe in your 
eyes !” It is said that the duchess was so 
delighted with this compliment, that she 
frequently afterwards checked the strain of 
adulation, which was constantly offered 
to her charms, by saying, “ Oh ! after the 
dustman’s compliment, all others are in¬ 
sipid.” 


PERSIAN SONG OF HAFIZ. 

By Sir William Jones. 

Sweet maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight. 
And bid thpse arms thy neck infold; 

That rosy cheek, that lily hand. 

Would give thy poet more delight 
Than all Bocara’s vaunted gold, 

Than all the gems of Samarcand. 

Boy! let yon liquid ruby flow. 

And bid thy pensive heart be glad, 

Whate’er the frowning zealots say : — 

Tell them their Eden cannot show 
A stream so clear as Rocnabad, 

A bower so sweet as Mosellay. 

0 ! when these fair, perfidious maids. 

Whose eyes our secret haunts infest, 

Their dear desti active charms display 

Each glance my tender breast invades. 

And robs my wounded soul of rest; 

As Tartars seize their destin’d prey. 

In vain with love our bosoms glow • 

Can all our tears, can all our sighs. 

New lustre to those charms impart? 

Can cheeks, where living roses blow. 

Where nature spreads her richest dyes, 
Require the borrow’d gloss of art’ 


172 













TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


Speak not of fate :—ah ! change the theme. 
And talk of odours, talk of wine, 

Talk of the flowers that round us bloom 

'Tis all a cloud, ’tis all a dream : 

To love and joy thy thoughts confine, 

Nor hope to pierce the sacred gloom. 

Beauty has such oesistless power. 

That ev’n the chaste Egyptian dame 
Sigh’d for the blooming Hebrew boy ; 

For her how fatal was the hour. 

When to the banks of Nilus came 
A youth so lovely and so coy 1 

But ah, sweet maid ! my counsel hear,— 
(Youth shall attend when those advise 
Whom long experience renders sage) 

While music charms the ravish’d ear ; 

While sparkling cups delight our eyes. 

Be gay ; and scorn the frowns of age. 

,Yhat cruel answer have I heard 1 
And yet, by heaven, I love thee still: 

Can aught be cruel from thy lip ? 

Yet say, how fell that bitter word 
From lips which streams of sweetness fill. 
Which nought but drops of honey sip? 

Go boldly forth, my simple lay. 

Whose accents flow with artless ease. 

Like orient pearls at random strung : 

Thy notes are sweet, the damsels say; 

But 0 ! far sweeter, if they please, 

The nymph for whom these notes are sung. 


“ OUR LIVES AND PROPERTIES.” 

By Mr. William Hutton, F. A. S.S. 

If we survey this little world, vast in our 
idea, but small compared to immensity, we 
shall find it crusted over with property, 
fixed and movable. Upon this crusty 
world subsist animals of various kinds; 
one of which, something shoit of six feet, 
moves erect, seems the only one without a 
tail, and takes the lead in the command of 
this property. Fond of power, and con¬ 
scious that possessions give it, he is ever 
attempting, by force, fraud, or laudable 
means, to arrive at both. 

Fixed property bears a value according 
to its situation ; 10,000 acres in a place 
like London, and its environs, would be an 
immense fortune, such as no man ever pos¬ 
sessed ; while 10,000, in some parts of the 
globe, though well covered with timber, 
would not be worth a shilling—no king 
to govern, no subject to submit, no market 
to exhibit property, no property to exhibit; 
instead of striving to get possession, he 
would, if cast on the spot, strive to get 
away. Thus assemblages of people mark a 
place with value 

Movable property is of two sorts ; that 
which arises from the earth, with the assist¬ 


ance of man ; and the productions of art, 
which wholly arise from his labour. A 
small degree of industry supplies the wants 
of nature, a little more furnishes the com¬ 
forts of life, and a farther proportion affords 
the luxuries. A man, by labour first re¬ 
moves his own wants, and then, with the 
overplus of that labour, purchases the 
labour of another. Thus, by furnishing a 
hat for the barber, the hatter procures a wig 
for himself: the tailor, by making a coat 
for another, is enabled to buy cloth for his 
own It follows, that the larger the num¬ 
ber of people, the more likely to cultivate 
a spirit of industry; the greater that in¬ 
dustry, the greater its produce; conse¬ 
quently, the more they supply the calls of 
others, the more lucrative will be the re¬ 
turns to themselves. 

It may be asked, what is the meaning of 
the word rich ? Some have termed it, a 
little more than a man has; others, as 
much as will content him ; others again, 
the possession of a certain sum, not very 
small. Perhaps all are wrong. A man 
may be rich, possessed only of one hundred 
pounds; he may be poor, possessed of one 
hundred thousand. He alone is rich 
whose income is more than he uses. 

Industry, though excellent, will perform 
but half the work ; she must be assisted by 
economy; without this, a ministerial for¬ 
tune will be defective. These two quali¬ 
ties, separated from each other, like a knife 
from the handle, are of little use; but, like 
these, they become valuable when united. 
Economy without industry will barely ap¬ 
pear in a whole coat; industry without 
economy will appear in rags. The first is 
detrimental to the community, by prevent¬ 
ing the circulation of property; the last is 
detrimental to itself. It is a singular re¬ 
mark, that even industry is sometimes the 
way to poverty. Industry, like a new cast 
guinea, retains its sterling value; but, like 
that, it will not pass currently till it receives 
a sovereign stamp : economy is the stamp 
which gives it currency. 1 well knew a 
man who began business with 1500/. In¬ 
dustry seemed the end for which he was 
made, and in which he wore himself out. 
While he laboured from four in the morn¬ 
ing till eight at night, in the making of 
gimlets, his family consumed twice his 
produce. Had he spent less time at the 
anvil, and more in teaching the lessons of 
frugality, he might have lived in credit. 
Thus the father was ruined by industry, 
and his children have, for many years, ap¬ 
peared on the parish books Some people 
are more apt to get than to keep. 


1 73 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Though a man, by his labour, may treat 
himself with many things, yet he seldom 
grows rich. Riches are generally acquired 
by purchasing the labour of others. He 
who buys the labour of one hundred people, 
may acquire ten times as much as by his 
own. 

What then has that capricious damsel, 
Fortune, to do in this chain of argument ? 
Nothing. He who has capacity, attention, 
and economy, has a fortune within himself. 
She does not command him, he commands 
her. 

Having explained the word riches, and 
pointed out the road to them, let us exa-' 
mine their use. They enable a man with 
great facility to shake off an old friend, 
once an equal; and forbid access to an 
inferior, except a toad-eater. Sometimes 
they add to his name, the pretty appendage 
of Right Honourable, Bart, or Esq. addi¬ 
tions much coveted, which, should he hap¬ 
pen to become an author, are an easy 
passport through the gates of fame. His 
very features seem to take a turn from his 
fortune, and a curious eye may easily read 
in his face, the word consequence. They 
change the tone of his voice from the sub¬ 
missive to the commanding, in which he 
well knows how to throw in a few graces. 
His style is convincing. Money is of sin¬ 
gular efficacy ; it clears his head, refines 
his sense, points his joke. The weight of 
his fortune adds weight to his argument. 
If, my dear reader, you have been a silent 
spectator at meetings for public business, 
or public dinners, you may have observed 
many a smart thing said unheeded, by the 
man without money ; and many a paltry 
one echoed with applause, from the man 
with it. The room in silent attention hears 
one, while the other can scarcely hear him¬ 
self. They direct a man to various ways of 
being carried who is too idle to carry him¬ 
self; nay, they invert the order of things, 
for we often behold two men, who seem 
hungry, carry one who is full fed. They 
add refinement to his palate, prominence to 
his front, scarlet to his nose. They fre¬ 
quently ward off old age. The ancient 
rules of moderation being broken, luxury 
enters in all bet pomp, followed by a group 
of diseases, with a physician in their train, 
and the rector in his. Phials, prayers, 
tears, and galley-pots, close the sad scene, 
and the individual has the honour to rot in 
state, before old age can advance. His 
place may be readily supplied with a joyful 
mourner.* 


* History of Birmingham. 


A MUSICAL CRASH. 

The Rev. Mr. B-, when residing at 

Canterbury, was reckoned a good violon¬ 
cello player; but he was not more dis¬ 
tinguished for his expression on the instru¬ 
ment, than for the peculiar appearance of 
feature whilst playing it. In the midst of j 
the adagios of Corelli or Avison, the mus- ! 
cles of his face sympathised with his fiddle¬ 
stick, and kept reciprocal movement. His j 
sight, being dim, obliged him often to snuff 
the candles; and, when he came to a bar’s 
rest, in lieu of snuffers, he generally em¬ 
ployed his fingers in that office; and, lest 
he should offend the good housewife by 
this dirty trick, he used to thrust the 
spoils into the sound-holes of his violoncello. 
A waggish friend resolved to enjoy him- j 
self “ at the parson’s expense,” as he 
termed it; and, for that purpose, popped 
a quantity of gunpowder into B.’s instru¬ 
ment. Others were informed of the trick, 
and of course kept a respectable distance. 
The tea equipage being removed, music 
became the order of the evening; and. 

after B -had tuned his instrument, and 

drawn his stand near enough to snuff his j 
candles with ease, feeling himself in the 
meridian of his glory, he dashed away at 

Vanhall’s 47th. B-came to a bar’s 

rest, the candles were snuffed, and he 
thrust the ignited wick into the usual place; 
fit fragor, bang went the fiddle to pieces, 
and there was an end of harmony that 
evening. 


FASHIONABLE RELIGION. 

A French gentleman, equally tenacious 
of his character for gallantry and devotion, 
went to hear mass at the chapel of a fa- j 
vourite saint at Paris ; when he came | 
there, he found repairs were doing in the 
building which prevented the celebration.! 
To show that he had not been defective in 
his duty and attentions, he pulled out a 
richly decorated pocket-book, and walking 
with great gravity and many genuflexions 
up the aisle, very carefully placed a card of 
his name upon the principal altar. 


A POLITE TOWN. 

Charles IT. on passing through Bodmin, 
is said to have observed, that “ this was the 
politest town he had ever seen, as one half 
of the houses appeared to be bowing, and 
the other half uncovered .” Since the days 
of Charles, the houses are altered, but the 
inhabitants still retain their politeness, 
especially at elections. 


174 















WE TABLE BOOK, 



ancient 33ritfel) pillar, 2MIe Crtufe atibeg, SMales. 

Who first uprear’d this venerable stone. 

And how, by ruthless hands, the column fell. 

And how again restor’d, I fain would tell. 

* 


A few years ago, an artist made a water¬ 
colour sketch of this monument, as a pic¬ 
turesque object, in the romantic vicinage 
of Llangollen ; fiom that drawing he per¬ 
mitted the present, and the following are 
some particulars of the interesting me¬ 
morial. 

Mr. Pennant, during his “ Tour in 
Wales,” entered Merionethshire, “ into that 
portion for ever to be distinguished in the 
Welsh annals, on account of the hero it 
produced, who made such a figure in the 
beginning of the fifteenth century.” This 
tract retains its former title, “ Glyn- 
*r dwy,” or the valley cf the Dee. It 


once belonged to the lords of Dinas Bran 
After the murder of the two eldest sons o. 
the last lord, the property had been usurp¬ 
ed by the earl of Warren, and that noble 
man, wdio appears to have been seized 
with remorse for his crime, instead ot 
plunging deeper in guilt, procured from 
Edward I. a grant of the territory to th* 
third son, from whom the fourth in descent 
was the celebrated Owen Glyndwr.* 

In this valley, about a quarter of a milt ! 
from Valle Crucis Abbey, Mr. Pennant i 


* His quarrel with Howel Sele forms an Mticit sv * 
the E'!*r\i~Day Book , vol. ii. p. 1021—1032 


175 


N 






















































































r 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


found the present monument. It was 
thrown from its base, and lay in the hedge 
of a meadow. He figures it by an engrav¬ 
ing of the pillar in an upright position, 
showing the fracture of the lower part as it 
then appeared in relation to the square 
socket-stone, its original supporter. Mr. 
Pennant calls it the “remainder of a round 
column, perhaps one of the most ancient of 
any British inscribed pillar now existing 
and he thus proceeds :— 

“ It was entire till the civil wars of the 
last century, when it was thrown down and 
broken, by some ignorant fanatics, who 
thought it had too much the appearance of 
a cross to be suffered to stand. It probably 
bore the name of one; for the field it lies 
in is still called 4 Llwyn-y-Groes/ or the 
Grove of the Cross, from the wood that 
surrounded it. It was erected at so early 
a period, that there is nothing marvellous 
if we should perceive a tincture of the old 
idolatry, or at least of the primeval cus¬ 
toms of our country, in the mode of it when 
perfect. 

“The pillar had never been a cross ; not¬ 
withstanding folly and superstition might, 
in later times, imagine it to have been one, 
and have paid it the usual honours. It 
was a memorial of the dead ; an improve¬ 
ment on the rude columns of Druidical 
times, and cut into form, and surrounded 
with inscriptions. It is among the first 
lettered stones that succeeded the 4 Meini- 
hirion,’ ‘ Meini Gwyr,’ and 4 Llechau.’ 
It stood on a great tumulus ; perhaps 
always environed with wood, (as the mount 
is at present,) according to the custom of 
the most ancient times, when standing pil¬ 
lars were placed 4 under every green tree.’ 

44 It is said that the stone, when complete, 
was twelve feet high. It is now reduced 
to six feet eight. The remainder of the 
capital is eighteen inches long. It stood 
enfixed in a square pedestal, still lying in 
the mount; the breadth of which is five 
feet thr^e inches; the thickness eighteen 
inches. 

44 The beginning of the inscription gives 
us nearly the time of its erection, 4 Con- 
cenn filius Cateli, Cateli filius Brochmail, 
Brochmail filius Eliseg, Eliseg filius Cnoil- 
laine, Concenn itaque pronepos Eliseg edi- 
ficavit hunc lapidem proavo suo Eliseg.' 

44 This Concenn, or Congen, was the 
grandson of Brochmail Yseithroc, the same 
who was defeated in 607, at the battle of 
Chester. The letters on the stone were 
copied by Mr. Edward Llwyd : the inscrip¬ 
tion is now illegible; but, from the copy 
taken by that great antiquary, the alphabet 


nearly resembles one o f those in use in tne 
sixth century. 

44 One of the seats of Concenn and Eliseg ; 
was in this country. A township adjacent 
to the column bears, from the last, the 
name of Eglwyseg; and the picturesque 
tiers of rocks are called Glisseg for the same 
reason. The habitation of this prince of 
Powys in these parts was probably Dinas 
Br&n, which lies at the head of the vale of 
Glisseg. Mr. Llwyd conjectures that this 
place took its name from the interment of 
Eliseg.” 

Mr. Pennant continues to relate that 
44 There are two ways from this pillar: the 
usual is along the vale, on an excellent 
turnpike road leading toRuthyn ; the other 
is adapted only for the travel of the horsemen, 
but far the more preferable, on account of 
the romantic views. I returned by Valle 
Crucis ; and, after winding along a steep 
midw'ay to the old castle, descended ; and, 
then crossing the rill of the Brhn, arrived 
in the valley of Glisseg; long and narrow, 
bounded on the right by the astonishing 
precipices, divided into numberless parallel 
strata of white limestone, often giving 
birth to vast yew-trees; and, on the left, 
by smooth and verdant hills, bordered by 
pretty woods. One of the principal of the 
Glisseg rocks is honoured with the name 
of Craig-Arthur; another, at the end of 
the vale called Craig y Forwyn, or the 
Maiden’s, is bold, precipitous, and termi¬ 
nates with a vast natural column. This 
valley is chiefly inhabited (happily) by an 
independent race of warm and wealthy 
yeomanry, undevoured as yet by the great 
men of the country.” 

The 44 Tour in Wales ” was performed 
by Mr. Pennant in 1773 ; and his volume, 
containing the preceding account of the 
44 Pillar of Eliseg,” was published in 1778. 
In the following year, the shaft was reared 
from its prostrate situation on its ancient 
pedestal, as appears by the following in¬ 
scription on the column, copied by the 
artist who made the present drawing of the 
monument. 

QUOD HUJUS VETERIS MONUMEXTI 
SUPEREST 

DIU EX OCULIS REMOTUM 

ET NEGLECTUM 
TANDEM RESTITUIT 

T. LLOYD 

DE 

TREVOR HALL 

A. D. 

M.DCC.LXX IX. 


176 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


It is not in my power to add more 
respecting this venerable memorial of 
early ages than, that, according to a 
printed itinerary, its neighbourhood is at 
this time further remarkable for the self¬ 
seclusion of two ladies of rank. At about 
two miles’ distance is an elegant cottage, 
situated on a knoll, the retreat of lady 
Elizabeth Butler and Miss Ponsonby ; who, 
turning from the vanity of fashionable life, 
have fixed their residence in this beautiful 
vale. 


feuti Jfair. 

ACCOUNT OF A STONE-EATER. 

By Father Paulian. 

The beginning of May, 1760, was 
brought to Avignon, a true lithophagus oi 
stone-eater. He not only swallowed Hints 
of an inch and a half long, a full inch 
broad, and half an inch thick; but such 
stones as he could reduce to powder, such 
as marble, pebbles, &e. he made up into 
paste, which was to him a most agreeable 
and wholesome food. I examined this 
man with all the attention 1 possibly could; 
I found his gullet very large, his teeth ex¬ 
ceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, 
and his stomach lower than ordinary, which 
I imputed to the vast number of flints he 
had swallowed, being about five and twenty, 
one day with another. 

Upon interrogating his keeper, he told 
me the following particulars. “ This stone- 
eater,” says he, “ was found three years ago 
in a northern inhabited island, by some of 
the crew of a Dutch ship, on Good Friday. 
Since I have had him, I make him eat raw 
flesh with his stones; I could never get him 
to swallow bread. He will drink water, 
wine, and brandy; which last liquor gives 
him infinite pleasure. He sleeps at least 
twelve hours in a day, sitting on the ground 
with one knee over the other, and his chin 
resting on his right knee. He smokes 
almost all the time he is not asleep, or is 
not eating.” The keeper also tells me, that 
some physicians at Paris got him blooded ; 
that the blood had little or no serum, and 
m two hours’ time became as fragile as 
coial. 

This stone-eater hitherto is unable to 
pronounce more than a few words, Oui, 
non , caillou, bon. I showed him a fly 
through a microscope : he was astonished 
at the size of the animal, and could not be 
mduced to examine it. lie has been taught 


to make the sign of the cross, and was bap¬ 
tized some months ago in the chmch oi Si 
Come, at Paris. The respect he shows to 
ecclesiastics, and his ready disposition to 
please them, afforded me the opportunity of 
satisfying myself as to all these particulars; 
and 1 am fully convinced that he is no 
cheat.* 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A STONE 
EATER. 

A Fragment. 

I was born by the side of a rocky cave 
in the Peak of Derbyshire; before I was 
born, my mother dreamed I should be an 
ostrich. I very early showed a disposition 
to my present diet; instead of eating the 
pap offered to me, I swallowed the spoon, 
which was of hard stone ware, made in 
that country, and had the handle broken 
off. My coral served me in the double 
capacity of a plaything and a sweetmeat/ 
and as soon as I had my teeth, I nibbled at 
every pan and mug that came within my 
reach, in such a manner, that there was 
scarcely a whole piece of earthenware to be 
found in the house. I constantly swallowed 
the flints out of the tinder-box, and so de¬ 
ranged the economy of the family, that my 
mother forced me to seek subsistence out 
of the house. 

Hunger, they say, will break stone walls: 
this I experienced ; for the stone fences lay 
very temptingly in my way, and I made 
many a comfortable breakfast on them. 
On one occasion, a farmer who had lost 
some of his flock the night before, finding 
me early one morning breaking his fences, 
would hardly be persuaded that I had no 
design upon his mutton—I only meant to 
regale myself upon his wall. 

When I went to school, I was a great 
favourite with the boys ; for whenever there 
was damson tart or cherry pie, I was well 
content to eat all the stones, and leave 
them the fruit. I took the shell, and gave 
my companions the oyster, and whoever 
will do so, I will venture to say, will be 
well received through life. I must confess, 
however, that I made great havock among 
the marbles, of which I swallowed as many 
as the other boys did of sugar-plums. I 
have many a time given a stick of barley- 
sugar for a de'icious white alley ; and it 
used to be the diversion of the bigger boys 
to shake me, and hear them rattle in my 


• Gentleman’s Magazine. 


177 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


stomach. While I was there, I devoured 
the greatest part of a stone chimney-piece, 
which had been in the school time out of 
mind, and borne the memorials of many 
generations of scholars, all of which were 
more swept away by my teeth, than those 
of time. I fell, also, upon a collection of 
spars and pebbles, which my master’s 
daughter had got together to make a grotto. 
For both these exploits I was severely flog¬ 
ged. I continued, however, my usual diet, 
except that for a change I sometimes ate 
Norfolk dumplins, which I found agree 
with me very well. I have now continued 
this diet for thirty years, and do affirm it 
to be the most cheap, wholesome, natural, 
and delicious of all food. 

I suspect the Antediluvians were Litho- 
phagi: this, at least, we are certain of, that 
Saturn, who lived in the golden age, was a 
stone-eater! We cannot but observe, that 
those people who live in fat rich soils are 
gross and heavy; whereas those who in¬ 
habit rocky and barren countries, where 
there is plenty of nothing but stones, are 
healthy, sprightly, and vigorous. For my 
own part, I do not know that ever I was ill 
in my life, except that once being over per- 
uaded to venture on some Suffolk cheese, 

gave me a slight indigestion. 

I am ready to eat flints, pebbles, mar¬ 
bles, freestone, granite, or any other stones 
the curious may choose, with a good appe¬ 
tite and without any deception. I am 
promised by a friend, a shirt and coarse 
frock of the famous Asbestos, that my food 
and clothing may be suitable to each other. 


FRANCIS BATTALIA. 

In 1641, Hollar etched a print of Francis 
Battalia, an Italian, who is said to have 
eaten half a peck of stones a day. Re¬ 
specting this individual, Dr. Bulwer, in his 
“ Artificial Changeling,” says he saw the 
man, that he was at that time about thirty 
years of age; and that “ he was born with 
two stones in one hand, and one in the 
other, which the child took for his first 
nourishment, upon the physician’s advice; 
and afterwards nothing else but three or 
four pebbles in a spoon, once in twenty- 
four hours.” After his stone-meals, he was 
accustomed to take a draught of beer: 
** and in the interim, now and then, a pipe 
of tobacco; for he had been a soldier in 
Ireland, at the siege of Limerick; and upon 
his return to London was confined for some 
time upon suspicion of impostura ” 


(Sarrirft Slap3. 

No. IX. 

[From the “ Two Angry Women of Abing¬ 
don,” a Comedy, by Henry Porter, 
1599.] 

Proverb-monger. 

This formal fool, your man, speaks nought but Pro 
verbs; 

And, speak men what they can to him, he’ll answer 
With some rhyme-rotten sentence, or old saying. 

Such spokes as th’ Ancient of the Parish use 
With “ Neighbour, it’s an old Proverb and a true, 
(loose giblets are good meat, old sack better than new : H 
Then says another, “ Neighbour, that is true.” 

And when each man hath drunk his gallon round, 

(A penny pot, for that’s the old man’* gallon). 

Then doth he lick his lips, and stroke his beard. 

That’s glued together with the slavering drops 
Of yesty ale; and when he scarce can trim 
His gouty fingers, thus he’ll fillip it, 

And with a rotten hem say, “ Hey my hearts,” 

“ Merry go sorry,” “ Cock and Pye, my heart* 

And then their saving-penny-proverb comes, 

And that is this, “ They that will to the wine, 

By’r Lady, mistress, shall lay their penny to mine.* 
This was one of this penny-father’s bastards ; 

For on my life he was never begot 

Without the consent of some great Proverb-monger. 


She Wit. 

Why, she will flout the devil, and make blush 
The boldest face of man that ever man saw. 

He that hath best opinion of his wit. 

And hath his brain-pan fraught with bitter jests 
(Or of his own, or stol’n, or howsoever). 

Let him stand ne’er so high in’s own conceit, 

Her wit’s a sun that melts him down like batter. 

And makes him sit at table pancake-wise. 

Flat, flat, and ne’er a word to say; 

Yet she’ll not leave him then, but like a tyrant 
She’ll persecute the poor wit-beaten man. 

And so be-bang him with dry bobs and scoffs, 

When he is down (most cowardly, good faith !) 

As I have pitied the poor patient. 

There came a Farmer’s Son a wooing to her, 

A proper man, well-landed too he was, 

A man that for his wit need not to ask 
What time a year ’twere need to sow his oat*, 

Nor yet his barley, no, nor when to reap, 

To plow his fallows, or to fell his trees. 

Well experienced thus each kind of way; 

After a two months’ labour at the most, 

(And yet ’twas well he held it out so long). 

He left his Love; she had so laced his lips. 

He could say nothing to her but “ God be with ye."’ 
Why, she, when men have dined, and call’d for cheew 
Will strait maintain jests bitter to digest; 

And then some one will fall to argument. 


178 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


WTio If he ow -master her with reason, 
l'hen she’ll begin to buffet him with mocks. 


Master Goursey proposes to his Son a 
Wife. 

Frank Goursey. Ne’er trust me, father, the shape ot 
marriage. 

Which I do see in others, seems so severe, 

I dare not put my youngling liberty 
Under the awe of that instruction; 

And yet I grant, the limits of free youth 
Going astray are often restrain’d by that. 

But Mistress Wedlock, to my summer thoughts. 

Will be too curst, I fear: O should she snip 
My pleasure-aiming mind, I shall be sad ; 

And swear, when I did marry, 1 was mad. 

Old Goursey. But, boy, let my experience teach thee 
this; 

(Yet in good faith thou speak’st not much amiss) ; 
When first thy mother’s fame to me did come. 

Thy grandsire thus then came to me his son, 

And ev’n my words to thee to me he said ; 

And, as thou say’st to me, to him I said. 

But in a greater huff and hotter blood: 

I tell ye, on youth’s tiptoes tlipn I stood. 

Says he (good faith, this was his very say). 

When I was young, I was but Reason’s fool; 

And went to wedding, as to Wisdom’s school • 

It taught me much, and much I did forget; 

But, beaten much by it, I got some wit: 

Though I was shackled from an often-scout, 

Yet I would wanton it, when I was out; 

’Twas comfort old acquaintance then to meet, 
Restrained liberty attain’d is sweet. 

Thus said my father to thy father, son; 

And thou may’st do this too, as I have done. 


Wandering in the dark all night. 

O when will this same Year of Night have end ? 
Long-look’d for Day’s Sun, when wilt thou ascend ? 

Let not this thief-friend misty veil of night 
Encroach on day, and shadow thy fair light; 

Whilst thou comest tardy from thy Thetis’ bed. 

Blush forth golden-hair and glorious red. 

0 stay not long, bright lanthern of the day. 

To light my mist-way feet to my right way. 

The pleasant Comedy, from which these 
Extracts are taken, is contemporary with 
some of the earliest of Shakspeare’s, and is 
no whit inferior to either the Comedy of 
Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew, for 
instance. It is full of business, humour, 
and merry malice. Its night-scenes are 
peculiarly sprightly and wakeful. The ver¬ 
sification unencumbered, and rich with 
compound epithets. Why do we go on 
with ever new Editions of Ford, and Mas¬ 
singer, and the thrice reprinted Selections 
of Dodsley? what we want is as many 


volumes more, as these latter consist of, 
filled with plays (such as this), of which we 
know comparatively nothing. Not a third 
part of the Treasures of old English Dra¬ 
matic literature has been exhausted. Are 
we afraid that the genius of Shakspeare 
would suffer in our estimate by the disclo¬ 
sure ? He would indeed be somewhat 
lessened as a miracle and a prodigy. But 
he would lose no height by the confession. 
When a Giant is shown to us, does it de¬ 
tract from the curiosity to be told that he 
has at home a gigantic brood of brethren, 
less only than himself? Along with him, 
not from him, sprang up the race of mighty 
Dramatists who, compared with the Otways 
and Rowes that followed, were as Miltons 
to a Young or an Akenside. That he was 
their elder Brother, not their Parent, is evi¬ 
dent from the fact of the very few direct 
imitations of him to be found in their 
writings. Webster, Decker, Heywood, and 
the rest of his great contemporaries went 
on their own ways, and followed their in 
dividual impulses, not blindly prescribing 
to themselves his tract. Marlowe, the true 
(though imperfect) Father of our tragedy , 
preceded him. The comedy of Fletcher is 
essentially unlike to that of his. ’Tis out of 
no detracting spirit that I speak thus, for 
the Plays of Shakspeare have been the 
strongest and the sweetest food of my mind 
from infancy ; but I resent the comparative 
obscurity in which some of his most valua¬ 
ble co operators remain, who were his dear 
intimates, his stage and his chamber-fellows 
while he lived, and to whom his gentle 
spirit doubtlessly then awarded the full 
portion of their genius, as from them to¬ 
ward him-self appears to have been no 
grudging of his acknowledged excellence. 

C. L. 


Characters. 

AGRESTILLA. 

For the Table Book. 

There is a story in the Rambler of a lady 
whom the great moralist calls Althea, who 
perversely destroyed all the satisfaction of 
a party of pleasure, by not only finding, but 
seeking for fault upon every occasion, and 
affecting a variety of frivolous fears and 
apprehensions without cause. Female fol¬ 
lies, like “ states and empires, have their 
periods of declension and nearly half a 
century has passed away since it has been 
deemed elegant, or supposed interesting, to 
scream at a spider, shudder in a boat, or 


179 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ur 


esert, with vehemence of terror, that a 
gun, though ascertained not to be charged, 
may still “ go off." The tendency to fly 
from one extreme to the other has ever been 
the characteristic of weak minds, and the 
party of weak minds will always support 
itself by a considerable majority, both 
among women and men. Something may 
be done by those minor moralists, modestly 
termed essayists and novelists, who have 
brought wisdom and virtue to dwell in 
saloons and drawing-rooms. Mrs. H. More 
and Miss Edgeworth have pretty well writ¬ 
ten down the affectation of assuming “ the 
cap, the whip, the masculine attire," and 
; the rage for varnishing and shoe-making 
lias of itself subsided, by the natural effect 
of total incongruity between the means and 
the end. Ladies are now contented to be 
ladies, that is, rational beings of the softer 
sex, and do not affect to be artists or me¬ 
chanics. Nevertheless, some peculiarities 
of affectation do from time to time shoot 
up into notice, and call for the pruning- 
knife of the friendly satirist. 

Agrestilla is an agreeable, well-in¬ 
formed person of my own sex, from whose 
society 1 have derived great pleasure and 
advantage both in London and Paris. A 
few weeks since, she proposed to me to 
accompany her to spend some time in a 
small town in Normandy, for the benefit of 
country air: to this plan I acceded witn 
great readiness ; an apartment was secured 
by letter, and we proceeded on our journey. 

I have lived too long in the world ever 
to expect unmixed satisfaction from any 
1 measure, and long enough never to neglect 
any precaution by which personal comfort 
is to be secured. To this effect I had re¬ 
presented, that perhaps it might be better 
to delay fixing on lodgings till we arrived, 
lest we should find ourselves bounded to 
the view of a market-place or narrow street, 

1 with, perchance, a butcher’s shop opposite 
our windows, and a tin-man or tallow- 
chandler next door to us. Agrestilla re¬ 
plied, that in London or Paris it was of 
course essential to one’s consideration in 
society to live in a fashionable neighbour¬ 
hood, but that nobody minded those things 
“ in the country." In vain I replied, that 
consideration was not what I considered, 
but freedom from noise and bad smells: I 
was then laughed at for my fastidiousness, 
—'■* Who in the world would make difficul¬ 
ties about such trifles in the country , when 
one might be out of doois from morning 
till night!" 

We arrived at the place of our destina¬ 
tion ; my mind expanded with pleasure at 


the sight of large rooms, wide staircases, 
and windows affording the prospect of ver¬ 
dure. The stone-floors and the paucity of 
window-curtains, to say nothing of blinds 
to exclude the sun, appeared to me incon¬ 
veniences to be remedied by the expendi¬ 
ture of a few francs; but Agrestilla, as 
pertinacious in her serenity as Althea in 
her querulousness, decided that we ought 
to take things in the rough, and make any¬ 
thing do in the country.” Scraps of 
carpet and ells of muslin are attainable by 
unassisted effort, stimulated by necessity, 
and I acquired and maintained tolerable 
ease of mind and body, till we came to 
discuss together the grand article of society. 
My maxim is, the best or none at all. I 
love conversation, but hate feasting and 
visiting. Agrestilla lays down no maxim, 
but her practice is, good if possible—if not, 
second-best; at all events, a number of 
guests and frequent parties. Though she 
is not vain of her mind or of her person, 
yet the display of fine clothes and good 
dishes, and the secret satisfaction of shining 
forth the queen of her company, make up 
her enjoyment: Agrestilla’s taste is gre¬ 
garious. To my extreme sorrow and ap¬ 
prehension, we received an invitation to 
dine with a family unknown to me, and 
living nine miles off! To refuse was im¬ 
possible, the plea of preengagement is in¬ 
admissible with people who tell you to 
“ choose your day," and as to pretending 
to be sick, I hold it to be presumptuous and 
wicked. The conveyance was to be a cart! 
the time of departure six in the morning ! 
Terrified and aghast, I demanded, “ How 
are we to get through the day ?’’ No work! 
no books ! no subjects of mutual interest 
to talk upon !—“ Oh ! dear me, time soon 
passes ‘ in the country we shall be three 
hours going, the roads are very bad, then 
comes breakfast, and then walking round 
the garden, and then dinner and coming 
home early." This invitation hung over 
my mind like an incubus,—like an eye¬ 
tooth firm in the head to be wrenched out, 
—like settling-day to a defaulter, or auricu¬ 
lar confession to a ceremonious papist and 
bad liver. My only hope was in the wea¬ 
ther. The clouds seemed to be for ever 
filling and for ever emptying, like the 
pitchers of the Danaides. The street, court, 
and garden became all impassable, without 
the loan of Celestine’s mbot.s (anglice 
wooden shoes.) Celestine is a stout Nor¬ 
man girl, who washes the dishes, and wears 
a holland-mob and a linsey-woolsey petti 
coat. Certainly, thought I, in my foolish 
secuiity, while this deluge continues no- 


180 







THE TABLE BOOK 


! body will think of visiting u in the coun¬ 
try.” But vain and illusive was my hope! 

' Agrestilla declared her intention of keeping 
her engagement “ if it rained cats and 
dogs;” and the weather cleared up on the 
eve of my execution, and smiled in derision 
of my woe. The cart came. Jemmy Daw¬ 
son felt as much anguish in his, but he did 
not feel it so long. We were lumbered 
with inside packages, bundles, boxes, and 
baskets, accumulated by Agrestilla; I pro¬ 
posed their being secured with cords (lashed 
is the sea-term) to prevent them from roll¬ 
ing about, crushing our feet and grazing our 
legs at every jolt, Agrestilla’s politeness 
supprest an exclamation of amazement, 
that people could mind such trifles “ in the 
country !”—for her part, she never made 
difficulties.—Being obliged to maintain the 
equilibrium of my person by clinging to 
each side of the cart with my two hands, I 
had much to envy those personages of the 
Hindu mythology, who are provided with 
six or seven arms : as for my bonnet it was 
crushed into all manner of shapes, my brain 
was jarred and concussed into the incapa¬ 
city to tell whether six and five make eleven 
or thirteen, and my feet were “ all mur¬ 
dered,” as the Irish and French say. What 
exasperated my sufferings was the reflection 
on my own folly in incurring so much posi¬ 
tive evil, to pay and receive a mere com¬ 
pliment ! Had it been to take a reprieve 
to a dear friend going to be hanged, to 
carry the news of a victory, or convey a 
surgeon to the wounded, I should have 
thought nothing and said less of the matter; 
but for a mere dinner among strangers, a 
long day without interest and Occupation ! 
—really I consider myself as having half 
incurred the guilt of suicide. Six or seven 
times at least, the horse, painfully dragging 
us the whole way by the strain of every 
nerve and sinew, got stuck in the mud, and 
was to be flogged till he plunged out of it. 
More than once we tottered upon ridges of 
incrusted mud, when a very little matter 
would have turned us over. I say nothing 
about Rutland—I abhor and disdain a pun 
—but we did nothing but cross ruts to 
avoid puddles, and cross them back again 
to avoid stones, and the ruts were all so 
deep as to leave but one semicircle of the 
wheel visible. I never saw such roads— 
the Colossus of Rhodes would have been 
knee-deep in them. At last we arrived— 
Agrestilla as much out of patience at my 
calling it an evil to have my shins bruised 
black and blue, while engaged in a party of 
pleasure in the country,” as I to find the 
expedition all pain and no pleasure. We 


turned out of the cart in very bad condi¬ 
tion ; all our dress “ clean put on,” as the 
housewives say, rumpled and soiled, our 
limbs stiff, our faces flushed, and by far too 
fevered to eat, and too weary to walk. How 
I thought, like a shipwrecked mariner, not 
upon my own “ fireside,” as English no¬ 
velists always say, but upon my quiet, 
comfortable room, books, work, indepen¬ 
dence, and otium with or without dignitate 
(let others decide that.) Oh! the fag of 
talking when one has nothing to say, smil¬ 
ing when one is ready to cry, and accept¬ 
ing civilities when one feels them all to be 
inflictions! Of the habits, the manners, 
the appearance, and the conversation of 
our hosts, I will relate nothing; I have 
eaten their bread, as the Arabs say, and 
owe them the tribute of thanks and silence. 
Agrestilla was as merry as possible all day; 
she has lived in the company of persons of 
sense and education, but—nobody expects 
refinement “ in the country !” In vain I 
expostulate with her, pleading in excuse of 
what she terms my fastidiousness, that I 
cannot change my fixed notions of elegance, 
propriety, and comfort, to conform to the 
habits of those to whom such terms are as 
lingua franca to a Londoner, what he nei¬ 
ther understands nor cares for. 

It is easy to conform one’s exterior tc 
rural habits, by putting on a coarse strav 
hat, thick shoes, and linen gown, but tin 
taste and feeling of what is right, the men 
tal perception must remain the same. No- j 
thing can be more surprising to an English 1 
resident in a country-town of France, than ' 
the jumble of ranks in society that has taken 
place since the revolution. I know a young I 
lady whose education and manners render 
her fit for polished society in Paris; her 
mother goes about in a woollen jacket, and 
dresses the dinner, not from necessity, for 
that I should make no joke of, but from 
taste; and is as arrant an old gossip as ever 
lolled with both elbows over the counter of 
a chandler’s shop.—Her brother is a garde 
dn corps, who spends his life in palaces and 
drawing-rooms, and she has one cousin a 
little pastTy-cook, and another a washer¬ 
woman.—They have a lodger, a maiden 
lady, who lives on six hundred francs per 
annum, (about twenty-four pounds,) and of 
course performs every menial office for her¬ 
self, and, except on Sundays, looks like an 
old weeding-woman ; her brother has been 
a judge, lives in a fine house, buys books 
and cultivates exotics. Low company is 
tiresome in England, because it is ignorant 
and stupid ; in France it is gross and dis¬ 
gusting. The notion of being merry and 


181 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


entertaining is to tell gross stories; the 
demoiselles sit and say nothing, simper and 
look pretty: what a pity it is that time 
should change them into coarse, hard- 
featured commcres , like their mothers! lhe 
way in Normandy is to dine very early, and 
remain all the evening in the dinner-room, 
instead of going into a fresh apartment to 
• take coffee. Agrestilla does not fail to 
i conform to the latter plan in Paris, because 
people of fashion do so, and Agrestilla is a 
! fashionable woman, but she wonders I 
; should object to the smell of the dinner 
“ in the country.” I have been strongly 
tempted to the crime of sacrilege by robbing 
the church for wax candles, none being to 
be got at “ the shop.” My incapacity for 
rural enjoyments and simple habits is ma¬ 
nifest to Agrestilla, from my absurdly ob¬ 
jecting to the smell of tallow-candles “ in 
the country.” Agrestilla’s rooms are pro¬ 
fusely lighted with wax in Paris, “ but 
nobody thinks of such a thing ‘ in the coun¬ 
try ’ for nearly a month or two,”—as if life 
were not made up of months, weeks, and 
hours ! 

j I am afraid, Mr. Editor, that I may have 
wearied you by my prolixity, but since all 
acumen of taste is to disappear, when we 
pass the bills of mortality, I will hope that 
my communication may prove good enough 
to be read—in the country . 

N. 


FEMALE FRIENDSHIP. 

Joy cannot claim a purer bliss. 

Nor grief a dew from stain more clear. 

Than female friendship’s meeting kiss. 

Than female friendship’s parting tear. 

How sweet the heart’s full bliss to pour 
To her, whose smile must crown the store! 

How sweeter still to tell of woes 
To her, whose faithful breast would share 
In every grief, in every care, 

Whose sigh can lull them to repose 1 
Oh 1 blessed sight there is no sorrow. 

But from thy breath can sweetness borrow 
E’en to the pale and drooping flower 
That fades in love’s neglected hour; 

E’en with her woes can friendship’s pow’r 
One happier feeling blend : 

*Tis from her restless bed to creep, 

And sink like wearied babe to sleep. 

On the soft couch her sorrows steep, 

TJwe boocm of a friend. 

Miss Mitford. 


LINES TO A SPARROW. 

Who comes to my Window evert 
Morning for his Breakfast 

Master Dicky, my dear. 

You have nothing to fear. 

Your proceedings I mean not to check, »ir t 
Whilst the weather benumbs, 

We should pick up our crumbs. 

So, I prithee, make free with a peck, sir. 

I’m afraid it’s too plain 
You’re a villain in grain, 

But in that you resemble your neighbour* 

For mankind have agreed 
It is right to suck seed. 

Then, like you, hop the twig with their labonra. 

Besides this, master Dick, 

You of trade have the trick. 

In all branches you traffic at will, sir, 

You have no need of shops 
For your samples of hops , 

And can ev’ry day take up your bill, sir. 

Then in foreign affairs 
You may give yourself airs. 

For I’ve heard it reported at home, sir. 

That you’re on the best terms 
With the diet of TVarms. 

And have often been tempted to Rome, sir. 

Thus you feather your nest 
In the way you like best. 

And live high without fear of mishap, sir; 

You are fond of your grub. 

Have a taste for some shrub. 

And for gin —there you understand trap, sir. 

Tho’ the rivers won’t flow 
In the frost and the snow. 

And for fish other folks vainly try, sir; 

Yet you’ll have a treat. 

For, in cold or in heat. 

You can still take a perch with nfiy, sir. 

In love, too, oh Dick, 

(Tho’ you oft when love-sick 
On the course of good-breeding may trample ; 

And though often henpeck’d. 

Yet) you scorn to neglect 
To set all mankind an cggsample. 

Your opinions, ’tis true. 

Are flighty a few. 

Bat at this I, for one, will not grumble ; 

So—your breakfast you’ve got. 

And you’re off like a shot. 

Dear Dicky, your humble cum-tumble .• 


• Examiner Feb. L2, 1815. 


182 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 



gut. 90fom(cm, astlltnan of Bttr&am. 

And who gave thee that jolly red nose ? 

Brandy, cinnamon, ale, and cloves. 

That gave me the jolly red nose. 

Old Sono. 


THE BISHOP OF BUTTERBY. 

A Sketch, by one of his Prebendaries. 
For the Table Book 

I remember reading in that excellent 

little periodical. “The Cigar/’ of the red 

nose of the friar of Billow, which served 

the holy man in the stead of a lantern, when 

he crossed the fens at night, to visit the 

fair ladv of the sheriff of Gloucestershire. 
* 

Whether the nose of the well-known eccen¬ 
tric now under consideration ever lighted 
his path, when returning from Shincliffe 


feast, or Houghton-le-spring hopping — 
whether it ever 

“ Brightly beam’d his path above. 

And lit his way to his ladye love 

this deponent knoweth not; but, certainly, 
if ever nose could serve for such purposes, 
it is that of Hut. Alderson, which is the 
reddest in the city of Durham—save and 
excepting, nevertheless, the nose of fat 
Hannah, the Elvet orange-woman. Yes 
Hut. thou portly living tun! thou animated 
lump of obesity ! thou hast verily a mos' 
lolly nose! Keep it out of my sight, 1 


183 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


pray thee ! Saint Giles, defenl me from 
its scorchings! there is fire in its mere pic¬ 
torial representation ! Many a time, I ween, 
thou hast mulled thine ale with it, when 
sitting with thy pot companions at Mor- 
ralies! 

Hutchinson Alderson, the subject of the 
present biographical notice, is the well- 
known bellman of the city of Durham. Of 
nis parentage and education T am ignorant, 
but I have been informed by him, at one of 
his “ visitations,” that he is a native of the 
place, where, very early in life, he was 
“ bound ’prentice to a shoemaker,” and 
where, after the expiration of his servitude, 
he began business. During the period of the 
threatened invasion of this nation by the 
French, he enlisted in the Durham militia; 
but I cannot correctly state what office he 
held in the regiment; the accounts on the 
subject are very conflicting aad contradic¬ 
tory. Some have informed me he was a 
mete private, others that he was a corporal; 
and a wanton wag has given out that he 
was kept by the regiment, to be used as a 
beacon, in cases of extraordinary emer¬ 
gency. Certain it is that he was in the 
militia*, arid that during that time the ac¬ 
cident occurred which destroyed his hopes 
of military promotion, and rendered him 
unable to pursue his ordinary calling—I 
allude to the loss of his right hand, which 
happened as follows :—A Durham lady, 
whose husband was in the habit of employ¬ 
ing Alderson as a shoemaker, had a 
favourite parrot, which, on the cage door 
being left open, escaped, and was shortly 
afterwards seen flying from tree to tree in a 
neighbouring wood. Alderson, on being 
made acquainted with the circumstance, 
proceeded with his gun to the wood, where, 
placing himself within a few yards of the 
bird, he fired at it, having previously 
poured a little water into the muzzle, 
which he thoughtlessly imagined would 
have the effect of bringing down the bird, 
without doing it material injury ; but, un¬ 
happily, the piece exploded, and shattered 
his right hand so dreadfully, that imme¬ 
diate amputation was rendered necessary. 

For some time after this calamity, Alder- 
son’s chief employment consisted in taking 
care of gentlemen’s horses, and cleaning 
knives. lie was then appointed street- 
keeper ; and, during the short time he held 
that office, discharged its duty in a very 
impartial manner—I believe to the entire 
satisfaction of all the inhabitants. He has 
also, at different periods, been one of the 
constables of the parish of Saint Mary le 
How. About the year 1822, the office of 


bellman to the city of Durham became va¬ 
cant, by resignation, upon which Hut. iir 
mediately offered himself as a candidate; 
and, from there being no opposition, and 
his being a freeman, he was installed by 
the unanimous voice of every member of 
the corporation, and he has accordingly 
discharged the duties of bellman ever since. 
It is in that capacity our artist has repre¬ 
sented him in the cut at the head of the 
present sketch. But Hut. Alderson is the 
wearer of other dignities. 

About three miles from Durham is a 
beautiful little hamlet, called Butterby, and 
in ancient deeds Beautrove ,* and Beautro- 
vensis, from the elegance of its situation; 
and certainly its designation is no mis¬ 
nomer, for a lovelier spot the imagination 
cannot picture. The seclusion of its walks, 
the deep shade of its lonely glens, and the 
many associations connected with it, inde¬ 
pendently of its valuable mineral waters, 
conspire to render it a favourite place of 
resort; and, were I possessed of the poetic 
talent of veterinary doctor Marshall, I 
sh#uld certainly be tempted to immortalize 
its many charms in a sonnet. Butterby 
was formerly a place of considerable note ; 
the old manor-house there, whose haunted 
walls are still surrounded by a moat, was 
once the residence of Oliver Cromwell, 
whose armorial bearings still may be seen 
over one of the huge, antique-fashioned 
fire-places. In olden time, Butterby had a 
church, dedicated to saint Leonard, of 
which not a visible vestige is remaining ; 
though occasionally on the spot which an¬ 
tiquaries have fixed upon as its site, divers 
sepulchral relics have been discovered. Yet, 
to hear many of the inhabitants of Durham 
talk, a stranger would naturally believe 
that the hamlet is still in possession of 
this sacred edifice ; for “ Butterby-c^ttrcA ” 
is there spoken of, not as a plate adorning 
the antiquarian page, nor even as a ruin to 
attract the gaze of the moralizing tourist, 
but as a real, substantial, bond fide struc¬ 
ture : the fact is, that, in the slang of Dur¬ 
ham, (for the modern Zion f has its slang as 
well as the modern Babylon,) a Butterby 
church-goer is dne who does not frequent 
any church ; and when such an one is 
asked, “ What church have you attended 
to-day ?” the customary answer is, u I have 
been attending service at Butterby/’ About 
the year 1823, there appeared in one ol 
the London journals an account of a mar- 
r iage, said to have been solemnized at But- 


* Vide Mr. Dixon’s View of Durnaro. 
t Ibid. 


184 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


terby-church, between two parties who 
never existed but in the fertile brain of the 
writer of the paragraph, “ By the Rev. 
Hutchinson Alderson, rector.” From that 
time, Hut. Alderson began to be desig¬ 
nated a clergyman, and was speedily dub¬ 
bed A.M. Merit will rise, and therefore 
the A. M. became D. D., and Alderson 
himself enjoyed the waggery, and insisted 
on the young gentlemen of the place touch¬ 
ing their hats, and humbling themselves 
when his reverence passed. 

Not content with the honours which 
already, like laurel branches, had encircled 
his brow, Hut. aspired to still greater dis¬ 
tinction, and gave out that Butterby was 
a bishop’s see, that the late parochial church 
was a cathedral, and, in fine, that the late 
humble rector was a lordly bishop— The 
Right Reverend Hutchinson Aldtrson 
Lord Bishop of Butterry, or Hut. But. 
Having thus dubbed himself, he next pro¬ 
ceeded to the proper formation of his cathe¬ 
dral ; named about ten individuals as pre¬ 
bends, (among whom were the writer of this 
sketch, and his good friend his assistant 
artist,) chose a dean and archdeacon, and 
selected a few more humble individuals to 
fill the different places of sexton, organist, 
vergers, bell-ringers, &c., and soon began, 
in the exercise of his episcopal functions, 
to give divers orders, oral and written, re¬ 
specting repairs of the church, preaching 
sermons, &c. The last I recollect was a 
notice, delivered to one of the prebends ty 
the bishop in propria person <2, intimating 
that, owing to the church having received 
considerable damage by a high flood, he 
would not be required to officiate there till 
further notice. 

A cathedral is nothing without a tutelary 
saint, and accordingly Butterby-church has 
been dedicated to saint Giles. Several 
articles have been written, and privately 
circulated, descriptive of the splendid archi¬ 
tecture of this imaginary edifice; every 
arch has had its due meed of approbation, 
and its saint has been exalted in song, 
almost as high as similar worthies of the 
Roman catholic church. A legend has 
been written—1 beg pardon, found in one 
of the vaults of Bear-park,—containing an 
account of divers miracles performed by 
saint Giles; which legend is doubtless as 
worthy of credit, and equally true, as some 
of Alban Butler’s, or the miracles of prince 
Hohenlohe and Thomas a Becket. Hap¬ 
pening to have a correct copy of the compo¬ 
sition to which I allude, I give it, with lull 
persuasion that by so doing l shall conff” a 
signal obligation on the rest of my brother 


prebends, some of whom are believers in its 
antiquity, though, I am inclined to think, 
it is, like the ancient poems found in Red- 
cliffe-church, and published by the unfor¬ 
tunate Chatterton—all “ Rowley powley,” 
&.c. I have taken the liberty to modernize 
the spelling. 

SAINT GILES 
His Holie Legend: 

Written in Latin, by Father Peter, 
Monk of Beaupaire, and done into 
English this Year of Redemption, 
1d55, by Master John Walton, 
Schoolmaster, St. Magdalene her 
Chapel Yard Durham: and dedi¬ 
cated to our good Queen Mary, 
whom God long preserve. 

1. 

O did ye ne’er hear of saint Giles, 

The saint of farn d Butterby steeple. 

There ne’er was his like seen for miles, 

Pardie, he astonied the people I 
His face was as red as the sun, 

His eyne were a couple of sloes, sir, 

His belly was big as a tun, 

And he had a huge bottle nose, sir ; 

O what a strange fellow was he ' 

2 . 

Of woman he never was born. 

And wagers have been laid upon it; 

They found him at Finchale one morn, 

Wrapp’d up in an heavenly bonnet: 

The prior was taking his rounds. 

As he was wont after his bricMdst, 

He heard most celestial sounds, 

And saw something in a tree stick fast, 

Like a bundle of dirty old clothes. 

3. 

Quite frighten’d, he fell on his knees. 

And said thirteen aves and ten credos, 

When the thing in the tree gave a sneeze, 

And out popp’d a hand, and then three toes: 
Now, when he got out of his faint, 

He approach’d, with demeanour most humble, 
And what should he see but the saint. 

Not a copper the worse from his tumble, 

But lying all sound wind and limb. 

4. 

Says the prior, “ From whence did you com#, 

Or how got you into my garden ?” 

But the baby said nothing but mum— 

And for the priest car’d not a fardcn : 

At length, the saint open’d his gob. 

And said, “ I’m from heaven, d’ye see, sir. 

Now don’t stand there scratching your noo. 

But help ine down out of the tree, srr. 

Or I’ll soon set your convent a-blas', P 


185 



THE TABLE BOOK. 


s. 

The prior stood quite in a maze. 

To hear such an infant so queerly call. 

So, humbling himself, he gave praise 
To our lady for so great a miracle: 

Saint Giles from the bush then he took. 

And led him away to the priory; 

Where for years he stuck close to his book, 

A holie and sanctified friar, he 

Was thought by the g#od folks all round. 

6 . 

In sanctity he pass’d his days, 

Onee or twice exorcis’d !» demoniac ; 

And, to quiet his doubts and his fears. 

Applied to a flask of old Cogniac ; 

To heaven he show’d the road fair. 

And, if he saw sinner look glum or sad. 

He’d tell him to drive away care. 

And say, “ Take a swig of good rum, my lad. 
And it will soon give your soul ease." 

7. 

Tn miracles too the saint dealt. 

And some may be seen to this minute; 

At his bidding he’d make a rock melt, 

Tho’ Saint Sathanas might be in it: 

One evening when rambling out. 

He found himself stopp’d by the river. 

So he told it to turn round about. 

And let him go quietly over. 

And the river politely complied 1 

8 . 

To Butterby often he’d stray. 

And sometimes look in at the well, sir; 

And if you’ll attend to the lay. 

How it came by its virtues I’ll tell, sir: 

One morning, as wont, the saint call’d. 

And being tremendously faint then, 

He drank of the stuff - till he stall’d, 

And out spake the reverend saint thei^ 

My blessing be on thee for aye 1 

9. 

Thus saying he bent his way home. 

Now mark the event which has follow’d. 

The fount has from that time become 
A cure for sick folks—for its hallow’d: 

And many a pilgrim goes there 
From many a far distant part, sir, 

And, piously uttering a prayer. 

Blesses the saint’s oious heart, sir. 

That gave to the fount so much grace. 

10 . 

At Finchale his saintship did dwell. 

Till the devil got into the cloister, 

And left the bare walls as a shell, 

And gulp’d the fat monks like an oyster • 

8o the saint was enforced to quit. 

But swore he’d the fell legions all amuse. 

And pay back their coin every whit, 

Tho’ his hide should be flay’d like Bartholemew’s, 
And red as Saint Dunstan’s red nose. 


11 . 

Another church straight he erected. 

Which for its sanctity fam’d much is. 

Where sinners and saints are protected. 

And kept out of Belzebub’s clutches; 

And thus in the eve of his days 

He still paternosters and aves sung. 

His lungs were worn threadbare with praise, 

Till death, who slays priors, rest gave his tongne 
And sent him to sing in the spheres I 

12 . 

It would be too long to tell here 
Of how, when or where, the monks buried him 
Suffice it to say, it seems clear 
That somewhere or other they carried him. 

His odd life by death was made even. 

He popp’d off on one of Lent Sundays, 

His corpse was to miracles given, 

And his choristers sung “ De profundis 
Clamavi ad te Domine I” 

Finis coronat opus. 

Such is the extraordinary legend of saint 
Giles, which I leave the antiquaries to sir 
in judgment on, and with which I quit the 
subject of Butterby-church, wishing that 
its good bishop may long continue in 
peaceful possession of the see, and in full 
enjoyment of all the honours and revenue? 
connected therewith. 

As relating to Butterby, I may be 
allowed perhaps to mention, that this place 
has afforded considerable amusement to 
many young men of wit and humour 
About twenty years ago, the law students, 
then in Durham, instituted what they called 
the “ Butterby manor court,” and were in 
the habit of holding a sham court at a pub¬ 
lic-house there. A gentleman, who is now 
in London, and one of the most eminent 
men in the profession, used to preside as 
steward; and was attended by the happy 
and cheerful tenantry, who did suit and 
service, constituted a homage, and per¬ 
formed other acts and deeds, agreeable to 
the purpose for which they were duly and 
truly summoned, and assembled. 

Hitherto, little has been said respecting 
the personal appearance and character of 
Hut. Alderson, and therefore, without fur¬ 
ther circumvolution, I hasten to add, that 
he is fifty years of age “ and upwards,” of 
the middle size and rather corpulent, of a 
very ruddy countenance, is possessed of a 
vast fund of anecdote, and is at all times an 
agreeable and humorous companion. He 
may generally be seen parading the streets 
of Durham, as represented by my brother 
prebend. Considering his humble rank in 
society, he is well-informed; and if he has 


186 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


*ny failing, it is what has given the beauti¬ 
ful vermilion tint to that which, as it forms 
; the most prominent feature in his appear¬ 
ance, is made one of the most prominent 
features of my memoir. As a crier, I never 
liked him—his voice is too piano, and wants 
a little of the forte . 

In religion, Hut. is a stanch supporter of 
the establishment, and regularly attends di¬ 
vine service at St. Mary-le-Bow, where “ his 
reverence” is allowed an exalted seat in the 
organ gallery, in which place, but for his 
services, I fear my friend, Mr. Weathered, 

| the organist, would have difficulty in draw¬ 
ing a single tone from the instrument. His 
aversion to dissenters is tremendous, and 
i he is unsparing in his censure of those who 
| do not conform to the church; yet, notwith¬ 
standing this, both Catholics and Unitarians 
unaccountably rank amongst his prebends. 
In politics, he is a whig of the old school, 

! and abominates the radicals. At elections, 
(for he has a vote both for county and city, 
j being a leaseholder for lives, and a freeman,) 
he always supports Michael Angelo Taylor 
and Mr. Lambton. He prides himself on 
his integrity, and I believe justly, for he is 
one that will never be bought or sold; if 
thousands were offered to him to obtain his 
| vote, he would spurn the bribe, and throw 
the glittering ore in the faces of those who 
dared to insult his independent spirit. 

It may amuse the reader, if I offer the 
following as a specimen of the ridiculous 
interruptions Hut. meets with when crying. 

Three Rings — Ding dong ! ding dong ! 
ding dong ! 

Hut. To be sold by auction— 

1 Boy. Speak up ! speak up ! Hut. 

Hut. Hod your jaw—at the Queen’s 

heed in— 

2 Boy. The town of Butterby. 

Hut. I’ll smash your heed wi’ the bell— 
the Queen’s heed in the Bailya —a large 
collection of— 

3 Boy. Pews, pulpits, and organs. 

Hut. I’ll rap your canister — of valua¬ 
ble— buiks the property of— 

1 Boy. The bishop of Butterby. 

Hut. Be quiet, you scamp—of a gentle¬ 
man from Lunnon — the buiks may be 
viewed any time between the hours of one 
and three, by applying to— 

2 Boy. Tommy Sly— 

Hut. Mr. Thwaites on the premises: the 
gale to commence at seven o'clock in the 
evening prizizely. 

All. Huih! hooeh I hooeh! 


Hut. I’ll smash some o’ your heeds wi' 
the bell—I knaw thee. Jack!—mind, an* I 
doant tell thee mither noo, thou daft fule! 

This farce is usually acted every day 
in the streets of Durham; and to be truly 
enjoyed it should be witnessed. Having 
nothing more of my own to say, I shall 
conclude this sketch in the language of j 
Rousseau.—“ Voild ce que j’ai fait, ce que 
j’ai pense. J’ai dit le bien et le mal avec 
la m^me franchise. Je n’ai rien tit de mau- 
vais, rien ajout€ de bon; et s’il m’est arrive | 
d’employer quelque ornement indifferent, ! 
ce n’a jamais et6 que pour remplir un ruide 
occasionne par mon defaut de m^moire; 
j’ai pu supposer vrai ce que je savois, avoir . 
pu l’6tre jamais ce que je savoi* etre 


To show the high estimation in which j 
the above character is held by the inhabit- ' 
ants of Durham and Northumberland, a 
correspondent relates, that on Saturday I 
last a select party of gentlemen connected j 
with the above counties, and chiefly of the j 
legal and medical professions, dined at the j 
Queen’s-head tavern, Holborn; where, after ; 
the healths of the king and royal family, a 
gentleman present proposed the health of 
“ the Rev. Dr. Alderson, bishop of But¬ 
terby.” In the course of the introductory 
speech, allusion was made to Hut.’s many 
acquirements, and to his lustrous qualities 
as a living ornament of the ancient city of 
Durham. The toast was drunk amid the 
most enthusiastic applause, and a dignitary 
of *‘ Butterby-church ” returned thanks for 
the honour conferred on his exalted dio¬ 
cesan. 

March 12, 1827. 

THE DRAYMAN. 

For the Table Book. 

Lie heavy on him, earth 1 for he 
Laid many a heavy load on thee. 

Epig. 23, Christmas Treat. 

The drayman is a being distinct from 
other men, as the brewer’s horse is distinct 
from other horses—each seems adapted to 
the other’s use : the one eats abundantly of 
grains, and prospers in its traces—the other 
drinks porter by the canful, and is hardly 
able to button his jerkin. Much of a dray- 


• Lea Confessions, part i. liv. L 



187 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


man s Iite is spent with his master’s team 
and barrels. Early rising is his indispens¬ 
able duty; and, long ere the window-shut¬ 
ters of London shopkeepers are taken 
down, he, with his fellow stavesmen, are 
seen half way through the streets to the 
j vender of what is vulgarly called “ heavy 
I wet.” Woe to the patience of a crowd, 
waiting to cross the roadway, when the 
long line, in clattering gear, are passing re¬ 
view, like a troop of unyielding soldiers. 
The driver, with his whip, looks as im- 

{ rortant as a sergeant-major; equipped in 
)is coat of mail, the very pavement trem¬ 
bles with his gigantic tread.* Sometimes 
his comrades ride on the shaft and sleep, 
to the imminent risk of their lives. Arrived 
at their destination, they move a slow and 
sure pace, which indicates that “all things 
should be taken easy,” for “ the world was 
not made in a day.” 

! The cellar being the centre of gravity, 
the empty vessels are drawn out, and the 
full ones drawn in; but with as much 
science as would require Hercules himself 
to exercise, and Bacchus to improve. After 
these operations are performed, what a 
sight it is to behold the drayman at work 
over his breakfast, in the taproom if the 
weather is cold, or on a bench in view of 
a prospect, if the sunshine appears : the 
hunch of bread and meat, or a piece of 
cheese deposited in the hollow of his hand, 
which he divides into no small portions, 
are enough to pall the appetite. The 
manner in which he clenches the frothy 
pot, and conducts it to his mouth, and the 
i long draft he takes, in gurgles down his 
unshorn, summer-like throat, almost war¬ 
rant apprehensions of supply not being 
equal to demand, and consequent advance 
of price. He is an entire proof of the 
lusty quality of his master’s porter, for he 
is the largest opium-pill in the brewhouse 
dispensary. While feeding on the fat of 
the publican’s larder, his horses are shak¬ 
ing up the corn, so unfeelingly crammed 
in hair-bags, to their reeking nostrils. The 
drayman is a sort of rough give and take 
fellow ; he uses the whip in a brar.gle, and 
his sayings are sometimes, like himself, 
ather dry. When he returns to the brew! 
house, he is to be found in the stable, at 
the vat, and in the lower apartments. T 0 
guard against cold, he prefers a red night, 
cap to a Welsh wig, and takes great care c f 


* I am here reminded of an old epigram on a “ Fat 
Doctor,” in the Christmas Treat, xxxiii. 

“ When Tadloc treads the streets, the paviers cry 
‘ Ood bless you, sirl’ and lay their rammers by.” 


the grains, without making scruples. He 
is a good preparer, well versed in the ait 
of refinement—knows when his articles 
work well, and is an excellent judge of 
brown stout. At evening, as his turn re¬ 
lieves him, he takes his next day’s orders 
at the counting-house, and with clean apron 
and face, goes to his club, and sometimes 
even ventures to make a benefit speech in 
behalf of the sick members, or a disconso¬ 
late widow. Now and then, in his best 
white “ foul weather,” he treats his wife 
and nieces to “ the Wells,” or “ the Roy¬ 
alty,” taking something better than beer in 
his pocket, made to hold his “ bunch of 
fives,” or any other esteemed commodity. 
At a “ free and easy,” he sometimes “ rubs 
up,” and enjoys a “ bit of ’bacco ” out of 
the tin box, wherein he drops his half¬ 
penny before he fills; and then, like a true 
Spectator, smokes the company in a gen¬ 
teel way. If called upon for a song, be 
either complains of hoarseness, or of a bad 
memory ; but should he indulge the call of 
his Vice on his right hand, he may be 
heard fifty yards in the wind, after which 
he is “ knocked down ” with thund’rous 
applause. He shakes his collops at a good 
joke about the “ tap,” and agrees with Joe 
Miller, that 

“ Care to our coffin adds a nail no doubt, 

But every grin of laughter draws one out.” 

An old dog's-eared song-book is the com¬ 
panion to a bung-plug, a slate memo¬ 
randa, and sundry utensils, which are his 
pocket residents. He is proud to wear a 
pair of fancy garters below knee, and on 
Mondays his neckcloth and stockings show 
that he was “ clean as a new pin yester¬ 
day." Like an undertaker, he smells of 
the beer to which he is attached, and rarely 
loses sight of “ Dodd’s Sermon on Malt.” 
He ventures to play sly tricks with his 
favourite horse, and will give kick for kick 
when irritated. His language to his team 
is pure low Dutch, untranslatable, but per¬ 
fectly understood when illustrated by a cut. 
It may be said that he moves in his own 
sphere ; for, though he drives through the 
porter world, he spends much of his time 
out of the public-house, and is rarely 
te-jpse. What nature denies to others, 
custom sanctions in him, for “ he eats, 
drinks, and is merry" If a rough speci¬ 
men of an unsophisticated John Buli were 
required, I would present the drayman. 

J. R. P 


188 












the table book. 


SONNET. 

From the Spanish of Quevedo. 
For the Table Book. 

*' En el mundo naciste, no a emmendarle." 
In this wide world, beware to think, my friend. 
Thy lot is cast to change it, or amend ; 

But to perform thy part, and give thy share 
Of pitying aid ; not to subdue, but bear. 

If prudent, thou may’st know the world ; if wise. 
In virtue strong, thou may’st the world despise ; 
For good, be grateful—be to ill resign’d, 

And to the better world exalt thy mind. 

The peril of thy soul in this world fear, 

But yet th’ Almighty’s wondrous work revere; 

See all things good but man ; and chiefly see, 

V\ ith eye severe, the faults that dwell in thee. 

On them exert thine energies, and try 
Thyself to mend, ere judge the earth and sky. 


ACQUAINTANCE TABLE. 

2 Glances make 1 Bow. 

2 Bows .... 1 How d’ye do. 

6 How d’ye do’s . 1 Conversation. 

4 Conversations . . 1 Acquaintance. 


COc llopal Cable. 

Origin of 

MARKING THE KING’S DISHES 

WITH THE COOKS’ NAMES. 

King George II. was accustomed every 
other year to visit his German dominions 
with the greater part of the officers of his 
household, and especially those belonging 
to the kitchen. Once on his passage at 
sea, his first cook was so ill with the sea¬ 
sickness, that he could not hold up his 
head to dress his majesty’s dinner; this 
being told to the king, he was exceedingly 
sorry for it, as he was famous for making a 
Rhenish soup, which his majesty was very 
fond of; he therefore ordered inquiry to 
be made among the ass ant-cooks, if any 
of them could make the bove soup. One 
named Weston (father ot Tom Weston, the 
player) undertook it, and so pleased the 
king, that he declared it was full as good 
as that made by the first cook. Soon after 
the king’s return to England, the first cook 
died ; when the king was informed of it, 
he said, that his steward of the household 
always appointed his cooks, but that he 
would now name one for himself, and there¬ 
fore asking if one Weston was still in the 


kitchen, and being answered that he was, 
“ That man,” said he, “ shall be my first 
cook, for he makes most excellent Rhenish 
soup.” This favour begot envy among all 
the servants, so that, when any dish was 
found fault with, they used to say it was 
Weston’s dressing: the king took notice 
of this, and said to the servants, it was 
very extraordinary, that every dish he dis¬ 
liked should happen to be Weston’s; “in 
future,” said he, “ let every dish be marked 
with the name of the cook that makes it.” 
By this means the king detected their arts, 
and from that time Weston's dishes pleased 
him most. The custom has continued ever 
since, and is still practised at the king’s 
table. 


i 


MONEY —WEIGHTS AND 
MEASURES. 

Pound, is derived from the Latin word 
pondus. 

Ounce, from nncia, or twelfth, being 
the twelfth of a pound troy. 

Inch, from the same word, being the 
twelfth of a foot. 

Yard, from the Saxon word gyrd , or 
girth, being originally the circumference 
of the body, until Henry I. decreed that it 
should be the length of his arm. 

Halfpenny and Farthing. In 1060 , 
when William the Conqueror began to 
reign, the Penny, or sterling, was cast, 
with a deep cross, so that it might be 
broken in half, as a HALF-pennv, or in 
quarters, for .Fourthings, or Farthings, as 
we now call them. 


OLD MUG-IIOUSES. 

The internal economy of a mug-house in 
the reign of George I. is thus described by 
a foreign traveller :— 

At the mug-house club inLong-acre,where 
on Wednesdays a mixture of gentlemen, 
lawyers, and tradesmen meet in a great 
room, a grave old gentleman in his grey 
hairs, and nearly ninety years of age, is 
their president, and sits in an armed chair 
some steps higher than the rest. A harp 
plays all the while at the lower end of the 
room; and now and then some one of the 
company rises and entertains the rest with 
a song, (and by the by some are good mas¬ 
ters.) Here is nothing drank but ale, and 
every gentleman chalks on the table as it is 
brought in : every one also, as in a coffee¬ 
house, retires when he pleases. 

N. B In the time of the parliament’* 


189 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


sitting, there are clubs composed of the 
members of the commons, where most affairs 
are digested before they are brought into 
the house. 


“ AS DRUNK AS DAVID’S SOW.” 

A few years ago, one David Lloyd, a 
Welchman, who kept an inn at Hereford, 
had a living sow with six legs, which occa¬ 
sioned great resort to the house. David also 
had a wife who was much addicted to 
drunkenness, and for which he used fre¬ 
quently to bestow on her an admonitory drub¬ 
bing. One day, having taken an extra cup 
which operated in a powerful manner, and 
dreading the usual consequences, she open¬ 
ed the stye-door, let out David’s sow, and 
lay down in its place, hoping that a short 
unmolested nap would sufficiently dispel 
the fumes of the liquor. In the mean time, 
however, a company arrived to view the so 
much talked of animal; and Davy, proed 
of his office, ushered them to the stye, ex¬ 
claiming, “ Did any of you ever see such a 
creature before?”—“ Indeed, Davy/’ said 
one of the farmers, “ I never before saw a 
sow so drunk as thine in all my life!”— 
Hence the term “ as drunk as David’s 
sow.” 


SINGULAR RETURN. 

For the Table Book. 

An inhabitant of the parish of Clerken- 
well being called upon, a short time ago, 
to fill up the blanks of a printed circular 
under the following heads, in pursuance of 
an act of parliament passed in the sixth 
yea* of his present majesty’s reign, entitled 
“ An Act for consolidating and amending 
the Laws relative to Jurors and Juries,” 
sent in his return as follows :— 

“ Street.” 

Baker-street — badly paved — rascally 
ighted—with one old woman of a watch¬ 
man. 

“ Title, Quality, Calling, or 
Business.” 

No title —no quality —no calling , except 
when my wife and sixteen children call for 
bread and butter—and as for business , I 
have none. Times are bad, and there’s no 
business to be done. 

u Nature of Qualification ; whether 

Freehold, Copyhold, or Leasehold 

Property.” 


No freehold property—no copyhold pro¬ 
perty—no leasehold property. In fact, no j 
property at all! I live by my wits , as one j 
half of the world live, and am therefore 
NOT qualified. 

Gaspard. 


Suburban 

i. 

ISLINGTON. 

Thy fields, fair Islington 1 begin to beat 
Unwelcome buildings, and unseemly piles ; 

The streets are spreading, and the Lord knows where 
Improvement’s hand will spare the neighb’ring stiles 
The rural blandishments of Maiden Lane 
Are ev’ry day becoming less and less, 

While kilns and lime roads force us to complain 
Of nuisances time only can suppress. 

A few more years, and Copenhagen House 
Shall cease to charm the tailor and the snob; 

And where attornies’ clerks in smoke carouse. 
Regardless wholly of to-morrow’s job. 

Some Claremont Row, or Prospect-Place shall • 

Or terrace, p’rhaps, misnomer’d Paradise ! 

II. 

HAGBUSH LANE. 

Poor Haobush Lane ! thy ancient charms are going 
To rack and ruin fast as they can go; 

And where but lately many a flow’r was growing. 
Nothing shall shortly be allow’d to grow ! 

Thy humble cottage, where as yet they sell 
No “ nut-brown ale,” or luscious Stilton cheese— 
Where dusky gipsies in the summer dwell. 

And donkey drivers fight their dogs at ease. 

Shall feel ere long the lev’lling hand of taste, 

If that be taste which darkens ev’ry field ; 

Thy garden too shall likewise be displac’d. 

And no more “ cabbage ” to its master yield; 

But, in its stead, some new Vauxhall perchance 
Shall rise, renown’d for pantomime and dance 1 

III. 

HIGHGATE. 

Already, Highqate I to thy skirts they bear 
Bricks, mortar, timber, in no small degree. 

And thy once pure, exhilarating air 
Is growing pregnant with impurity ! 

The would-be merchant has his “ country box ” 

A few short measures from the dusty road, 

Where friends on Sunday talk about the stocks 
Or praise the beauties of his “ neat abode 
One deems the wall-flow’r garden, in the front, 
Unrivall’d for each aromatic bed ; 

Another fancies that his old sow’s grunt 
“ Is so much like the country,” and w.. f.+d 
Of living longer down in Crooked lane. 

Resolves, at once, to “ ruralize ” again t 

Islington. J. fi 







































JHKpbft'VS ®MI, feampsteatr. 


The verdant lawns which rise above the rill 
Are not unworthy Virgil’s past’ral song. 


On the west side of Hampstead, in the 
middle of one of the pleasant meadows 
called Shepherd’s fields, at the left-hand of 
the footpath going from Belsize-house to¬ 
wards the church, this arch, embedded above 
and around by the green turf, forms a con¬ 
duit-head to a beautiful spring: the specific 
gravity of the fluid, which yields several 
tuns a day, is little more than that of dis¬ 
tilled water. Hampstead abounds in other 
springs, but they are mostly impregnated 
with mineral substances. The water of 
“ Shepherd’s well,” therefore, is in continual 
request, and those who cannot otherwise 
conveniently obtain it, are supplied through 
a few of the villagers, who make a scanty 
living by carrying it to houses for a penny 
a Dail-full. There is no carriage-way to 


the spot, and these poor things have mucn 
hard work for a very little money. 

I first knew this spring in my childhood, 
when domiciled with a relation, who then j 
occupied Belsize-house, by being allowed to 
go with Jeff the under-gardener, whose 
duty it was to fetch water from the spring. 
As I accompanied him , so a tame magpie 
accompanied me: Jeff slouched on with 
his pails and yoke, and my ardour to pre¬ 
cede was restrained by fear of some if 
happening to Mag if I did not .ook after 
the rogue. He was a wayward bird, 
the first to follow wherever I went, but 
always according to his own fashion; he 
never put forth his speed till he found him- j 
self a long way behind, so that Jeff always 
led the van, and Mag always brought up 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


llil 


0 























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


tne rear, making up for long lagging by 
long hopping. On one occasion, however, 
as soon as we got out of the side-door from 
the out-house yard into Belsize-lane, Mag 
bounded across the road, and over the 
wicket along the meadows, with quick and 
long hops, throwing “ side-long looks be¬ 
hind,” as if deriding my inability to keep 
up with him, till he reached the well : there' 
we both waited for Jeff, who for once was 
last, and, on whose arrival, the bird took his 
station on the crown of the arch, looking 
alternately down to the well and up at Jeff 
It was a sultry day in a season of drought, 
and, to Jeff's surprise, the water was not 
easily within reach ; while he was making 
efforts with the bucket, Mag seemed deeply 
interested in the experiment, and flitted 
| about with tiresome assiduity. In a moment 
|Jeff rose in a rage, execrated poor Mag, 
jand vowed cruel vengeance on him. On 
our way home the bird preceded, and Jeff, 
to my continual alarm in behalf of Mag, 
several times stopped, and threw stones at 
him with great violence. It was not till 
we were housed, that the man’s anger 
was sufficiently appeased to let him ac¬ 
quaint me with its cause: and then I 
learned that Mag was a “wicked bird,” 
who knew of the low water before he set 
out, and was delighted with the mischief. 
From that day, Jeft’ hated him, and tried to 
maim him : the creature’s sagacity in elud¬ 
ing his brutal intent, he imputed to dia¬ 
bolical knowledge; and, while my estima¬ 
tion of Jeff as a good-natured fellow was 
considerably shaken, I acquired a secret 
fear of poor Mag. This was my first ac¬ 
quaintance with the superstitious and dan¬ 
gerous feelings of ignorance. 

The water of Shepherd’s well is remark¬ 
able for not being subject to freeze. There 
is another spring sometimes resorted to near 
Kilburn, but this and the ponds in the Vale 
of Health are the ordinary sources of public 
supply to Hampstead. The chief incon¬ 
venience of habitations in this delightful vil¬ 
lage is the inadequate distribution of good 
water. Occasional visitants, for the sake 
of health, frequently sustain considerable 
injury by the insalubrity of private springs, 
and charge upon the fluid they breathe the 
mischiefs they derive from the fluid they 
drink. The localities of the place afford 
almost every variety of aspect and temper¬ 
ature that invalids require : and a constant 
sufficiency of wholesome water might be 
easily obtained by a few simple arrange¬ 
ments. 


#arrtrk f3IapS. 

No. X. 

[From the “ Fair Maid of the Exchange,” 
a Comedy, by Thomas Heywood, 
1637-J 

Cripple offers to fit Frank Golding with 
ready made Love Epistles. 

Franh. Of thy own writing ? 

Crip. My own, I assure you, Sir. 

Frank. Faith, thou hast robb’d some sonnet-book or 
other. 

And now would’st make me think they are thy own. 

Crip. Why, think’st thou that I cannot write a Letter, 
Ditty, or Sonnet, with judicial phrase. 

As pretty, pleasing, and patnetical. 

As the best Ovid-imitating dunce 
In the whole town ? 

Frank. I think thou can’st not. 

Crip. Yea, I’ll swear I cannot. 

Yet, Sirrah, I could coney-catch the world, 

Make myself famous for a sudden wit. 

And be admired for my dexterity, 

Were I disposed. 

Frank. I prithee, how ? 

Crip. Why, thus. There lived a Poet in this town, 
(If we may term our modern writers Poets), 
Sharp-witted, bitter-tongued ; his pen, of steel; 

His ink was temper’d with the biting juice 
And extracts of the bitterest weeds that grew 
He never wrote but when the elements 
Of tire and water tilted in his brain. 

This fellow, ready to give up is ghost 
To Lucia’s bosom, did bequeath to me 
His Library, which was just nothing 
But rolls, and scrolls, and bundles of cast wit. 

Such as durst never visit PauFs Church Yard. 

Amongst ’em all I lighted on a quire 

Or two of paper, fill’d with Songs and Ditties, 

And here and there a hungry Epigram ; 

These I reserve to my own proper use. 

And Pater-noster-like have conn’d them all. 

I could now, when I am in company. 

At ale-house, tavern, or an ordinary, 

Upon a theme make an extemporal ditty 
(Or one at least should seem extemporal), 

Out of the abundance of this Legacy, 

That all would judge it, and report it too. 

To be the infant of a sudden wit. 

And then were I an admirable fellow. 

Frank. This were a piece of cunning. 

Crip. I could do more ; for I could make enquiry. 
Where the best-witted gallants use to dine, 

Follow them to the tavern, and there sit 
In the next room with a calve’s head and brimstone, 
And over-hear their talk, observe their humours, 
Collect their jests, put them into a play, 

And tire them too with payment to behold 
What I have filch’d from them. This I could do 


Murch 19, 1827. 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


But O for shame that man should so arraign 
Their own fee-simple wits for verbal theft! 

Yet men there be that have done this and that. 
And more by much more than the most of them. * 


After this Specimen of the pleasanter 
vein of Heywood, I am tempted to extract 
some lines from his “ Hierarchie of Angels, 
1634 ;” not strictly as a Dramatic Poem, 
but because the passage contains a string 
of names, all but that of fVatson, his con¬ 
temporary Dramatists. He is complaining 
in a mood half serious, half comic, of the 
disrespect which Poets in his own times 
meet with from the world, compared with 
the honors paid them by Antiquity. Then 
they could afford them three or four sono¬ 
rous names, and at full length; as to Ovid, 
the addition of Publius Naso Sulmensis ; 
to Seneca, that of Lucius Annceas Cordu- 
bensis ; and the like. A T oiv, says he, 

Our modern Poets to that pass are driven. 

Those names are curtail’d which they first had given ; 
And, as we wish’d to have their memories drown’d, 
'Ve scarcely can afford them half their sound. 

Greene, who had in both Academies ta’en 
Degree of Master, yet could never gain 
To be call’d more than Robin : who, had he 
Protest ought save the Muse, served, and been free 
After a sev’n years prenticeship, might have 
(With credit too) gone Robert to his grave. 

Marlowe, renown’d for his rare art and wit. 

Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit; 

Although his Hero and Leander did 

Merit addition rather. Famous Kid 

Was call’d but Tom. Tom Watson; though he wrote 

Able to make Apollo’s self to dote 

Upon his Muse; for all that he could strive. 

Yet never could to his full name arrive. 

Tom Nash (in his time of no small esteem) 

Could not a second syllable redeem. 

Excellent Beaumont, in the foremost rank 
Of the rarest wits, was never more than Frank. 
Mellifluous Shakspeare, whose inchanting quill 
Commanded mirth or pas.sion, was but Will ; 


* Thv full title of this Play is “ The Fair Maid of 
the Exchange, with the humours of the Cripple of Fen- 
church.” The above Satire against some Dramatic 
Plagiarists of the time, is put into the mouth of the 
Cripple, who is an excellent fellow, and the Hero of the 
Comedy. Of his humour this extract is a sufficient 
specimen ; but he is described (albeit a tradesman, yet 
wealthy withal) with heroic qualities of mind and 
body, the latter of which he evinces by rescuing his 
Mistress (the Fair Maid) from three robbers by the 
main force of one crutch lustily applied; and the 
former by his foregoing the advantages which this 
action gained him in her good opinion, and bestowing 
his wit and finesse in procuring for her a husband, in 
the person of his friend Golding, more worthy of her 
beauty, than he could conceive his own maimed and 
halting limbs to be. It would require some boldness in 
a dramatist now-a-days to exhibit such a Character , 
and some luck in finding a sufficient Actor, who would 
be willing to personate the infirmities, together with 
(he virtues, of the Noble Cripple. 


And famous Jonson, though his learned pen 
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben. 

Fletcher, and Webster, of that learned pack 
None of the meanest, neither was but Jack ; 

Decker but Tom ; nor May, nor Middleton ; 

And he’s now but Jack Ford, that once were John. 

Possibly our Poet was a little sore, that 
this contemptuous curtailment of their Bap¬ 
tismal Names was chiefly exercised upon 
his Poetical Brethren of the Drama. We 
hear nothing about Sam Daniel, or Ned 
Spenser, in his catalogue. The familiarity 
of common discourse might probably take 
the greater liberties with the Dramatic 
Poets, as conceiving of them as more upon 
a level with the Stage Actors. Or did their 
greater publicity, and popularity in con¬ 
sequence, fasten these diminutives upon 
them out of a feeling of love and kindness; 
as we say Harry the Fifth, rather than 
Henry, when we would express good will? 
—as himself says, in those reviving words 
put into his mouth by Shakspeare, where 
he would comfort and confirm his doubting 
brothers: 

Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, 

But Harry Harry! 

And doubtless Heywood had an indistinct 
conception of this truth, when (coming to 
his own name), with that beautiful retract¬ 
ing which is natural to one that, not Sati¬ 
rically given, has wandered a little out of 
his way into something recriminative, he 
goes on to say : 

Nor speak I this, that any here exprest 
Should think themselves less worthy than the rest 
Whose names have their full syllables and sound ; 

Or that Frank, Kit, or Jack, are the least wound 
Unto their fame and merit. I fbr my part 
(Think others what they please) accept that heart. 
Which courts my love in most familiar phrase; 

And that it takes not from my pains or praise. 

If any one to me so bluntly come: 

I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom. 

C. L 


ERRATA. 

Garrics. Plays, No. IX. 

Col. 357. Last line but two of the last 
extract— 

“ Blushing forth golden hair and glorious red ”— 

a sun-bright line spoiled :— 

Blush for Blushing. 

Last line but two of the extract preced¬ 
ing the former, (the end of the old man’s 
speech)— 

“ Restrained liberty attain’d is sweet,” 

should have a full stop. 


193 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


These little blemishes kill such delicate 
things: prose feeds on grosser punctualities. 

Will the reader be pleased to make the 
above corrections with a pen, and allow 
the fact of illness in excuse for editorial 
mischance ? 

* 


SNUFF AND TOBACCO. 

For the Table Book. 

In the year 1797 was circulated the fol¬ 
lowing :— 

Proposals for Publishing by Subscrip¬ 
tion, a History of Snuff and Tobacco, 
in two Volumes. 

Vol. I. to contain a Description of the 
Nose—Size of Noses—A Digression on 
Roman Noses—Whether long Noses are 
symptomatic—Origin of Tobacco—Tobac¬ 
co first manufactured into Snuff—Enquiry 
who took the first Pinch—Essay on Sneez¬ 
ing—Whether the ancients sneezed, and at 
what—Origin of Pocket-handkerchiefs— 
Discrimination between Snuffing and tak¬ 
ing Snuff; the former applied only to Can- 
i dies — Parliamentary Snufftakers — Trou- 
j bles in the time of Charles the First, as con¬ 
nected with Smoking. 

Vol. II. Snufftakers in the Parliamen¬ 
tary army—Wit at a Pinch—Oval Snuff¬ 
boxes first used by the Round-heads— 
Manufacture of Tobacco Pipes—Disserta¬ 
tion on Pipe Clay—State of Snuff during 
the Commonwealth—The Union—Scotch 
Snuff first introduced—found very pungent 
and penetrating—Accession of George the 
Second—Snuff-boxes then made of Gold 
and Silver — George the Third—Scotch 
Snuff first introduced at Court—The Queen 
—German Snuffs in fashion—Female Snuff¬ 
takers—Clean Tuckers, &c. See.—Index 
and List of Subscribers. 

In connection with this subject I beg 
to mention an anecdote, related to 
me by an old Gentleman who well re¬ 
membered the circumstance :— 

“ When every Shopkeeper had a Sign 
hanging out before his door, a Dealer in 
Snuff and Tobacco on Fish Street Hill, car¬ 
ried on a large trade, especially in To¬ 
bacco, for ms Shop was greatly frequented 
by Saiiors from the Ships in the River. In 
the course of time, a Person of the name of 
Farr opened a Shop nearly opposite, and 
hung out his Sign inscribed ‘The best To¬ 
bacco by Farr. 7 This (like the Shoemaker’s 
inscription, ‘ Adam Strong Shoemaker/ so 


well known) attracted the attention of the 
Sailors, who left the old Shop to buy ‘ th? 
best Tobacco by far/ The old Shopkeeper 
observing that his opponent obtained mucc 
custom by his Sign, had a new one put up 
at his Door inscribed ‘ Far better Tobacco 
than the best Tobacco by Farr 7 This had 
its effect; his trade returned, and finally 
his opponent was obliged to give up busi¬ 
ness/' 

W. P. 


THE SMOKER’S SONG. 

For the Table Book. 

For thy sake, Tobacco, I 
Would do any thing but die ! 

Chaeles Lame. 

1 . 

There is a tiny weed, man. 

That grows far o’er the sea man; 

The juice of which does more bewitch 
Than does the gossip’s tea, man. 

2 . 

Its name is call’d tobacco, 

’Tis used near and far man ; 

The car-man chews—but I will choose 
The daintier cigar, man. 

3 . 

’Tis dainty ev’n in shape, man— 

So round, so smooth, so long, man 1 

If you’re a churl, ’twill from you hurl 
Your spleen—you’ll sing a song, manl 

4 . 

If you will once permit it 
To touch your swelling lip, man, 

You soon shall see ’twill sweeter be 
Than what the bee doth sip, man! 

5 . 

If e’er you are in trouble. 

This will your trouble still, man. 

On sea and land ’tis at command, 

An idle hour to kill, man! 

6 . 

And if the blind god, Cupid, 

Should strike you to the heart, man. 

Take up a glass, and toast your lass— 

And—ne’er from smoking part, man! 

7. 

And also if you’re married, 

In Hymen’s chains fast bound, man ; 

To plague your wife out of her life. 

Smoke still the whole year round, man! 

8 . 

How sweet ’tis of an evening 
When wint’ry winds do Mow, man. 

As ’twere in spite, to take a pipe. 

And smoke by th’ fire’s glow, man ! 


194 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


9 . 

iho sailor in his ship, man, 

'Vhen wildly rolls the wave, man, 

His pipe will smoke, and crack his joka 
Aoovc his yawning grave, man l 

10 . 

The soldier, in the tavern, 

Talks of the battle’s roar, man ; 

With pipe in hand, he gives command. 

And thus he lives twice o’er man 1 

11 . 

All classes in this world, man. 

Have each their own enjoyment. 

But with a pipe, they’re all alike— 

’Tis every one’s employment! 

12 . 

Of all the varous pleasures 
. That on this earth there are, man. 

There’s nought to me affords such glee 
As a pipe or sweet cigar, man! 

O. N. Y. 


©Hj Customs* anti iftamierd* 

By JOHN AUBREY, 1678 

Ex MS. Coll. Asiimol. Mus. OxroitD. 

Education. 

There were very few free-schools in 
England before the Reformation. Youth 
were generally taught Latin in the monas¬ 
teries, and young women had their educa¬ 
tion not at Hackney, as now, scilicit, anno 
1678, but at nunneries, where they learnt 
needle-work, confectionary, surgery, physic, 
(apothecaries and surgeons being at that 
time very rare,) writing, drawing, &c. Old 
Jackquar, now living, has often seen from 
his house the nuns of St. Mary Kingston, 
in Wilts, coming forth into the Nymph Hay 
with their rocks and wheels to spin, some¬ 
times to the number of threescore and ten, 
all whom were not nuns, but young girls 
sent there for their education. 

Chimneys. 

Anciently, before the Reformation, ordi¬ 
nary men’s houses, as copyholders, and the 
like, had no chimneys, but flues like louver- 
holes ; some of them were in being when I 

was a boy. 

Painted Cloths. 

In the halls and parlours of great houses 
were wrote texts of Scripture on the paint¬ 
ed cloths. 

Libels. 

The lawyers say, that, before the time of 
king Henry VUE, one shall hardly And 


an action on the case as for slander, &c 
once in a year, quod nota. 

Christmas. 

Before the last civil wars, in gentlemen’s 
houses at Christmas, the first dish that was 
brought to the table was a boar’s head 
with a lemon in his mouth. At Queen’s 
College in Oxford they still retain this 
custom ; the bearer of it brings it into the 
hall, singing to an old tune an old Latin 
rhyme, “ Caput apri defero,” &c. The first 
dish that was brought up to the table on 
Easter-day was a red herring riding away 
on horseback, i. e. a herring ordered by 
the cook something after the likeness of a 
man on horseback, set in a corn salad. 

Easter. 

The custom of eating a gammon of bacon 
at Easter, which is still kept up in many 
parts of England, was founded on this, viz 
to show their abhorrence to Judaism at that 
solemn commemoration of our Lord’s 
resurrection. In the Easter holydays was 
the clerk’s ale for his private benefit, and 
the solace of the neighbourhood. 

Salutations. 

The use of “ Your humble servant” 
came first into England on the marriage ol 
queen Mary, daughter of Henry IV. ol 
France, which is derived from Votre trh 
humble serviteur. The usual salutation 
before that time was, “God keep you!” 
“ God be with you!” and among the vul¬ 
gar, “ How dost do?” with a thump on the 
shoulder. 

Court Rudeness. 

Till this time the court itself was un¬ 
polished and unmannered. King James's 
court was so far from being civil to wo¬ 
men, that the ladies, nay the queen herself, 
could hardly pass by the king’s apartment 
without receiving some affront. 

Travellers in France. 

At the parish priests’ houses in France, 
especially in Languedoc, the table-cloth 
is on the board all day long, and ready foi 
what is in the house to be put thereon for 
strangers, travellers, friars, and pilgrims; 
so ’twas, I have heard my grandfather say, 
in his grandfather’s time. 

Private Heralds. 

Heretofore noblemen and gentlemen oi 
fair estates had their herald-s, who wore 
their coat of arms at Christmas, and at 
other solemn times, and cried “ Largesse” 
thrice 


195 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


i At Tomarton, in Gloucestershire, an¬ 
ciently the seat of the Rivers, is a dungeon 
thirteen or fourteen feet deep; about four 
feet high are iron rings fastened to the 
wall, which was probably to tie offending 
villains to, as all lords of manors had this 
power over their villains,(or soecage tenants,) 
and had all of them no doubt such places 
for their punishment. It is well known, 
all castles had dungeons, and so I believe 
had monasteries, for they had often within 
themselves power of life and death 

In days of yore, lords and gentlemen 
lived in the country like petty kings ; had 
jura regalia belonging to their seigniories, 
had their castles and boroughs, had gallows 
within their liberties, where they could try, 
condemn, and execute. Never went to 
London but in parliament-time, or once a 
year to do their homage to the king. 
They always ate in gothic halls, at the high 
table or oreille, (which is a little room at 
the upper end of the hall, where stands a 
table,) with the folks at the side-tables. The 
meat was served up by watchwords. 
Jacks are but of late invention. The poor 
boys did turn the spits, and licked the 
dripping for their pains. The beds of the 
rnen-servants and retainers were in the 
hall, as now in the grand or privy chamber. 

Here in the hall, the mumming and the 
j loaf-stealing, and other Christmas sports, 

! were performed. 

The hearth was commonly in the middle, 
whence the saying, “ Round about our 
coal-fire.” 

A neat-built chapel, and a spacious hall, 
were all the rooms of note, the rest more 
small. 

Private Armories. 

Every baron and gentleman of estate 
kept great horses for men at arms. Some 
had their armories sufficient to furnish out 
some hundreds of men. 

Justices' Halls . 

The halls of the justices of peace were 
dreadful to behold ; the screen w’as gar¬ 
nished with corselets and helmets gaping 
with open mouths, with coats of mail, 
lances, pikes, halberds, brown bills, bat- 
terdastors, and buckles. 

Inns. 

Public inns were rare. Travellers were 
entertained at religious houses for three 
days together, if occasion served. 

Gentry Meetings. 

The meeting of the gentry were not at 
I taverns, but in the fields or forests, with 


hawks and hounds, and their bugle-horns 
in silken bawderies. 

Hawking. 

In the last age every gentleman-like 
man kept a sparrow-hawk, and the priest 
a hobby, as dame Julian Berners teaches 
us, (who wrote a treatise on field-sports, 
temp. Henry VI.:) it was a divertisement 
for young gentlewomen to manne sparrow- 
hawks and merlines. 

Church-houses — Poor-rates. 

Before the Reformation there were no 
poor’s rates; the charitable doles given at 
religious houses, and church-ale in every 
parish, did the business. In every parish 
there was a church-house, to which be¬ 
longed spits, pots, crocks, &c. for dressing 
provision. Here the housekeepers met 
and were merry, and gave their charity. 
Hie young people came there too, and had 
dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c. 
Mr. A. Wood assures me, there were few 
or no alms-houses before the time of king 
Henry VIII.; that at Oxford, opposite to 
Christ church, is one of the most ancient in 
England. In every church was a poor 
man’s box, and the like at great inns. 

In these times, besides the jollities 
above-mentioned, they had their pilgrim¬ 
ages to several shrines, as to Walsingham, 
Canterbury, Glastonbury, Bromholm, &c. 
Then the crusades to the holy wars were 
magnificent and splendid, and gave rise to 
the adventures of the knight-errant and 
romances ; the solemnity attending proces¬ 
sions in and about churches, and the per¬ 
ambulations in the fields, were great diver¬ 
sions also of those times. 

Glass Windows. 

Glass windows, except in churches and 
gentlemen’s houses, were rare before the 
time of Henry VIII. In my own remem¬ 
brance, before the civil wars, copyholders 
and poor people had none. 

Men's Coats. 

About ninety years ago, noblemen’s and 
gentlemen’s coats were of the bedels and 
yeomen of the guards, i. e. gathered at 
the middle. The benchers in the inns of 
court yet retain that fashion in the make of 
their gowns. 

Church-building. 

Captain Silas Taylor says, that ;n days | 
of yore, when a church was to be built, they 


196 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


watched and prayed on the vigil of the 
dedication, and took that point of the 
horizon where the sun arose for the east, 
which makes that variation, so that few 
stand true, except those built between the 
two equinoxes. I have experimented some 
churches, and have found the line to point 
to that part of the horizon where the sun 
rises on the day of that saint to whom the 
church was dedicated. 

Before the wake, or feast of the dedi- 
j cation of the church, they sat up all night 
fasting and praying, (viz.) on the eve of 
the wake. 

New Moon. 

In Scotland, especially among the High¬ 
landers, the women make a courtesy to 
the new moon ; and our English women in 
this country have a touch of this, some of 
them sitting astride on a gate or style the 
first evening the new moon appears, and 
say, “ A fine moon, God bless her!” The 
like I observed in Herefordshire. 

Husbandry — Shepherds. 

The Britons received the knowledge of 
husbandry from the Romans ; the foot and 
the acie, which we yet use, is the nearest 
to them. In our west country, (and I be¬ 
lieve so in the north,) they give no wages 
to the shepherd, but he has the keeping so 
many sheep with his master’s flock. Plau¬ 
tus hints at this in his Asinaria, act 3, 
scene 1, “ etiam Opilio,” &c. 

Architecture. 

The Normans brought with them into 
England civility and building, which, 
though it was gothic, was yet magnificent. 

Mr. Dugdale told me, that, about the 
time of king Henry III., the pope gave a 
bull, or patent, to a company of Italian 
architects, to travel up and down Europe 
to build churches. 

Trumpets — Sheriffs' Trumpets. 

Upon occasion of bustling in those days, 
great lords sounded their trumpets, and 
summoned those that held under them. 
Old sir Walter Long, of Draycot, kept a 
trumpeter, rode with thirty servants and re¬ 
tainers. Hence the sheriffs’ trumpets at 
this day. 

Younger Brothers. 

No younger brothers were to betake 
themselves to trades, but were churchmen 
or "Stainers to great men. 


Learning , and learned Men. 

From the time of Erasmus till anout 
twenty years last past, the learning was 
downright pedantry. The conversation and 
habits of those times were as starched as 
their bands and square beards, and gravity 
was then taken for wisdom. The doctors 
in those days were but old boys, when 
quibbles passed for wit, even in their ser¬ 
mons. 

Gentry and their Children. 

The gentry and citizens he' 1 little learn¬ 
ing of any kind, and their way of breeding 
up their children was suitable to the rest. 
They were as severe to their children as 
their schoolmasters, and their schoolmas¬ 
ters as masters of the house of correction : 
the child perfectly loathed the sight of his 
parents as the slave his torture. 

Gentlemen of thirty and forty years old 
were to stand like mutes and fools bare¬ 
headed before their parents; and the 
daughters (grown women) were to stand at 
the cupboard-side during the whole time of 
her proud mother’s visit, unless (as the 
fashion was) leave was desired forsooth 
that a cushion should be given them to 
kneel upon, brought them by the serving- 
man, after they had done sufficient penance 
in standing. 

The boys (I mean the young fellow) had j 
their foreheads turned up and stiffened 
with spittle : they were to stand mannerly 
forsooth thus, the foretop ordered as before, 
with one hand at the bandstring, and the 
other behind. 

Fans. 

The gentlewomen had prodigious fans, 
as is to be seen in old pictures, like that in¬ 
strument which is used to drive feathers, 
and it had a handle at least half a yard 
long; with these the daughters were often¬ 
times corrected, (sir Edward Coke, lord 
chief justice, rode the circuit with such a 
fan ; sir William Dugdale told me he was 
an eye-witness of it. The earl of Man¬ 
chester also used such a fan,) but fathers 
and mothers slashed their daughters in the 
time of their besom discipline, when they 
were perfect women. 

University Flogging. 

At Oxford (and I believe at Cambridge; 
the rod was frequently used by the tutors 
and deans ; and Dr. Potter, of Trinity col¬ 
lege, I knew right well, whipped his pupil 
with his sword by his side, when he came 
to take his leave of him to go to the inns ol 
court., 













THE TABLE BOOK. 



©Dung iambs! to Sell. 

Young lambs to sell! young lambs to sell 
If I’d as much money as I could tell. 

I’d not come here with lambs to sell I 
Doilv and Molly, Richard and Nell, 

Buy my young lambs, and I’ll use you well! 


This is a “ London cry ” at the present 
time: the engraving represents the crier, 
William Liston, from a drawing for which 
he purposely stood. 

This “public character” was born in the 
Gallowgate in the city of Glasgow. He 
became a soldier in the waggon-train, 
commanded by colonel Hamilton, and 
served under the duke of York in Holland, 
where, on the 6th of October, 1799, he lost 
his right arm and left leg, and his place in 
the army. His misfortunes thrust distinc¬ 
tion upon him. From having been a pri¬ 
vate in the ranks, where he would have re¬ 


mained a single undistinguishable cipher 0, 
amongst a row of ciphers 000000000 
he now makes a figure in the world ; and is 
perhaps better known throughout England 
than any other individual of his order in 
society, for he has visited almost every 
town with “young lambs to sell.” He 
has a wife and four children ; the latter are 
constantly employed in making the “young 
lambs,” with white cotton wool fcr fleeces, 
spangled with Dutch gilt, the head of flour 
paste, red paint on the cheeks, two jet 
black spots for eyes, horns of twisted shin • 
ing tin, legs to correspond, and pink tape 


198 








































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


tied round the neck for a graceful collar. 
A full basket of these, and his song-like 
cry, attract the attention of the juvenile 
population, and he contrives to pick up a 
living, notwithstanding the “ badness of the 
times." The day after last Christmas-day, 
his cry in Covent-garden allured the stage- 
manager to purchase four dozen of “ young 
lambs,” and at night they were “ brought 
out” at that theatre, in the basket of a 
performer who personated their old pro- 
orietor, and cried so as to deceive the 
younger part of the audience into a belief 
ihat he was their real favourite of the streets. 

I remember the first crier of “ young 
.arnbs to sell 1” He was a maimed sailor ; 
and with him originated the manufacture. 
If I am not mistaken, this man, many 
years after I had ceased to be a purchaser 
of his ware, was guilty of some delin¬ 
quency, for which he forfeited his life : his 
cry was 

Young lambs to sell! young lambs to sell! 

Two for a penny young lambs to sell 1 
Two for a penny young lambs to sell— 

Two for a penny young lambs to sell I 
If I’d as much money as I could tell, 

I wouldn’t cry young lambs to sell! 

Young lambs to sell—young lambs to sell— 
Two for a penny young lambs to sell! 

Young lambs to se—e—11, 

Young la—a—mbs to sell! 


Though it is five and thirty years ago 
since I heard the sailor’s musical “cry,” it 
still sings in my memory ; it was a tenor 
of modulated harmonious tune, till, in the 
last line but one, it became a thorough 
bass, and rolled off at the close with a loud 
swell that filled urchin listeners with awe 
and admiration. During this chant his 
head was elevated, and he gave his full 
I voice, and apparently his looks, to the 
I winds; but the moment he concluded, and 
! when attention was yet rivetted, his ad¬ 
dress became particular: his persuasive 
eve and jocular address flashed round the 
circle of “ my little masters and mistresses, 
and his hand presented a couple of his 
snow white “ fleecy charge, ’ dabbled in 
gold, “ two for a penny !” nor did he re¬ 
sume his song till ones and twos were in 
the possession of probably every child who 
had a halfpenny or penny at command. 

The old sailor’s “ young lambs” were only 
half the cost of the poor soldier’s. It may 
be doubted whether the materials of their 
composition have doubled in price, but the 
demand for “ young lambs ” has certainly 
lessened, while the piesent manufacturer 
has quite as many wants as the old one, 


and luckily possessing a monopoly of the 
manufacture, he therefore raises the price 
of his articles to the necessity of his cir¬ 
cumstances. It is not convenient to refer 
to the precise chapter in the “ Wealth of 
Nations,”or to verified tables of the increased 
value of money, in order to show that the 
new lamb-seiler has not exceeded “ an 
equitable adjustment ” in the arrangement 
of his present prices; but it is fair to state 
in his behalf, that he declares, notwith¬ 
standing all the noise he makes, the carry¬ 
ing on of the lamb business is scarcely 
better than pig-shaving; “ Sir,” says he, 
“ it’s great cry, and little wool .” From a 
poor fellow, at his time of life, with only 
half his limbs to support a large family 
this is no joke. Not having been at his 
native place for two and twenty years, the 
desire to see it once more is strong within 
him, and he purposes next Easter to turn 
his face northwards, with his family, and 
“ cry ” all the way from London to Glas¬ 
gow. Let the little ones, therefore, in the 
towns of his route, keep a penny or two by 
them to lay out in “ young lambs,” and so 
help the poor fellow along the road, in this 
stage of his struggle through life. 

March 19, 1827. 

LINES ON HAPPINESS. 

For the Table Book. 

Like a frail shadow seen in maze, 

Or some bright star shot o’er the ocean. 

Is happiness, that meteor’s blaze. 

For ever fleeting in its motion. 

It plays within our fancied grasp. 

Like a phantasmagorian shade. 

Pursued, e’en to the latest gasp, 

It still seems hovering in the glade. 

Tis but like hope, and hope’s, at best, 

A star that leads the weary on. 

Still pointing to the unpossess d 
And palling that it beams upon 


J. B. O. 


HUMAN LIFE. 

By Goethe. 

That life is but a dream is the opinion of 
many; it is mine. When I see the narrow 
limits which confine the penetrating, active 
genius of man; when I see that all his 
powers are directed to satisfy mere neces¬ 
sities, the only end of which is to prolong 
a precarious or painful existence ; that his 
greatest care, with regard to certain inquir¬ 
ies, is but a blind resignation; and thal 


199 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


wo only amuse ourselves with painting bril¬ 
liant figures and smiling landscapes on the 
wads of our prison, whilst we see on all 
sides the boundary which confines us; when 
1 consider these things I am silent: I ex¬ 
amine myself; and what do L find ? Alas! 
more vague desires, presages, and visions, 
than conviction, truth, and reality. 

The happiest are those, who, like chil¬ 
dren, think not of the morrow, amuse them¬ 
selves with playthings, dress and undress 
their dolls, watch with great respect befoie 
the cupboard where mamma keeps the 
sweetmeats, and when they get any, eat 
them directly, and cry foi more; these are 
certainly happy beings. Many also are to 
be envied, who dignify their paltry employ¬ 
ments, sometimes even their passions, with 
pompous titles ; and who represent them¬ 
selves to mankind as beings of a superior 
order, whose occupation it is to promote 
their welfare and glory. But the man who 
in all humility acknowledges the vanity of 
these things; observes with what pleasure 
the wealthy citizen transforms his little 
garden into a paradise; with what patience 
the poor man bears his burden ; and that 
all wish equally to behold the sun yet a 
little longer ; he too may be at peace. He 
creates a world of his own, is happy also 
because he is a man ; and, however limited 
his sphere, he preserves in his bosom the 
idea of liberty. 


VALEDICTORY STANZAS. 
For the Table Book . 

The flower is faded. 

The sun-beam is fled. 

The bright eye is shaded. 

The loved one is dead r 
Like a star in the morning— 

When, mantled in gray, 

Aurora is dawning— 

She vanish’d away. 

Like the primrose that blooineth 
Neglected to die. 

Though its sweetness perfumeth 
The ev’ning’s soft sigh— 

- Like lightning in summer. 

Like rainbows that shine 
With a mild dreamy glimmer 
In colours divine— 

The kind and pure hearted. 

The tender, the true, 

Prom our love has departed 
With scarce an adieu : 

So briefly, so brightly 
In virtue she shone. 

As snooting stars nightly 
That blaze and are gone. 


The place of her slumber 
Is holy to me. 

And oft as I number 
The leaves of the tree. 
Whose branches in sorrow 
Bend over her urn, 

I think of lo-morrow 
And silently mourn. 

The farewell is spoken. 

The spirit sublime 
The last tie has broken. 

That bound it to time; 

And bright is its dwelling 
Its mansion of bliss— 

How far, far excelling 
The darkness of this ! 

Yet hearts still are beating, 
And eyes still are wet— 
True, our joys are all fleeting, 
But who can forget ? 

I know they must vanish 
As visions depart. 

But oh, can this banish 
The thorn from my heart? 

The eye of affection. 

Its tribute of tears 
Sheds, with fond recollection 
Of life’s happy years ; 

And tho’ vain be the anguish 
Indulg’d o’er the tomb. 

Yet nature will languish 
And shrink from its gloom. 

Those lip6—their least motion 
Was music to me. 

And, like light on the ocean, 
Those eyes seem’d to be : 

Are they mute—and for ever ? 

The spell will not break ; 
Are they closed—must I never 
Behold them awake ? 

When distress was around me 
Thy smiles were as balm, 
That in misery found me. 

And left me in calm ; 

Success became dearer 
When thou wert with me, 
And the clear sky grew clearer 
When gaz’d on with thee. 

Thon art gone—and tho’ reason 
My grief would disarm, 

I feel there’s a season 
When grief has a charm; 
And 'tis sweeter, far sweeter 
To sit by thy grave, 

Than to follow Hope’s meteor 
Down time’s hasty wave. 

In darkness we laid thee— 

The earth for thy bed— 

The couch that we made thee 
Is press’d by thee dead : 


200 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ir sorrow’s film shrouded, 

Our eyes could not see 
The glory unclouded 
That opened on thee. 

Thou canst not, pm re spirit. 

Return to the dust. 

But we may inherit— 

So humbly we trust— 

The joys without measure 
To which thou art gone. 

The regions of pleasure 
Where tears are unknown. 

H. 


EFFECT OF CONSCIENCE. 

On the 30th of March, 1789, 360/. was 
carried to the account of the public, in 
consequence of the following note received 
by the chancellor of the exchequer. 

“ Sir— You will herewith receive bank 
notes to the amount of 360/. which is the 
property of the nation, and which, as an 
honest man, you will be so just as to apply 
to the use of the state in such manner that 
the nation may not suffer by its having 
been detained from the public treasury. 
You are implored to do this for the ease of 
conscience to an honest man.” 


qnrrtnjtfS 

OF 

HENRY THE GREAT. 

Public Libel. 

About 1605, Henry IV. of France at¬ 
tempting to enforce some regulations re¬ 
specting the annuities upon the Hotel de 
Ville, of Paris, several assemblies of the 
citizens were held, in which Francis Miron, 
the prtivot des marchands, addressed the 
king’s commissioners against the measures 
with fervour and firmness. It was rumoured 
amongst the people of Paris, that their 
magistrate was threatened, for having ex¬ 
erted himself too warmly in their behalf; 
they crowded about his house, in order to 
defend him, but Miron requested them to 
retire, and not to render him really crimi¬ 
nal. He represented that nothing injurious 
was to be apprehended, for they had a king 
as great and wise, as he was beneficent and 
just, who would not suffer himself to be 
hurried away by the instigations of evil 
counsellors. Yet those whose conduct 
Miron had arraigned, endeavoured to per¬ 
suade Henry to punish him, and deprive 
him of his office, for disobedient actions, 


and seditious discourse. The king’s an¬ 
swer contained memorable expressions :—. 
“ Authority does not always consist it. 
carrying things with a high hand : regard 
must be paid to times, persons, and the 1 
subject-matter. I have been ten years in 
extinguishing civil discord, I dread its re¬ 
vival, and Paris has cost me too much foi 
me to risk its loss; in my opinion, it 
would unquestionably be the case, were l 
to follow your advice; for I should be 
obliged to make terrible examples, which, 
in a few days, would deprive me of the 
glory of clemency, and the affection of my 
people; and these 1 prize as much, and even 
more than my crown. I have experienced, 
on many occasions, the fidelity and probity 
of Miron, who harbours no ill intentions, 
but undoubtedly deemed himself bound, by 
the duties of his office, to act as he has 
acted. If unguarded expressions have 
escaped him, I pardon them, on account of 
his past services; and, should he even de¬ 
sire a martyrdom in the public cause, I will 
disappoint him of the glory, by avoiding 
to become a persecutor and a tyrant.” 

Henry ended the affair by receiving the 
apology and submission of Miron, and re¬ 
voking the orders concerning the annuitres, 
which had occasioned the popular alarm.* 


Libellous Drama. 

On the 26th of January, 1607, a plea¬ 
sant farce was acted at the Hotel de Bour¬ 
gogne, at Paris, before Henry IV., his 
queen, and the greater part of the princes, 
lords, and ladies of the court. The subject 
of the p ; ece was a quarrel between a mar¬ 
ried man and his wife. The wife told her 
husband, that he staid tippling at the tavern 
while executions were dady laid upon their 
goods, for the tax which must be paid to 
the king, and that all their substance was 
carried away. “ It is for that very reason,” 
said the husband in his defence, “ that we 
should make merry with good cheer ; for of 
what service would all the fortune we could 
amass be to us, since it would not belong 
to ourselves, but to this same noble king. 
I will drink the more, and of the very best: j 
monsieur the king shall not meddle with! 
that; go fetch me some this minute; march.” 
“ Ah, wretch!” replied the wife, “ would 
you bring me and your children to ruin?” 
During this dialogue, three officers of jus¬ 
tice came in, and demanded the tax, and, 
in default of payment, prepared to carry 
away the furniture. The wife began a loud 


• Perefixe. 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


lamentation; at length the husband asked 
them who they were ! “ We belong to Jus¬ 
tice,” said the officers : “ IIow, to Justice /” 
replied the husband ; “ they who belong to 
Justice act in another manner; I do not 
believe that you are what you say.” Dur¬ 
ing this altercation the wife seized a trunk, 
upon which she seated herself. The officers 
commanded her, “ in the king’s name,” to 
open it; and after much dispute the trunk 
was opened, and out jumped three devils, 
who carry away the three officers of justice. 

The magistrates, conceiving themselves 
to have been insulted by this performance, 
caused the actors to bevarrested, and com¬ 
mitted them to prison. On the same day 
they were discharged, by express command 
of the king, who magnanimously told those 
that complained of the affront, “ You are 
fools! If any one has a right to take offence, 
it is I, who have received more abuse than 
any of you. I pardon the comedians from 
my heart; for the rogues made me laugh 
till I cried again.”* 


CUSTOM AT SCARBOROUGH. 


The fish-market is held on the sands, by 
the sides of the boats, which, at low water, 
are run upon wheels with a sail set, and 
are conducted by the fishermen, who dispose 
cf their cargoes in the following manner. 

One of the female fishmongers inquires 
the price, and bids a groat; the fishermen 
ask a sum in the opposite extreme : the one 
bids up, and the other reduces the demand, 
till they meet at a reasonable point, when 
the bidder suddenly exclaims, “ Het 1” 
This practice seems to be borrowed from 
the Dutch. The purchase is afterwards 
retailed among the regular, or occasional 
surrounding customeis. 


LINES TO A BARREL ORGAN. 


For the Table Book. 


How many thoughts from thee I cull. 
Music’s humblest vehicle ! 

From thy caravan of sounds. 

Constant in its daily rounds, 

Some such pleasure do I find 
As when, borne upon the wind, 

Tne well-known “ bewilder’d ch:m'*s ** 
Plaintively recall those times, 

(I ong since lost in sorrow’s shade,) 

When, in some sequester'd glade. 

Their simple, stammering tongues would try 
Some heart-moving melody.— 

Oldest musical delight 
Of my boyish days 1 the sight 


• L’Etoile. Hist. d’Kenri IV. 


Or sound of thee would charm my feet. 
And make my joy of heart complete— 

How thou luredst listeners 
To thy crazy, yearning airs !— 
Harmonious, grumbling volcaao 1 
Murm’ring sounds in small piano. 

Or screaming forth a shrill soprano. 
Mingled with the growling bass. 

Fragments of some air I trace. 

Stifled by the notes which crair. it— 
Scatter’d ruins of the gamut!— 
Sarcophagus of harmony ! 

Orpheus’casket! guarded by 
A swain who lives by what he earns 
From the music which he churns: 

Every note thou giv’st by turns .— 

Not Pindar’s lyre more variety 
Possess’d than thou ! no cloy’d satiecy 
Feel’st thou at thy perpetual feast 
Of sound; nor weariness the least: 

Thy task’s perform’d with right goodwill.** 
Thou art a melodious mill! 

Notes, like grain, are dribbled in, 

Thou grindest them, and fill’st the bin 
Of melody with plenteous store. 

Thy tunes are like the parrot’s lore. 
Nothing of them dost thou wot, 

But repeatest them by rote.— 

Curious, docile instrument! 

To skillesa touch obedient: 

Like a mine of richest ore. 

Inexhaustible in store, 

Yielding at a child’s command 
All thy wealth unto its hand. 

Harmonicon peripatetic 1 
What clue to notes so oft erratic 
Hast thou, by which the ear may follow 
Through thy labyrinthine hollow. 

Which its own echo dost consume. 

As stoves devour their own fume.— 
Mysterious fabric ! cage-like chest! 

Behind whose gilded bars the nest 
Of unfledg'd melodies is hid 
’Neath that brazen coverlid.— 

In thy bondage-house of song. 

Bound in brazen fetters strong, 

Immortal harmonies do groan ! 

Doleful sounds their stifled moan. 

A vulture preys upon their pangs. 

Round whose neck their prison hangs , 

Like that tenanted strong box 
By eagle found upon the rocks 
Of Brobdingnag’s gigantic isle. 

Like Sysiphus, their endless toil 
Is hopeless : their tormentor’s claw 
Turns the wheel (his will’s their law) 
Which all their joints and members racks* 
Ne’er will his cruelty relax.— 

Miniature in shape and sound 
Of that grand instrument, which round 
Old cathedral walls doth send 
Its pealing voice ; whose tones do blend 
The clangor of the trumpet’s threat. 

And the silver-stringed lute.— 


202 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


To what else shall I compare thee ?— 

Further epithets I’ll spare thee. 

Honest and despised thing. 

To thy memory I cling. 

Spite of all thy faults, I own 
I love thy “ old, familiar ” tone. 

Gaston. 


MINISTERIAL FAVOUR. 

A gentleman who had been long attached 
to cardinal Mazarine, reminded the cardinal 
of his many promises, and his dilatory per- 
j formance. Mazarine, who had a great re¬ 
gard for him, and was unwilling to lose 
his friendship, took his hand, and explained 
the many demands made upon a person in 
his situation as minister, which it would be 
politic to satisfy previously to other re¬ 
quests, as they were founded on services 
done to the state. The cardinal’s adherent, 
not very confident in his veracity, replied, 
“ My lord, all the favour I now ask at your 
hand is, that whenever we meet in public, 

[ you will do me the honour to tap me on 
the shoulder in an unreserved manner.'* 
i The cardinal smiled, and in the course of 
two or three years tapping, his friend be¬ 
came a wealthy man, on the credit of these 
attentions to him; and Mazarine and his 
•confidant laughed at the public security 
which enriched the courtier at so little ex¬ 
pense to the state. 


DUDLEY OF PORTSMOUTH. 

“ I’m a going !” 

For the Tattle Book. 

Barbers are not more celebrated by a 
desire to become the most busy citizens of 
the state, than by the expert habit in which 
they convey news. Many a tale is invented 
out of a mere surmise, or whisper, for the 
gratification of those who attend barbers’ 
shops. An old son of the scissors and 
razor, well known at Portsmouth, was not, 
however, quite so perfect a />Airiologist, as 
his more erudite and bristling fraternity. 
One evening, as he was preparing his 
fronts, and fitting his comb “ to a hair,” 
two supposed gentlemen entered his shop 
to be dressed ; this being executed with 
much civility and despatch, a wager was 
laid with old Dudley, (for that was his 
name,) that he could not walk in a ring 
three feet in diameter, for one hour, and 
utter no other words than “ I’m a going 1” 
Two poundson eachside was on the counter; 
the ring was drawn in chalk; the money chink¬ 
ed in the ear, and old Dudley mov*d in the 


circle of his orbit. “I’m a going!_I’m a 

going !—I’m a going!” were the only words 
which kept time with his feet during the 
space of fifty-five minutes, when, on a sud¬ 
den, one of the gentlemen sprang forward, 
and taking up the money, put it into his 
pocket. This device thiew old Dudley ofi 
Ins guard, and he exclaimed, “That’s not 
fair —“ Enough 1” rejoined the sharpers, ! 
“ you’ve lost the wager.” They depaited, 
leaving him two pounds minus, and to this 
day old Dudley is saluted by the appella¬ 
tion of “ I’m a going !” 

Jehoiada. 


ROYAL DECISION. 

In the reign of George I. the sister of 
judge Dormer being married to a gentle¬ 
man who afterwards killed a man very 
basely, the judge went to move the king 
for a pardon. It was impossible that he 
could offer any thing to the royal ear in ex¬ 
tenuation of the crime, and therefore he 
was the more earnest in expressing his ! 
hope that his majesty would save him and 
his family from the infamy the execution of 
the sentence would bring upon them. “ So, j 
Mr. Justice,” said the king, “what you 
propose to me is, that I should transfer the 
infamy from you and your family, to me 
and my family; but 1 shall do no such 
thing.” Motion refused. 


3Bto srap b laita. 

REV. TIIOMAS COOKE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir—In reply to the inquiries of you: 
correspondent G. J. D. at p. 136, I beg to 
state, that the person he alludes to was the 
translator of Hesiod, immortalized by Pope 
in his Dunciad. 

The Rev. Thomas Cooke was a profound ! 
Greek and Latin scholar, and consequently * 
much better versed in the beauties of 
Homer, &c. than the irritable translator of 
the Iliad and Odyssey: his remarks on, and 
expositions of Pope’s glaring misconcep¬ 
tions of many important passages of the 
ancient bard drew down the satirical ven¬ 
geance of his illustrious translator. 

It would, however, appear that Pope 
was not the assailant in the first instance 
for in the Appendix to the Dunciad we 
find “ A list of Books, Papers, and Verses, 
in which our author (Pope) was abused, 
before the publication of that Poem;” and 
among the said works “ The Battle of the 


203 















THE TABLE BOOK 


Poets, an heroic Poem, by Thomas Cooke, 
printed for J. Roberts, folio, 1725,” is par¬ 
ticularly mentioned. In book ii. of the 
Dunciad, we have the following line.— 

“ Cooke shall be Prior, and Concanen Swift 

to which the following note is appended:— 

“ The man here specified \ .1 a thing 

called The Battle of the Poets ' which 
Philips and Welsted were the he.oes, and 
Swift and Pope utterly routed ” 

Cooke also published some “ malevolent 
things in the British, London, and daily 
journals, and at the same time wrote letters 
to Mr. Pope, protesting his innocence.’’ 

His chief work was a translation of 
“ Hesiod, to which Theobald writ notes, 
and half notes, which he carefully owned.” 

Again, in the testimonies of authors, 
which precede the Dunciad, we find the 
following remark:— 

“ Mr. Thomas Cooke , 

“ After much blemishing our author’s 
Ilomer, crieth out 

“ But in his other works what beauties shine. 

While sweetest music dwells in ev’ry line! 

These he admir’d, on these he stamp’d his praise. 

And bade them live t’ enlighten future days !” 

I have somewhere read that Cooke was 
a native of Sussex ; that he became famous 
for his knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
languages while at Cambridge ; and was 
ultimately settled in some part of Shrop¬ 
shire, where he soon became acquainted 
with the family of the young lady celebrated 
by his muse, in the fifth number of the 
Table Book , and where he also greatly dis¬ 
tinguished himself as a clergyman, and 
preceptor of the younger branches of the 
neighbouring gentry and nobility This 
may in some measure account for the re¬ 
spectable list of subscribers alluded to 
by G. J. D. 

It is presumed, however, that misfortune 
at length overtook him ; for we find, in the 
“ Ambulator, or London and its Environs,” 
under the head “ Lambeth,” that he lies 
interred in the church-yard of that parish, 
and that he died extremely poor : he is, 
moreover, designated “ the celebrated 
translator of Hesiod, Terence, &,c.” 

I have seen the poem entitled “ The 
Immortality of the Soul,” mentioned by 
G. J. D., though I have no recollection of 
its general features or merit; but of “ The 
Battle of the Poets ” I have a copy; and 
what renders it more rare and valuable is, 
that it was Mr. Cooke’s own impression of 
the work, and has several small produc¬ 
tions upon various occasions, written, 1 


presume, with his own hand, each having 
the signature “Thomas Cooke,” on the 
blank leaves at the commencement of the 
book. 

On my return from the continent, I shall 
have no objection to intrust this literary 
curiosity to your care for a short time, 
giving you the liberty of extracting any 
(and all if you think proper) of the pieces 
written on the interleaves: and, in the 
mean time, I will do myself the pleasure of 
selecting one from the number, for inser¬ 
tion in the Table Book , which will, at 
least, prove that Mr. Cooke’s animosity 
was of transient duration, and less virulent 
than that of Pope. 

It is possible that at some future time I 
may be able to enlarge upon this subject, 
for the better infonriation of your corres¬ 
pondent ; and 1 beg, in the interim, to re¬ 
mark that there is no doubt the Annual 
Register, from about the year 1750 to 
1765, or works of that description, will 
fully satisfy his curiosity, and afford him 
much more explanation relative to Mr. 
Cooke than any communications from 
existing descendants. 

In Mr. Cooke’s copy of “The Battle of 
the Poets,” the lines before quoted run 
thus :— 

“ But in his other works what beauties shine— 

What sweetness also dwells in ev’ry line 1 
These all admire—these bring him endless praise, 
And crown his temples with unfading bays !” 

I remain, sir, 

Your obedient servant and subscriber, 

***# ******** 
Oxford, Jan. 29, 1827. 

VERSES, 

Occasioned by the ia.mented Death 
of Mr. Alexander Pope. 

Pope ! though thy pen has strove with heedless rage 
To make my name obnoxious to the age, 

While, dipp’d in gall, and tarnish’d with the spleen 
It dealt in taunts ridiculous and mean, 

Aiming to lessen what it could not reach, 

And giving license to ungrateful speech. 

Still I forgive its enmity, and feel 
Regrets I would not stifle, nor conceal; 

For though thy temper, and imperious sou]. 

Needed, at times, subjection and controul. 

There was a majesty—a march of sense— 

A proud display of rare intelligence, 

In many a line of that transcendent pen. 

We never, perhaps, may contemplate again— 

An energy peculiarly its own. 

And sweetness perfectly before unknown! 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Then deign, thou mighty master of the lyre 1 
T* accept what justice and remorse inspire ; 
Justice that prompts the willing muse to tell, 

None ever wrote so largely and so well— 

Remorse that feels no future bard can fill 
The vacant chair with half such Attic skill. 

Or leave behind so many proofs of taste, 

As those rich poems dulness ne’er disgrac’d 1 

Farewell, dear shade 1 all enmity is o’er. 

Since Pope has left us for a brighter shore. 

Where neither rage, nor jealousy, nor hate. 

Can rouse the little, nor offend the great; 

Where worldly contests are at once forgot. 

In the bright glories of a happier lot; 

And where the dunces of the Dunciad see 
Thy genius crown’d with immortality 1 

Thomas Cooke. 


DUKE OF YORK 
Alban v and Clarence. 

For the Table Book. 

In the History of Scotland, there is a re¬ 
mark which may be added to the account 
of the dukes of York, at col. 103 ; viz. 

Shire of Perth. —That part of the county 
called Braidalbin, or Breadalbane, lies 
amongst the Grampian-hills, and gives 
title to a branch of the family of Campbell; 
where note that Braid Albin, in old Scotch, 
signifies the highest part of Scotland, and 
Drum-Albin, which is the name of a part 
thereof, signifies the ridge or back of Scot¬ 
land. Hence it is collected that this is the 
country which the ancients called Albany , 
and part of the residence of the ancient 
Scots, who still retain the name, and 
call themselves “ Albinkich,” together with 
the ancient language and habit, continuing 
to be a hardy, brave, and warlike people, 
and very parsimonious in their way of 
’iving ; and from this country the sons of 
the royal family of Scotland took the title 
of “ duke of Albany and sirce the union 
of the two crowns, it has been found 
amongst the royal titles of the dukes of 
York. 

Respecting the dukedom of Clarence, 
which is originally derived from Clare, in 
Suffolk, king Edward III. in the thirty- 
sixth year of his reign, for default of issue 
male in the former family, created his 
third son, Lionel, by reason of his marriage 
with the grandaughter of the late earl of 
Clare , duke of Clarence, being a word of a 
fuller sound than the monosyllable “ Clare.” 

m. 


DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. 

Lord George Germain was of a remark¬ 
ably amiable disposition ; and his domes¬ 
tics lived with him rather as humble friends 
than menial servants. One day entering 
his house in Pall-mall, he observed a large 
basket of vegetables standing in the hall, 
and inquired of the porter to whom they 
belonged, and from whence they came ? Old 
John immediately replied, “ They are ours , 
my lord, from our country-house .”— u Very 
well,” rejoined his lordship. At that in¬ 
stant a carriage stopped at the door, and 
lord George, turning round, asked what 
coach it was? “ Ours," said honest John. 
u And are the children in it ours too V’ 
said his lordship, smiling. “ Most cer 
tainly , my lord,” replied John, with the 
utmost gravity, and immediately ran to lift 
them out. 


SiUDIe. 

A LITERARY CHARACTER. 

I have long maintained a distinguished 
station in our modern days, but I cannot 
trace my origin to ancient times, though 
the learned have attempted it. After the 
revolution in 1688, I was chief physician 
to the king; at least in my absence he ever 
complained of sickness. Had I lived in 
ancient days, so friendly was l to crowned 
heads, that Cleopatra would have got off 
with a sting ; and her cold arm would have 
felt a reviving heat. I am rather a friend 
to sprightliness than to industry; I have 
often converted a neutral pronoun into a 
man of talent: I have often amused myself 
with reducing the provident ant to ind ; 
gence; I never meet a post horse withou 
giving him a blow ; to some animals I am 
a friend, and many a puppy has yelped for 
aid when I have deserted him. 1 am a 
patron of architecture, and can turn every 
thing into brick and mortar; and so honest 
withal, that whenever I can find a pair ot 
stockings, I ask for their owner. Not even 
Lancaster has carried education so far as 1 
have: I adopt always the system of inter 
rogatories. I have already taught my hat 
to ask questions of fact; and my poultry 
questions of chronology. With my trees 1 
share the labours of my laundry; they scour 
my linen ; and when I find a rent, ’tis I 
who make it entire. 

In short, such are my merits, that what¬ 
ever yours may be, you can never be more 
than half as good as I am. 


20-3 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


ANSWER 

TO THE PRECEDING. 

A literary character you view, 

Known to the moderns only —W : 

[ was physician to king William ; 

When absent, he would say, “ how—ill I am 1” 

In ancient days if I had liv’d, the asp 
Which poison’d Egypt’s queen, had been a—Wasp ; 
And the death-coldness of th’ imperial arm 
With life reviving had again been—Warm. 

A friend to sprightliness, that neuter it 
By sudden pow’r I’ve chang’d into a—Wit. 

The vainly-provident industrious ant 
With cruel sport I oft reduce to—Want; 

Whene’er I meet with an unlucky hack, 

I give the creature a tremendous—Whack 
And many a time a puppy cries for help, 

If I desert capriciously the—Whelp. 

A friend to architecture, I turn all 

(As quick as Chelt’nham builders) into—Wall. 

I’m honest, for whene’er I find some hose, 

I seek the owner, loud exclaiming—Whose ? 

Farther than Lancaster I educate. 

My system’s always to interrogate; 

Already have I taught my very hat 
Questions of fact to ask, and cry out—What ? 
Questions of time my poultry, for the lien 
Cackles chronology, enquiring—When ? 

My laundry’s labour I divide with ashes ; 

It is with them the laundress scours and—Washes: 
And if an ugly rent I find, the hole 
Instantly vanishes, becoming—Whole. 

In short, my merits are so bright to view 
How good soe’er you may be, just or true, 

You can but halve my worth, for I am— double you. 

Cheltenham. 


THE MERRY MONARCH, 

AND “ BLYTHE COCKPEN.” 

While Charles II. was sojourning in 
Scotland, before the battle of Worcester, 
his chief confidant and associate was the 
laird of Cockpen, called by the nick-naming 
fashion of the times, “ Blythe Cockpen.” 
He followed Charles to the Hague, and by 
j his skill in playing Scottish tunes, and his 
I sagacity and wit, much delighted the merry 
| monarch. Charles’s favourite air was 
“ Brose and Butterit was played to 
him when he went to bed, and he was 
awakened by it. At the restoration, how- 
1 ever, Blythe Cockpen shared the fate of 
! many other of the royal adherents ; he was 
forgotten, and wandered upon the lands he 
once owned in Scotland, poor and un¬ 
friended. His letters to the court were 
unpresented, or disregarded, till, wearied 
and incensed, he travelled to London; 
but his mean garb not suiting the rich 
doublets of court, he was not allowed to 
approach the royal presence. At length, 


he ingratiated himself with the king s 
organist, who was so enraptured with Cock- 
pen’s wit and powers ot music, that he re¬ 
quested him to play on the organ before 
the king at ‘divine service. His exquisite 
skill did not attract his majesty’s notice, 
till, at the close of the service, instead of 
the usual tune, he struck up “ Brose and 
Butter,” with all its energetic merriment, j 
In a moment the royal organist was ordered 
into the king’s presence. “My liege, it 
was not me ! it was not me!” he cried, 
and dropped upon his knees. “ You !’ j 
cried his majesty, in a rapture, “ you could 
never play it in your life—where’s the 
man? let me see him.” Cockpen pre¬ 
sented himself on his knee. “ Ah, Cock¬ 
pen, is that you?—Lord, man, I was like 
to dance coming out of the church !”—“ I 
once danced too,” said Cockpen, “but that 
was when I had land of my own to dance | 
on.”—“ Come with me,” said Charles 
taking him by the hand, “ you shall dance ! 
to Brose and Butter on your own lands 
again to the nineteenth generationand 
as far as he could, the king kept his pro 
mise. 


Copograpftp. 

SINGULAR INTERMENT. 

The following curious entry is in the 
register of Lymington churcl, under the 
year 1736:— 

“ Samuel Baldwin, esq. sojourner in this 
parish, was immersed , without the Needles, 
sans citrtmonie, May 20.” 

This was performed in consequence ot 
an earnest wish the deceased had expressed, 
a little before his dissolution, in order to 
disappoint the intention of his wife, who 
had repeatedly assured him, in their domes¬ 
tic squabbles, (which were very frequent,) j 
that if she survived him, she would revenge 
her conjugal sufferings, by dancing on his 
grave. 


ODD SIGNS. 

A gentleman lately travelling through 
Grantham, in Lincolnshire, observed the 
following lines under a sign-post, on which 
was placed an inhabited bee-hive. 

Two wonders, Grantham, now are thine, 

The highest spire, and a living sign. 

The same person, at another public- 
house in the country, where London porter 
was sold, observed the figure of Britannia 
engraved upon a tankard, in a reclining 
posture; underneath was the followii* 
motto:— 

Prajr Scr-Poutr*. 


20G 

























<£Ifaet 3Srftige, Burftam. 


The above engraving is from a litho¬ 
graphic view, published in Durham in 
1820: it was designed by Mr. Bouet, a 
very ingenious French gentleman, resident 
there, whose abilities as an artist are o 
a superior order. 

El vet bridge consists of nine or ten 
arches, and was built by the excellent 
bishop Pudsey, about the year 1170. It 
was repaired in the time of bishop Fox, 
who held the see of Durham from 1494 to 

1502, and granted an “ indulgence to all 

I who should contribute towards defraying 
' the expense; an expedient frequently re¬ 
sorted t® in Catholic times for the forward¬ 


ing of great undertakings. It was again 
improved, by widening it to twice its 
breadth, in 1806. 

Upon this bridge there were two chapels, 
dedicated respectively to St. James and 
St. Andrew, one of which stood on the site 
of the old house close to the bridge, 
at present inhabited by Mr. Adamson, a 
respectable vete-rinary surgeon; the other 
stood on the site of the new houses on the 
south side of the bridge, occupied by Mr. 
Fenwick and Mr. Hopper. About three 
years ago, while clearing away the rubbish, 
preparatory to the erection of the latter 
houses, some remains of the old chapel j 



^07 


r 















































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


were discovered : an arch was in a very per¬ 
fect state, but unfortunately no drawing 
was made. 

It is believed by some, that another 
chapel stood on, or near Elvet bridge, dedi¬ 
cated to St. Magdalen ; and the name of 
the flight of steps leading from Elvet bridge 
to Saddler-street, viz. the Maudlin, or Mag- 
dalen-steps, rather favours the supposition. 
On the north side of Elvet bridge is a 
building, erected in 1632, formerly used as 
the house of correction, but which, since 
the erection of the new gaol, was sold to 
the late Stephen Ketnble, Esq., and is now 
the printing and publishing office of the 
Durham Chronicle. The ground cells are 
miserable places : some figures, still visible 
on many of the walls, as faces, ships, &c. 
show to what resources the poor fellows 
confined there were driven to amuse them¬ 
selves. This building is said to be haunted 
by the restless sprite of an old piper, who, 
as the story is, was brought down the river 
by a flood, and, on being rescued from the 
water, became an inmate of the house of 
correction, where he died a few years after¬ 
wards. The credulous often hear his bag¬ 
pipes at midnight. Every old bridge seems 
to have its legend, and this is the legend 
of Elvet bridge. 

The buildings represented by the en¬ 
graving in the distance are the old gaol, 
and a few of the adjoining houses. This 
gaol, which stood to the east, of the castle, 
and contiguous to the keep, was originally 
the great north gateway to the castle, and 
was erected by bishop Langley, who held 
the see of Durham from 1406 to 1437. It 
divided Saddler-street from the North 
Bailey, and was a fine specimen of the 
architecture of the age, but, from its con¬ 
fined situation, in a public part of the 
city, it was adjudged to be a nuisance, and 
was accordingly destroyed in 1820. On 
the west side of it is erected an elegant 
subscription library and news-room, and on 
the opposite a spacious assembly-room; 
these form a striking contrast to the spot in 
the state here represented. The present 
county gaol is at the head of Old Elvet; it 
is a splendid edifice, and so it should be, 
considering that it cost the county 120,000/. 

Of bishop Pudsey, the builder of Elvet 
bridge, the following account is given in 
Hegg’s Legend of St. Cuthbert. Speaking 
of St. Goodrick, of whom there are par¬ 
ticulars in the Every-Day Book , Hegg 
•*ays, “ Thus after he had acted all the 
miracles of a legend, he ended his scene in 
Ore yeare 1170, not deserving that honour 
confer r ed on his cell by the forenained 


bishop Pusar (Pudsey), who told him he 
should be seven yeares blind before bis 
death, so that the bishop deferring his re¬ 
pentance till the tyme of his blindness, 
(which Goodrick meant of the eyes of his 
understanding) dyed unprovided for death. 
But if good works be satisfactorie, then 
died he not in debt for his sinnes, who re- 
payred and built many of the episcopall 
manors, and founded the manor and 
church at Darlington, and two hospitals 
one at Alverton, and the other at Sher¬ 
burne, neare Durham. He built also Elvet 
bridge, with two chapels upon it, over the 
Weer; and, lastly, built that beautiful work 
the Galilee, now the bishop’s consistory, and 
hither translated saint Bede’s bones, which 
lye enterred under a tomb of black marble.” 

From the above extract, as punctuated in 
all the printed copies I have seen, it would 
appear that 11 egg intended to represent 
both the chapels as being over the IVeer , 
whereas only one was so situated, the other 
being on one of the land arches. To render 
this passage correct, the words “ with two 
chapels upon it ” should have been inserted 
in a parenthesis, which would make the 
passage stand thus, “ lie built also Elret 
bridge, (with two chapels upon it,) over 
the Weer.” Hegg, with all his humour, is 
frequently obscure; and his legend, which 
was for some time in manuscript, has suffered 
by the inattention of transcribers; there 
are three different copies in print, and all 
vary. The edition printed by the late Mr. 
Allan of Darlington, from a manuscript 
in the library of Corpus Christi College, 
Oxford, and since reprinted by Mr. Hogget 
of Durham, is the most correct one, and 
from that the above extract is taken. 

Bishop Pudsey’s memory must always be 
dear to the inhabitants of the county of 
Durham, as probably no man ever con¬ 
ferred greater service on the county. It 
was he who, in order to supply the defici¬ 
ency of Doomsday-book, caused a general 
survey to be made of all the demesne lands 
and possessions in his bishopric. This 
survey is recorded in a small folio of twenty- 
four pages, written in a bad hand, and 
called “ Bolden Buke,” now in the archives 
at Durham. It contains inquisitions, o'* 
verdicts of all the several tenures of lands, 
services, and customs; all the tenants’ 
names of every degree ; how much each of 
them held at that time, and what rents 
were reserved for the same. This book has 
been produced, and read in evidence on 
several trials at law, on the part of the suc¬ 
ceeding bishops, in order to ascertain their 
property. 


208 








r 


THE TABLE BUOK. 


(gatnrfe paps. 

No. XI. 

[From “Jack Drum’s Entertainment,” a 
Comedy, Author unknown, 1(501.] 

The free humour of a Noble Housekeeper. 

Fortune (a Knight'). I was not born to be toy cradle’s 
drudge, 

To choke and stifle up my pleasure’s breath, 

To poison with the venom’d cares of thrift 
My private sweet of life : only to scrape 
A heap of muck, to fatten and manure 
The barren virtues of my progeny. 

And make them sprout ’spite of their want of worth ; 
No, I do wish my girls should wish me live; 

Which few do wish that have a greedy sire. 

But still expect, and gape with hungry lip. 

When he’ll gi\e up his gouty stewardship. 

Friend. Then I wonder, 

You not aspire unto the eminence 

And height of pleasing life. To Court, to Court— 

Theie burnish, there spread, there stick in pomp, 

Like a bright diamond in a Lady’s brow. 

There plant your fortunes in the flowring spring, 

And get the Sun before you of Respect. 

There trench yourself within the people’s love, 

And glitter ; n the eye of glorious grace. 

What’s wealth without respect and mounted place ? 
Fortune. Worse and worse !—I am not yet dis¬ 
traught, 

I long not to be squeez’d with my own weight. 

Nor hoist up all my sails to catch the wind 
Of the drunk reeling Commons. I labour not 
To have an awful presence, nor be feared. 

Since who is fear’d still fears to be to feared. 

I care not to be like the Horeb calf. 

One day adored, and next pasht all in pieces. 

Nor do I envy Polypheir.ian puffs, 

Switzers’ slopt greatness. I adore the Sun, 

Yet love to live within a temperate zone. 

Let who will climb ambitious glibbery rounds. 

And lean upon the vulgar’s rotten love. 

I’ll not corrival him. The ?un will give 
As great a shadow to my trunk as his ; 

And after death, like Chessmen having stoot. 

In play, for Bishops some, for Knights, and Pawns, 

We all together shall be tumbled up 
Into one bag. 

Let hush’d-calm quiet rock my life asleep ; 

And, being dead, my own ground press my bones ; 
Whilst some old Beldame, hobbling o’er my grave, 

May mumble thus: 

‘ Here lies a Knight whose Money was his Slave.” 


[From the “ Changes,” a Comedy, by 
James Shirley, 1632.] 

Excess of Epithets , enfeebling to Poetry. 

Friend. Master Caperwit, before you read, pray tell 

me. 

Have your verses any Adjectives ? 


Caperwit. Adjectives! would you have a poen. 
without 

Adjectives ? they’re the flower, the grace of all our lan 
guage. 

A well-chosen Epithet doth give new soul 
To fainting Poesy, and makes every verse 
A Bride! With Adjectives we bait our lines. 

When we do fish for Gentlewomen’s loves. 

And with their sweetness catch the nibbling ear 

Of amorous ladies ; with the music of 

These ravishing nouns we charm the silken tribe, 

And make the Gallant melt with apprehension 
Of the rare Word. I will maintain't against 
A bundle of Grammarians, in Poetry 
The Substantive itself cannot subsist 
Without its Adjective. 

Friend. But for all that. 

Those words would sound more full, methinks, that are 
not 

So larded ; and if I might counsel you, 

You should compose a Sonnet clean without ’em. 

A row of stately Substantives would march 
Like Switzers, and bear all the fields before 'em ; 
Carry their weight; shew fair, like Deeds Enroll’d ; 
Not Writs, that are first made and after fill’d. 

1 hence first came up the title of Blank Verse ;— 

You know. Sir, what Blank signifies ?—when the sense, 
First framed, is tied with Adjectives like points, 

And could not hold together without wedges : 

Hang’t, 'tis pedantic, vulgar Poetry. 

Let children, when they versify, stick here 
And there these piddling words for want of matter 
Poets write Masculine Numbers. 


[From the “ Guardian,” a Comedy, by 
Abraham Cowley, 1650. This was the 
first Draught of that which he published 
afterwards under the title of the “ Cutter 
of Coleman Street;” and contains the 
character of a Foolish Poet, omitted in 
.e latter. I give a few scraps of this 
.haracter, both because the Edition is 
scarce, and as furnishing no unsuitable 
corollary to the Critical Admonitions in 
the preceding Extract.—The “ Cutter ” 
has always appeared to me the link be¬ 
tween the Comedy of Fletcher and of 
Congreve. In the elegant passion of 
the Love Scenes it approaches the former; 
and Puny (the character substituted for 
the omitted Poet) is the Prototype of the 
half witted Wits, the Brisks and Dapper 
Wits, of the latter.] 

Doggrell, the foolish Poet, described. 

Cutter. - tlie very Emblem of poverty and poor 

poetry. The feet are worse patched of his rhymes, 
than of his stockings. If one line forget itself, and run 
out beyond his elbow, while the next keeps at horn* 
(like him), and dares not show his head, ht calls that 
anOde. • • • 


209 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Tabitha. Nay, they mocked and flee»ed at us, as we 
sung the Psalm the last Sunday night. 

Cutter. That was that mungrel Rhymer; by this 
light he envies his brother poet John Sternliold,, be 
cause he cannot reach his heights. * * * 

Doggrell (reciting his own verses.') Thus pride doth 
still with beauty dwell, 

And like the Baltic ocean swell. 

Blade. Why the Baltic, Doggrell ? 

Doggrell. Why the Baltic!—this ’tis not to have 
read the Poets. * * * 

She looks like Niobe on the mountain’s top. 

Cutter. That Niobe, Doggrell, you have used worse 
than Phoebus did. Not a dog looks melancholy but 
he’s compared to Niobe. He beat a villainous Tapster 
’tother day, to make him look like Niobe. 

C. L. 


ANCIENT WAGGERY. 

For the Table Book. 

[From the “ Pleasant Conceits of old Hob¬ 
son, the merry Londoner; full of hu¬ 
mourous Discourses and merry Merri¬ 
ments :—1607.”] 

How Mats ter Hobson hung out a lanterne 
and candlelight. 

In the beginning of queen Elizabeth’s 
' reign, when the order of hanging out lan¬ 
terne and candlelight first of all was brought 
up,* the bedell of the warde where Maister 
Hobson dwelt, in a dark evening, crieing 
up and down, “ Hang out your lanternes ! 
Hang out your lanternes 1” using no other 
wordes, Maister Hobson tooke an emptie 
lanterne, and, according to the bedells call, 
hung it out. This flout, by the lord mayor, 
was taken in ill part, and for the same 
offence Hobson was sent to the Counter, 
but being released, the next night follow¬ 
ing, thinking to amend his call, the bedell 
cryed out, with a loud voice, “ Hang out 
your lanternes and candle !” Maister Hob¬ 
son, hereupon, hung out a lanterne and 
candle unlighted, as the bedell again com¬ 
manded ; whereupon he was sent again to 
the Counter; but the next night, the bedell 
being better advised, cryed “ Hang out 
your lanterne and candle light! Hang out 
your lanterne and candle light!” which 
Maister Hobson at last did, to his great 
commendations, which cry of lanterne and 
candle light is in right manner used to 
this day. 

How Maister Hobson found out the I J ye - 
stealer. 

In Christmas Holy-dayes when Maister 

• The custom of hnnging out lanterns before lamps 
were in use was earlier than queen Elizabeth’s reign. 


Hobson’s wife had many pyes in the oven, 
one of his servants had stole one of them 
out, and at the tauerne had merrilie eat it. 
It fortuned, the same day, that some of his 
friends dined with him, and one of the 
best pyes were missing, the stealer thereof, 
after dinner, he found out in this manner. 
He called all his servants in friendly sort 
together into the hall, and caused each of 
them to drinke one to another, both wine 
ale, and beare, till they were all drunke; 
then caused hee a table to be furnished 
with very goode cheare, whereat hee like¬ 
wise pleased them. Being set altogether, 
he saide, “ Why sit ye not downe fellows V* 
—“ We bee set already,” quoth they.— 
“ Nay,” quoth Maister Hobson, “ he that 
stole the pye is not yet set.”—“ Yes, that 
I doe !” quoth he that stole it, by which 
means Maister Hobson knewe what was 
become of the pye; for the poor fellowe 
being drunke could not keepe his owne 
secretts. 


THE FIRST VIOLET. 

The spring is come : the violet’s gone, 

. The first-bom child of the early sun ; 

With us she is but a winter flower. 

The snow on the hills cannot blast her bower— 
And she lifts up her head of dewy blue 
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue. 

And when the spring comes with her host 
Of flowers—that flower beloved the most, 
Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse 
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues. 

Pluck the others, but still remember 
Their herald out of dim December— 

The morning star of all the flowers. 

The pledge of daylight’s lengthened hours 
Nor, midst the roses, e’er forget 
The virgin—virgin violet. 


YORKSHIRE SAYING. 

For the Table Book . 

“ Let’s begin again like the Clfrk 
of Beeston.” 

The clerk of Beeston, a small village 
near Leeds, one Sunday, after having sung 
a psalm about half way through the first 
verse, discovered he had chosen a wrong 
tune, on which he exclaimed to the singers, 
“ Stop lads, we’ve got into a wrong metre, 
let’s begin again!” Hence the origin of 
the saying, so common in Leeds and the 
neighbourhood, “ Let’s begin again, like 
the clerk of Beeston.” 

T. Q. M 


210 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


TO CONTENTMENT. 

I. 

Spark of pure celestial fire, 

Port of all the world’s desire, 
Paradise of earthly bliss. 

Heaven of the other world and this ; 
Tell me, where thy court abides. 
Where thy glorious chariot rides ? 

II. 

Eden knew thee for a day. 

But thou wouldst no longer stay ; 
Outed for poor Adam’s sin. 

By a flaming cherubin ; 

Yet thou lov’st that happy shade 
Where thy beauteous form was made, 
And thy kindness still remains 
To the woods, and fiow’ry plains. 

III. 

Happy David found thee there, 
Sporting in the open air ; 

As he led his flocks along. 

Feeding on his rural song: 

But when courts and honours had 
Snatch’d away the lovely lad. 

Thou that there no room cou’dst find, 
Let him go and staid behind. 

IV. 

His wise son, with care and pain, 
Search’d all nature’s frame in vain ; 
For a while content to be. 

Search’d it round, but found not thee ; 
Beauty own’d she knew thee not. 
Plenty had thy name forgot: 

Music only did aver. 

Once you came and danc’d with her.* 


Btogtapbj). 

PIETRE METASTASIO. 

This celebrated Italian lyric and dra¬ 
matic poet was born at Rome, in 1698, of 
parents in humble life, whose names were 
Trapassi. At ten years of age, he was dis¬ 
tinguished by his talents as an improvvisa- 
tore. The eminent jurist, Gravina, who 
amused himself with writing bad tragedies, 
was walking near the Campus Martius one 
summer’s evening, in company with the 
abbe Lorenzini, when they heard a sweet 
and powerful voice, modulating verses with 
the greatest fluency to the measure of the 


• From OuDton’s “Athenian Spoit.” 


canto improvviso. On approaching the shop 
of Trapassi, whence the melody proceeded, 
they were surprised to see a lovely boy 
pouring forth elegant verses on the persons 
and objects which surrounded him, and 
their admiration was increased by the 
graceful compliments which he took an 
opportunity of addressing to themselves. 
When the youthful poet had concluded, 
Gravina called him to him, and, with many 
encomiums and caresses, offered him a 
piece of money, which the boy politely de¬ 
clined. He then inquired into his situation 
and employment, and being struck with the 
intelligence of his replies, proposed to h:s 
parents to educate him as his own child. 
They consented, and Gravina changed his 
name from Trapassi to Metastasio, and gave 
him a careful and excellent education for 
his own profession. 

At fourteen years of age, Metastasio 
produced his tragedy of “ Giustino,” which 
so pleased Gravina, that he took him to 
Naples, where he contended with and ex¬ 
celled some of the most celebrated impro- 
visatori of Italy. He still, however, con¬ 
tinued his study of tire law, and with a 
view to the only two channels of prefer¬ 
ment which prevail at Rome, also assumed 
the minor order of priesthood, whence his 
title of abate. In 1718, death deprived 
him of his patron, who bequeathed to him 
the whole of his personal property, amount¬ 
ing to fifteen thousand crowns. Of too 
liberal and hospitable a disposition, he 
gradually made away with this provision 
and then resolved to apply more closely to 
the law. He repaired to Naples, to study for 
that purpose, but becoming acquainted with 
Brugnatelli, usually called “ the Romanina,” 
the most celebrated actress and singer in 
Italy, he gave himself up entirely to har¬ 
mony and poetry. The extraordinary suc¬ 
cess of his first opera, “ Gli Orti Esperidi,” 
confirmed him in this resolution, and joining 
his establishment to that of “ the Romani- 
na ” and her husband, in a short time he 
composed three new dramas, “ Cato in 
Utica,” “ Ezio,” and “ Semiramide.’ , He 
followed these with several more of still 
greater celebrity, until, in 1730, he received 
and accepted an invitation from the court 
of Vienna, to take up his residence in that 
capital, as coadjutor to the imperial laureate, 
Apostolo Zeno, whom he ultimately suc¬ 
ceeded. From that period, the life of 
Metastasio presented a calm uniformity tor 
upwards of half a century. He retained 
the favour of the imperial family undimi¬ 
nished, for his extraordinary talents were 
admirably seconded by the even tenor o f 


211 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


his private character, and avoidance of 
court intrigue. Indefatigable as a poet, he 
composed no less than twenty-six operas, 
and eight oratorios, or sacred dramas, be¬ 
sides cantatas, canzoni, sonnets, and minor 
pieces to a great amount. The p. etical 
characteristics of Metastasio are sweetness, 
correctness, purity, simplicity, gentle pathos, 
and refined and elevated sentiment. There 
is less of nature than of elegance and beauty 
in his dramas, which consequently appear 
insipid to those who have been nourished 
with stronger poetic aliment. 

Dr. Burney, who saw Metastasio at the 
age of seventy-two, describes him as look¬ 
ing like one of fifty, and as the gayest and 
handsomest man, of his time of life, he had 
ever beheld. He died after a short illness 
at Vienna, in April 1782, having completed 
his eighty-fourth year, leaving a consider¬ 
able property in money, books, and valua¬ 
bles. Besides his numerous works, which 
have been translated into most of the Euro¬ 
pean languages, a large collection of his 
letters, published since his death, supplied 
copious materials for his biography.* 


Mrs. Piozzi gives an amusing account of 
Metastasio in his latter days. She says:— 
‘ Here (at Vienna) are many ladies of 
fashion very eminent for their musical abili¬ 
ties, particularly mesdemoiselles de Marti¬ 
nas, one of whom is member of the acade¬ 
mies of Berlin and Bologna : the celebiated 
Metastasio died in their house, after having 
lived with the family sixty-five years more 
or less. They set his poetry and sing it 
very finely, appearing to recollect his con¬ 
versation and friendship with infinite ten¬ 
derness and delight. He was to have been 
presented to the pope the very day he died, 
and in the delirium which immediately 
preceded dissolution, raved much of the 
supposed interview. Unwilling to hear of 
death, no one was ever permitted to men¬ 
tion it before him ; and nothing put him so 
certainly out of humour, as finding that 
rule transgressed. Even the small-pox was 
not to be named in his presence, and who¬ 
ever did name that disorder, though uncon¬ 
scious of the offence he had given, Metas¬ 
tasio would see no more/’ 

Mrs. Piozzi adds, “ The other peculiari¬ 
ties I could gather from Miss Martinas 
were these : that he had contentedly lived 
half a century at Vienna, without ever even 


• Oentrhl Biojj. Diet. Diet, of Musicians. 


wishing to learn its language; that he had 
never given more than five guineas English 
money in all that time to the poor; that he 
always sat in the same seat at church, but 
never paid for it, and that, nobody dared 
ask him for the trifling sum ; that he was 
grateful and beneficent to the friends who 
began by being his protectors, but who, in 
the end, were his debtors, for solid benefits 
as well as for elegant presents, which it was 
his delight to be perpetually making. He 
left to them at last all he had ever gained, 
without the charge even of a single legacy; 
observing in his will, that it was to them 
he owed it, and that other conduct would 
in him have been injustice. He never 
changed the fashion of his wig, or the cut 
or colour of his coat, so that his portrait, 
taken not very long a^o, looks like those of 
Boileau or Moliere at the head of their 
works. His life was arranged with such 
methodical exactness, that he rose, studied, 
chatted, slept, and dined, at the same hours, 
for fifty years together, enjoying uninter¬ 
rupted health, which probably gave him 
that happy sweetness of temper, or habitual 
gentleness of manners, which was never 
ruffled, except when his sole injunction was 
forgotten, and the death of any person 
whatever was unwittingly mentioned before 
him. No solicitation had ever prevailed on 
him to dine from home, nor had his nearest 
intimates ever seen him eat more than a 
biscuit with his lemonade, every meal being 
performed with even mysterious privacy to 
the last When his end approached by 
rapid steps, he did not in the least suspect j 
that it was coming; and mademoiselle 
Martinas has scarcely yet done rejoicing in 
the thought that he escaped the preparations 
he so dreaded. Latterly, all his pleasures 
were confined to music and conversation ; 
and the delight he took in hearing the lady 
he lived with sing his songs, was visible to 
every one. An Italian abate here said, 
comically enough, 1 Oh! he always looked 
like a man in the state of beatification 
when mademoiselle de Martinas accom¬ 
panied his verses with her fine voice and 
brilliant finger.’ The father of Metastasio 
was a goldsmith at Rome, but his son had 
so devoted himself to the family he lived 
with, that he refused to hear, and took 
pains not to know, whether he had in his 
latter days any one relation left in the 
world.” 

We have a life of Metastasio, chiefly de¬ 
rived from his correspondence, by Dr 


212 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


A DEATH-BED: 

n a Letter to R. H. Esq. of B-. 

For the Table Book. 

I called upon you this morning, and 
found that you were gone to visit a dying 
friend. I had been upon a like errand. 
Poor N. R. has lain dying now for almost a 
week ; such is the penalty we pay for having 
enjoyed through life a strong constitution. 
Whether he knew me or not, I know not, 
or whether he saw me through his poor 
glazed eyes ; but the group [ saw about 
him 1 shall not forget. Upon the bed, or 
about it, were assembled his Wife, their 
two Daughters, and poor dea£ Robert, 
looking doubly stupified. There they were, 
and seemed to have been sitting all the 
week. 1 could only teach out a hand to 
Mrs. R. Speaking was impossible in that 
mute chamber. By this time it must be all 
over with him. In him I have a loss the 
world cannot make up. He was my friend, 
and my father’s friend, for all the life that I 
can remember. I seem to have made 
foolish friendships since. Those are the 
friendships, which outlast a second genera¬ 
tion. Old as 1 am getting, in his eyes I 
was still the child he knew me. To the 
last he called me Jemmy. I have none to 
call me Jemmy now. He was the last link 

that bound me to B-. You are but of 

yesterday. In him I seem to have lost the 
uld plainness of manners and singleness of 
heart. Lettered he was not; his reading 
scarcely exceeding the Obituary of the old 
Gentleman’s Magazine, to which he has 
never failed of having recourse for these 
last fifty years. Yet there was the pride of 
literature about him fiom that slender peru¬ 
sal ; and moreover from his office of archive 
keeper to your ancient city, in which he 
must needs pick up some equivocal Latin ; 
which, among his less literary friends as¬ 
sumed the airs of a very pleasant pedantry. 
Can I forget the erudite look with which 
having tried to puzzle out the text of a 
Black lettered Chaucer in your Corporation 
Library, to which he was a sort of Libra¬ 
rian, he gave it up with this oonsolatory 
reflection—“ Jemmy,” said he, “ I do not 
Know what you find in these very old books, 
but I observe, there is a deal of very indif¬ 
ferent spelling in them.” His jokes (for he 
had some) are ended; but they were old 
Perennials, staple, and always as good as 
new. He had one Song, that spake of the 
* flat bottoms of our foes coming ovei in 
darkness,” and alluded to a threatened In¬ 
vasion, many years since blown over; this 


he reserved to be sung on Christmas Night, 
which we always passed with him, and he 
sang it with the freshness of an impending 
event. How his eyes would sparkle when 
he came to the passage : 

We’ll still make ’em run, and we’ll still make ’em 
sweat. 

In spite of the devil and Brussels’Gazette 1 

What is the Brussels’ Gazette now ? I cry, 
while I endite these trifles. His poor girls 
who are, 1 believe, compact of solid good¬ 
ness, will have to receive their afflicted 
mother at an unsuccessful home in a petty 

village in-shire, where for years they 

have been struggling to raise a Girls’School 
with no effect. Poor deaf Robert (and the 
less hopeful for being so) is thrown upon a 
deaf world, without the comfort to his 
father on his death-bed of knowing him 
provided for. They are left almost pro¬ 
visionless. Some life assurance there is; 

but, I fear, not exceeding-. Their hopes 

must be from your Corporation, which their 
father has served for fifty years. Who or 
what are your Leading Members now, I 
know not. Is there any, to whom without 
impertinence you can represent the true 
circumstances of the family? You cannot 
say good enough of poor R., and his poor 
Wife. Oblige me, and the dead, if you 
can. 

London , 10 Feb. 1827. L. 


LINES 

FOR THE 

Table Book. 

What seek’st thou on the heathy lea, 

So frequent and alone ? 

What in the violet cans’t thou see ? 

What in the mossy stone ? 

Yon evening sky’s empurpled dye 
Seems dearer to thy gaze 

Than wealth or fame’s enrapt’ring name, 

Or beauty’s 'witching blaze. 

Go, mingle in the busy throng 
That tread th’ imperial mart; 

There listen to a sweeter song 
Than ever thrill’d thy heart. 

The treasures of a thousand lands 
Shall pour their wealth before thee ; 

Friends proffer thee their eager hands 
And envious fools adore thee. 

Ay—I will seek that busy throng. 

And turn, with aching breast. 

From scenes of tort’ring care and wrong— 
To solitude and rest! 

February 21, 1827. Amicus 


Z13 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


WAVERLET. 

It is a, curious, yet well authenticated 
fact, that the novel of “ Waverley ”—the 
first, and perhaps the best, of the prose 
writing of sir Walter Scott—remained for 
more than ten years unpublished. So far 
oack as 1805, the late talented Mr. John 
Ballantyne announced “ Waverley ” as a 
work preparing for publication, but the an¬ 
nounce excited so little attention, that the 
design was laid aside for reasons which 
every reader will guess. In those days of 
peace and innocence, the spirit of literary 
speculation had scarcely begun to dawn in 
Scotland ; the public taste ran chiefly on 
poetry; and even if gifted men had arisen 
capable of treading in the footsteps of 
Fielding, but with a name and reputation 
anestablished, they must have gone to Lon¬ 
don to find a publisher. The “ magician ” 
himself, with ail his powers, appears to have 
Deen by no means over sanguine as to the 
iltimate success of a tale, which has made 
millions laugh, and as many weep ; and in 
autumn he had very nearly delivered a por¬ 
tion of the MSS. to a party of sportsmen/ 
who visited him in the country, and were 
complaining of a perfect famine of wad¬ 
ding. * 


3 footing artist’s Setter 

FROM SWITZERLAND. 

From the letter of an English artist, now 
abroad, accompanied by marginal sketches 
with the pen, addressed to a young relation, 
I am obligingly permitted to take the fol¬ 
lowing— 

EXTRACT, 

Interlaken , Switzerland. 

Sunday, Sept. 10, 1826. 

1 arrived at Geneva, after a ride of a day 
and a night, from Lyons, through a delight¬ 
ful mountainous country. The steam-boat 
carried me from Geneva to Lausanne, a 
very pretty town, at the other end of the 
fine lake, from whence I went to Berne, 
one of the principal towns in Switzerland, 
and the most beautiful I have seen yet. It 

extremely clean, and therefore it was 
quite a treat, after the French towns, which 
are filthy. 

Berne is convenient residence, both in 
! sunny and wet weather, for all the streets 
; have arcades, under which the shops are in 
! this way, 

j * The Times, 26th March, from an “ Edinburgh paper.” 


il 


u u 



so that people are not obliged to walk in 
the middi-e of the street at all. The town 
is protected by strong fortifications, but the 
ramparts are changed into charming lawns 
and walks. There are also delightful ter¬ 
races on the river side, commanding th-e 
surrounding country, which is enchanting— 
rich woods and fertile valleys, swelling 
mountains, and meadows like vei'vet; and, 
beyond all, the snowy Alps. 

At Berne I equipped myself as most 
persons do who travel on foot through 
Switzerland ; I have seen scores of young 
men all in the same pedestrian costume. I 
give you a sketch, that you may have a 
better idea of it. 



The dress is a light sort of smock-frock, 
with a leather belt round the waist, a straw 
hat, a knapsack on the back, and a small 
bottle, covered with leather, to carry spirits, 
fastened round the neck by a leather strap 
The long pole is for climbing up the moun¬ 
tains, and jumping over the ice 

From Berne I arrived at Thun. The fine 
lake of Thun is surrounded by mountains 
of various forms, and I proceeded along it 
to this place. I have been on the lake of 
Brientys and to Lauterbrunnen, wdiere 
there is the celebrated waterfall, called the 
“ Stubachit falls about 800 feet; the 
rocks about it are exceedingly romantic, 
and close to it are the snowy mountains, 
among w'hich I should particularize the 
celebrated <c ^ung frow,” which has uever 
been ascended. 

Interlaken is surrounded by mountains. 


214 

















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


■> 


ind its scenery for sketches delicious. It houses are the prettiest things 1 ever sav ; 
is a village, built nearly all of wood ; the they are in this way. 



but much more beautiful than I can show 
in a small sketch. They are delicately 
clean, and mostly have fine vines and 
plenty of grapes about them. The stones 
on the roof are to keep the wood from 
being blown off. Then the people dress 
so well, and all look so happy, that it is a 
pleasure to be among them. I cannot un¬ 
derstand a word they say, and yet they are 
all civil and obliging. If any children 
happen to see me drawing out of doors, 
: they always run to fetch a chair for me 
The women are dressed in this manner. 


The poor people and ladies are in the 
same style exactly: the caps are made of 
horsehair, and the hair dressed quite plain 
in front, and plaited behind almost to the 
ground tvith black ribbons. They wear 
silver chains from each side of the bosom, 
to pass under the arms, and fasten on 
the back. They are not all pretty, but 
they are particularly clean and neat. There 
is nothing remarkable in the mei-'s dress, 


only that I observe on a Sunday they wear 
white nightcaps : every man that I can see 
now out of my window has one on; and 
they are all playing at ball and nine-pins, 
just as they do in France. There is an¬ 
other kind of cap worn here made of silk; 
this is limp, and does not look so well 
They have also a flat straw hat. 



The women work much more than the 
men ; they even row the boats on the 
lakes. All the Swiss, however, are very 
industrious; and I like Switzerland altoge¬ 
ther exceedingly. I leave this place to¬ 
morrow, and am going on to the beautiful j 
valley of Sornen, (there was a view of it in 
the Diorama,) and then to the lake of the 
lour cantons, or lake of Lucerne, and 
round the canton of the Valais to Geneva, ! 
and from thence for the lakes of Italy. If 
you examine a map for these places, it will 
be an amusement for you. 

Lady Byron has been here for two days; 
she is making a tour of Switzerland. There 
are several English passing through. I can 
scarcely give you a better notion of the 
situation of this beautiful little village, than 
by saying that it is in a valley between two 
lakes, and that there are the most charming 
walks you can imagine to the eminences or. 
the river side, and along the borders of the 
lakes. There are more goats here than in 
Wales: they all wear a little bell round 
their neck ; and the sheep and cows being 
similarly distinguished, the movement of 
the flocks and herds keep an incessant 
tinkling, and relieve the stillness of the 
beauteous scenery. 




215 














































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


tfhttna <Bvtm jilarrtagesu 

THE BLACKSMITH. 

On Friday, March 23, at Lancaster Lent 
assizes 1827, before Mr. baron Hullock, 
tame on the trial of an indictment against 
Edward Gibbon Wakefield and William 
Wakefield, (brothers,) Edward Thevenot, 
(their servant,) and Frances the wife of 
Edward Wakefield, (father of the brothers,) 
for conspiring by subtle stratagems and 
false representations to take and carry away 
Ellen Turner, a maid, unmarried, and within 
the age of sixteen years, the only child and 
heiress of William Turner, from the care of 
the Misses Daulby, who had the education 
and governance of Miss Turner, and caus¬ 
ing her to contract matrimony with the 
said Edward Gibbon Wakefield, without 
the knowledge and consent of her father, 
to her great disparagement, to her father’s 
discomfort, ana against the king’s peace. 
Thevenot was acquitted ; the other defend¬ 
ants were found “ guilty,” and the bro¬ 
thers stood committed to Lancaster-castle. 

To a second indictment, under the statute 
of 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, against the 
brothers, for the abduction of Miss Turner, 
they Withdrew their plea of “ not guilty,” 
and pleaded “ guilty ” to the fifth count. 

In the course of the defence to the first 
indictment, David Laing, the celebrated 
blacksmith of Gretna-green, was examined ; 
and, indeed, the trial is only mentioned in 
these pages, for the purpose of sketching 
this anomalous chaiacter as he appeared in 
the witness-box, and represented his own 
proceedings, according to The Times' re¬ 
port :—viz. 

In appearance this old man was made to 
assume a superiority over his usual com¬ 
panions. Somebody had dressed him in a 
black coat, and velvet waistcoat and breeches 
of the same colour, with a shining pair of 
top boots—the shape of his hat, too, re¬ 
sembled the clerical fashion. He seemed 
a vulgar fellow, though not without shrewd¬ 
ness and that air of familiarity, which he 
might be supposed to have acquired by the 
freedom necessarily permitted by persons 
of a better rank of life, to one who was 
conscious he had the power of performing 
for them a guilty, but important ceremony. 

On entering the witness-box, he leaned 
forward towards the counsel employed to 
examine him, with a ludicrous expression 
of gravity upon his features, and accom¬ 
panied every answer with a knitting of his 
wrinkled brow, and significant nodding of 
his head, which gave peculiar force to his 


quaintness of phraseology, and occasion¬ 
ally convulsed the court with laughter. 

He was interrogated both by Mr. Scarlet 
and Mr. Coltman in succession. 

Who are you, Laing? 

Why, l live in Springfield. 

Well, what did you do in this affair? 

Why, I was sent for to Linton’s, where 
I found two gentlemen, as it may be, and 
one lady. 

Did you know them ? 

I did not. 

Do you see them in court ? 

Why, no I cannot say. 

What did you do ( 

Why I joined them, and then got the 
lady’s address, where she come from, and 
the party’s I believe. 

YVhat did they do then ? 

Why, the gentleman wrote down the 
names, and the lady gave way to it. 

In fact, you married them after the usual 
way ? 

Yes, yes, I married them after the Scotch 
form, that is, by my putting on the ring on 
the lady’s finger, and' that way. 

Were they both agreeable? 

O yes, I joined their hands as man ana 
wife 

Was that the whole of the ceremony— 
was it the end of it ? 

I wished them well, shook hands with 
them, and, as I said, they then both em¬ 
braced each other very agreeably. 

What else did you do? 

I thinkl told the lady that I generally had 
a present from ’em, as it may be, of such a 
thing as money to buy a pair of gloves, 
and she gave me, with her own hand, a 
twenty-shilling Bank of England note to 
buy them. 

Where did she get the note ? 

How do I know. 

What did the gentleman say to you ? 

Oh, you ask what did he treat me with. 

No, I do not; what did he say to you? 

He did nothing to me; but I did to him 
what I have done to many before, that is, 
you must know, to join them together ; join 
hands, and so on. I bargained many in 
that way, and she was perfectly agreeable, 
and made no objections. 

Did you give them a certificate ? 

Oh ! yes, I gave it to the lady. 

[Here a piece of paper was identified by 
this witness, and read in evidence, pur¬ 
porting to certify that Edward Gibbon 
Wakefield and Ellen Turner had been 
duly married according to the form 
required by the Scottish law. This 
paper, except the names and dates, 


216 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


was a printed register, at the top of 
which was a rudely executed wood- 
cut, apparently of the royal arms ] 

Hid the gentleman and lady converse 
freely with you? 

O, yes; he asked me what sort of wine 
they had in Linton’s house, and l said they 
had three kinds, with the best of Shumpine 
(Champagne.) He asked me which I would 
take, and I said Shumpine , and so and so ; 
while they went into another room to dine, 
1 finished the wine, and then off I came. I 
returned, and saw them still in the very 
best of comfortable spirits. 

Mr. Scarlett.—W e have done with you, 
Laing. 

Mr. Brougham. —But my turn is to 
come with you, my gentleman. What did 
you get for this job besides the Shumpine ? 
Did you get money as well as Shumpine? 

Yes, sure I did, and so and so. 

Well, how much ? 

Thirty or forty pounds or thereabouts, as 
may be. 

Or fifty pounds, as it may be, Mr. Black¬ 
smith ? 

May be, for I cannot say to a few pounds, 
i am dull of hearing. 

Was this marriage ceremony, which you 
have been describing, exactly what the law 
and church of Scotland require on such 
occasions, as your certificate (as you call it) 
asserts ? 

O yes, it is in the old common form. 

What 1 Do you mean in the old common 
form of the church of Scotland, fellow ? 

There is no prayer-book required to be 
produced, I tell you. 

Will you answer me when I ask you, 
what do you mean by the old ordinary 
form of the church of Scotland, when this 
transaction has nothing whatever to do with 
that church ? Were you never a clergyman 
of that country ? 

Ne-ver. 

How long are you practising this delight¬ 
ful art ? 

Upwards of forty-eight years I am doing 
these marriages. 

How old are you ? 

I am now beyond seventy-five. 

What do you do to get your livelihood ? 

I do these. 

Pretty doing it is; but how did you get 
your livelihood, say, before these last pre¬ 
cious forty-eight years of your life ? 

I was a gentleman. 

What do you call a gentleman ? 

Being sometimes poor, sometimes rich. 

Come now, say what was your occupa¬ 
tion before you took to this trade? 


I followed many occupations 

Weie you not an ostler? 

No, 1 were not. 

What else were you then ? 

Why, I was a merchant once. 

That is a travelling vagrant pedlar, as 1 
understand your term ? 

Yes, may be. 

Were you ever any thing else in the way 
of calling ? 

Never. 

Come back now to what you call the 
marriage. Do you pretend to say that it 
was done after the common old form of the 
church of Scotland ? Is not the general 
way by a clergyman ? 

That is not the general way altoge¬ 
ther. 

Do you mean that the common ordinary 
w r ay in Scotland is not to send for a clergy¬ 
man, but to go a hunting after a fellow like 
you? 

Scotland is not in the practice altogethei 
of going after clergymen. Many does not 
go that way at all. 

Do you mean to swear, then, that the 
regular common mode is not to go before a 
cleigyman ? 

1 do not say that, as it may be. 

Answer me the question plainly, or else 
you shall not so easily get back to this 
good old work of yours in Scotland as you 
think ? 

1 say as it may be, the marriages in Scot¬ 
land an’t always done in the churches. 

I know that as well as you do, for the 
clergyman sometimes attends in private 
houses, or it is done before a justice depute ; 
but is this the regular mode? 

I say it ent no wrong mode—it is law. 

Re-examined by Mr. Scarlett. 

Well, is it the irregular mode? 

No, not irregular, but as it may be un¬ 
regular, but its right still. 

You mean your own good old unregular 
mode ? 

Yes; I have been both in the courts ot 
Edinburgh and Dublin, and my marriages 
have always been held legal. 

What form of words do you use? 

Why, you come before me, and say— 

Mr. Scarlett. —No, I will not, for I do 
not w r ant to be married; but suppose a 
man did who called for your services, wnat 
is he to do ? 

Why, it is I that do it. Surely 1 ask 
them, before two witnesses, do you take 
one and other for man and wife, and they 
say they do, and I then declare them to be 
man and wife for ever more, and so and so, 
in the Scotch way you observe. 


217 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


The Court. —Mr. Attorney, (addressing 
Mr. Scarlett, who is attorney-general for 
the county palatine,) is it by a fellow like 
this, that you mean to prove the custom of 
the law of Scotland as to valid marriage ? 

| Here the blacksmith’s examination ter¬ 
minated. 

I_ 

SPRING. 

Oh, how delightful to the soul of man, 

How like a renovating spirit comes, 

Fanning his cheek, the breath of infant Spring ! 
Morning awakens in the orient sky 
With purpler light, beneath a canopy 
Of lovely clouds, their edges tipped with gold ; 

And from his palace, like a deity. 

Darting his lustrous eye from pole to pole. 

The glorious sun comes forth, the vernal sky 
To walk rejoicing. To the bitter north 
Retire wild winter’s forces—cruel winds— 

And griping frosts—and magazines of snow— 

And deluging tempests. O’er the moisten’d fields 
A tender green is spread ; the bladed grass 
Shoots foith exuberant; th’ awakening trees, 

Thawed by the delicate atmosphere, put forth 
Expanding buds; while, ivith mellifluous throat. 

The warm ebullience of internal joy. 

The birds hymn forth a song of gratitude 

To him who sheltered, when the storms were deep. 

And fed them through the winter’s cheerless gloom. 

Beside the garden path, the crocus now 
Puts forth its head to woo the genial breeze, 

And finds the snowdrop, hardier visitant. 

Already basking in the solar ray. 

I Upon the brook the water-cresses float 
| More greenly, and the bordering reeds exalt 
Higher their speary summits. Joyously, 
j From stone to stone, the ouzel flits along. 

Startling the linnet from the hawthorn bough ; 

While on the elm-tree, overshadowing deep 
The low-roofed cottage white, the blackbird sits 
Cheerily hymning the awakened year. 

Turn to the ocean—how the scene is changed . 
Behold the small waves melt upon the shore 
With chastened murmur ! Buoyantly on high 
j The sea-gulls ride, weaving a sportive dance, 

[ And turning to the sun their snowy plumes. 

With shrilly pipe, from headland or from cape, 

Emerge the line of plovers, o’er the sands 
Fast sweeping; while to inland marsh the hern. 

With undulating wing scarce visible, 

Far up the azure concave journies on ! 

Upon the sapphire deep, its sails unfurl’d, 

Tardily glides along the fisher’s boat. 

Its shadow moving o’er the moveless tide ; 

The bright wave flashes from the rower’s oar, 
Glittering in the sun, at measured intervals ; 

And, casually borne, the fisher’s voice. 

Floats solemnly along the watery waste; 

The shepherd bov, enveloped in his plaid, 

On the green oank, with blooming furze o’ertopped. 
Listens, ana answers with responsive note. 


(Crrcntn'c 15 to graphs 

JAMES CHAMBERS. 

This unfortunate being, well known by 
the designation of “ the poor poet,’’ was 
born at Soharn, in Cambridgeshire, in 1748, 
where his father was a leather-seller, but 
having been unfortunate in business, and 
marrying a second wife, disputes and family 
broils arose. It was probably from this 
discomfort in his paternal dwelling-place, 
that he left home never to return. At first, 
and for an uncertain period, he was a maker 
and seller of nets and some small wares. 
Afterwards, he composed verses on birth¬ 
days and weddings, acrostics on names, 
and such like matters. Naturally mild and 
unassuming in his manners, he attracted 
the attention and sympathy of many, and 
by this means lived, or, rather, suffered 
life! That his mind was diseased there 
can be no doubt, for no sane being would 
have preferred an existence such as his. 
What gave the first morbid turn to his feel¬ 
ings is perhaps unknown. His sharp, lively, 
sparkling eye might have conveyed an idea 
that he had suffered disappointment in the 
tender passion; while, from the serious 
tendency of many of his compositions, it 
may be apprehended that religion, or false 
notions of religion, in his very young days, 
operated to increase the unhappiness that 
distressed his faculties. Unaided bv edu- 
cation of any kind, he yet had attained to 
write, although his MSS. were scarcely in¬ 
telligible to any but himself; he could spell 
correctly, was a very decent grammarian, 
and had even acquired a smattering oi 
Latin and Greek. 

From the age of sixteen to seventy years, 
poor Chambers travelled about the county 
of Suffolk, a sort of wandering bard, gaining 
a precarious subsistence by selling his own 
effusions, of which he had a number printed 
in cheap forms. Among the poorer people ot 
the country, he was mostly received with a 
hearty welcome; they held him in great 
estimation as a poet, and sometimes be¬ 
stowed on him a small pecuniary recom¬ 
pense for the ready adaptation of his poeti¬ 
cal qualities, in the construction of verses 
on certain occasions suitable to their taste 
or wishes. Compositions of this nature 
were mostly suggested to him by his muse 
during the stillness of night, while reposing 
in some friendly barn or hay-loft. When 
so inspired, he would immediately arise and 
commit the effusion to paper. His memory 
was retentive, and, to amuse his hearers, he 
would repeat most of his pieces by heart. 


218 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


He wandered for a considerable time in the 
w*est of Suffolk, particularly at Haverhill; 
and Mr. John Webb, of that place, in his 
poem entitled “ Haverhill,” thus notices 
him :— 

An napless outcast, on whose natal day 
No star propitious beam’d a kindly ray. 

By some malignant influence doom’d to roam 
The world’s wide dreary waste, and know no home. 
Yet heav’n to cheer him as he pass’d along. 

Infus’d in life’s sour cup the sweets of song. 

Upon his couch of straw, or bed of hay. 

The poetaster tun’d the acrostic lay : 
j On him an humble muse her favours shed. 

And nightly mnsings earn’d his daily bread. 

Meek, unassuming, modest shade ! forgive 
This frail attempt to make thy memory live. 
Minstrel, adieu !—to me thy fate’s unknown ; 

Since last I saw you, many a year has flown. 

Full oft has summer poured her fervid beams, 

; And winter’s icy breath congeal’d the streams. 
Perhaps, lorn wretch! unfriended and alone 
In hovel vile, thou gav’st thy final groan I 
Clos’d the blear’d eye, ordain’d no more to weep. 
And sunk, unheeded sunk, in death’s long sleep I 

Chambers left Haverhill, never to return 
to it, in the year 1790. In peregrinating 
the country, which he did in every change 
of sky, through storms, and through snow, 
or whatever might betide, he was often 
supported entirely by the spontaneous be¬ 
nevolence of those who witnessed his wan¬ 
derings. In his verses on a snow-storm, he 
says:— 

This vile raiment hangs in tatters ; 

No warm garment to defend : 

O’er my flesh the chill snow scatters , 

No snug l. ~« .-.ocial friend ! 

About four years before his death, while 
sojourning in Woodbridge, sleeping in a 
miserable hut on the barrack ground, and 
daily wandering about the town, with every 
visible mark of misery to distress the eye, 
his condition became a libel upon the feel¬ 
ings of the inhabitants of the place; a few 
gentlemen determined he should no longer 
wander in such a state of wretchedness, 
offered to clothe and cleanse mm, and 
provide a comfortable room, bed, &c. and 
a person to shave him and wash for him; 
and they threatened, if he would not comply, 
\o take him home to where he belonged. 

I His aversion to a poor-house amounted 
to horror: he expresses somewhat to that 
effect in one of his poems— 

’Mongst Belial’s sons of contention and strife, 

To breathe out the transient remains of my lifel 

This dread operated in behalf of those 


who desired to assist him. His wretched 
hovel was emptied, its miserable accumu¬ 
lations were consigned to the flames, and 
he was put into a new habitation, clothed 
from head to foot, and so metamorphosed, 
that but few knew him at first sight. A 
bedstead and bedding, a chair, table, and 
necessary crockery were provided for his 
comfort, but the poor creature was often 
heard to exclaim, of the cleansing and 
burning, that “ it was the worst day’s work 
he ever met with.” After a few short weeks 
he left this home, and a shilling a week 
allowed him by a gentleman, besides some 
weekly pence, donations from ladies in the 
town, for a life of wandering privation and, 
at times, of absolute want, until the closing 
scene of his weary pilgrimage. He breathed 
his last on the 4th of January, 1827, in an 
unoccupied farm-house belonging to Mr 
Thurston of Stradbroke, where he had been 
permitted the use of two rooms. Within 
a few days before, he had been as web as 
usual, but he suddenly became ill, and had 
the attention of two women, neighbours, 
w'ho provided him warm gruel, and a few 
things his situation required. Some one 
had given him a warm blanket, and when 
he died there was food in the house, with 
tenpence halfpenny in money, a few scraps 
of poetry, and a bushel of wheat which he 
had gleaned in the harvest. A decent coffin 
and shroud were provided, and he was 
buried in Stradbrook churchyard * 

Chambers was literally one of the poor 
at all times; and hence his annals are short 
and simple. Disregard of personal ap¬ 
pearance was natural to his poverty-stricken 
circumstances and melancholy disposition ; 
for the wheel of his fortune was fixed by 
habit, as by a nail in a sure place, to con¬ 
stant indigence. Neglected in his youth, 
and without fixed employment, he brooded 
throughout life on his hopeless condition, 
without a friend of his own rank who 
could participate in his sorrows. He was a 
lonely man, and a wanderer, who had neither 
act nor part in the common ways of the 
world. 


Waujrfmll. 

A Dramatic Sketch. 

For the Table Book 

Characters—Mr. Greenfat, Mrs. Greenfat, 
Masters Peter and Humphrey Greenfat, 
Misses Theodosia and Arabella Green- 
fat, and Mr. John Eelskin. 

• The Ipswich Journal, January 31, 1827. 


219 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Seen dispersedli, in various parts of the 
gardens. 

Master Peter. Oh my! what a sweet 
place! Why, the lamps are thicker than 
the pears in our garden, at Walworth: 
what a load of oil they must burn ! 

Miss Arabella. Mamma, is that the lady 
mayoress, with the ostridge feathers, and 
the pink satin gown ? 

Mrs. Greenfat. No, my love; that’s 
Miss Biddy Wilkins, of Gutter-lane ! (To 
a waiter■) You rude fellow, you’ve trod on 
my dress, and your nasty foot has torn off 
one of my flounces. 

Miss Theodosia. John, (to Mr. Eels kin 
how very pretty that hilluminated walk 
/ooks. Dear me ! do you see the fountain ? 
How vastly reviving this hot weather, 
isn’t it ? 

Mr. Eelskin. .Ah, my beloved Theo¬ 
dosia ! how should I notice the beauties of 
the scene in your company—when your 
eyes are brighter than the lamps, and your 
voice is sweeter than the music ? In vain 
the fiddlers fiddle, and the singers sing, I 
can hear nothing—listen to nothing—but 
my adorable Theodosia! 

Master Humphrey. La, papa, what’s that 
funny round place, with flags on the top, 
and ballad women and men with cocked 
hats inside ? 

Mr. Greenfat. That’s the Hawkestraw. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Hush, my dear; it’s 
vulgar to talk loud. Dosee, my love, don't 
hang so on Mr. John’s arm, you’ll quite 
fatigue him. That’s Miss Tunstall—Miss 
Tunstall’s going to sing. Now, my pretty 
Peter, don’t talk so fast. 

Miss Arabella. Does that lady sing in 
French, mamma ? 

Mrs Greenfat. No, child, it’s a senthe - 
mental air, and they never have no mean- 
ing? 

Miss Theodosia. That’s the overthure to 
Frieds hots ; Eelskin, do you like it ? 

Mr Eelskin. On your piano I should. 
But shall 1 take you out of this glare of 
light? Would yon choose a ramble in the 
dark walk, and a peep at the puppet-show- 
cosmoramas ? 

Mr. Greenfat. I hates this squalling. 

(Dell rings.) What’s that for? 

Mr. Eelskin. That’s for the fant-toe- 
sheeni , and the balancing man. 

Mr. Greenfat. Well then, let’s go and 
.ook at Mr. Fant-toe-sheeni. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Oh, goodness, how I’m 
squeedged. Pray don’t push so, sir—I’m 
astonished at your rudeness, mam ! You’ve 

-- 


trod on my corn, and lamed me for the 
evening ! 

Mr. Greenfat. Sir, how dare you suffer 
your wife to tread on my wife’s toes ? 

Master Peter. My stars, sister, he’s goi 
a bagginette on his nose ! 

Mrs. Greenfat. Mr. John, will you put 
little Humphy on your shoulder, and 
show him the fant-oh-see-ne f 

Master Humphrey. I can see now’, 
mamma; there’s Punch and Judy, mam¬ 
ma ! Oh, my ! how well they do dance ! 

Mr. Greenfat. I can see this in the streets 
for nothing. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Yes, Mr Greenfat, but 
not in such good company 1 

Mr. Eelskin. This, my beautiful Theo¬ 
dosia, is the musical temple ; it’s very ele¬ 
gant—only it never plays Them paint¬ 
ings on the walls were painted by Mungo 
Parke and Hingo Jones; the archatechtnre 
of this room is considered very tine ! 

Master Peter. Oh, I’m so hot. (Bell 
rings.) 

Mr. Eelskin. That’s for the hyder-haiv- 
lics. We’d better go into the gallery, and 
then the ladies won’t be in the crowd. 

Mr. Greenfat. Come along then; we 
want to go into the gallery. A shilling 
a-piece, indeed ! I wonder at your impu¬ 
dence ! Why, we paid three and six¬ 
pence a head at the door. 

Mr. Eelskin. Admission to the gallery 
is hextra. 

Mr. Greenfat. Downright robbery !—I 
won’t pay a farthing more. 

Miss Arabella. See, mamma, water and 
fire at once!—how droll ! 

Mrs. Greenfat. Pray be kind enough to 
take off your hat, sir ; my little boy can’t 
see a bit. Humphy, my dear, hold fast by 
the railing, and then you won’t lose your 
place. Oh, Mr. John, how very close and 
sultry it is ! 

Mr. Greenfat. What outlandish hussey’s 
that, eh, John ? 

Mr. Eelskin. That’s the female juggler, 
sir. 

Miss Theodosia. Are those real knives, 
do you think, John ? 

Mr. Eelskin. Oh, no doubt of it; only 
the edges are blunt to prevent mischief. 
V\ ho’s this wild-looking man ? Oh, this is 
the male juggler : and now we shall have a 
duet of juggling ! 

Mrs. Greenfat. Can you see, Peter?— 
Bella, my love, can you see? Mr. John, 
do you take care of Dosee ? Well, I pur~ 
test I never saw any thing half so wonder- 
ful : did you, Mr. Greenfat ? 


220 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Mr Greenfat. Never : I wonder when it 
will be over? 

Mr. Eelskin. We’d better not go away ; 
the ballet will begin presently, and I’m 
sure you’ll like the dancing, Miss, for, ex¬ 
cepting the IFestrisis, and your own sweet 
self, I never saw better dancing. 

Miss Theodosia. Yes, I loves dancing; 
and at the last Cripplegate ball, the master 
of the ceremonies paid me several compli¬ 
ments. 

Miss Arabella. Why do all the dancers 
wear plaids, mamma ? 

Mrs. Greenfat. Because it’s a cool dress, 
dear. . 

Mr. Greenfat. Well, if a girl of mine 
whisked her petticoats about in that man¬ 
ner, I’d have her horsewhipped. 

Mr. Eelskin. Now we’ll take a stroll till 
the concert begins again. This is the ma¬ 
rine cave—very natural to look at, Miss, 
but nothing but paint and canvass, I as¬ 
sure you. This is the rewolving evening 
war for the present; after the fire-works, it 
still change into his majesty, King George. 
Yonder’s the hermit and his cat. 

Master Peter. Mamma, loes that old 
man always sit there ? 

Mrs. Greenfat. I’m sure I don’t know, 
child ; does he, Mr. Eelskin ? 

Mr. Greenfat. Nonsense—it’s all gam¬ 
mon ! 

Mr. Eelskin. This way, my angel; the 
concert has recommenced. 

Miss Theodosia. Oh, that’s Charles Tay¬ 
lor; I likes his singing; he's such a merry 
fellow : do hancore him, John. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Dosee, my dear, you’re 
too bold ; it was a very impnrent song : I 
declare I’m quite ashamed of you ! 

Mr. Greenfat. Never mince matters j 
always speak your mind, girl. 

Mr. Eelskin. The fire-works come next. 
Suppose we get nearer the Moorish tower, 
and look for good places, as Mr. G. dis¬ 
likes paying for the gallery. Now you’ll 
not be afeard ; there’ll not be the least 
danger, depend. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Is there much smoke, 
Mr. John?—Do they fire many cannons? 
—I hates cannons—and smoke makes me 
cough. ( Bell rings.) Run, run, my dears— 
Humphy, Peter, Bella, run ! Mr. Greenfat, 
run, or we shall be too late ! Eelskin and 
Dosee are a mile afore us! What’s that 
red light? Oh, we shall all be burnt! 
What noise is that ?—Oh, it’s the bomb in 
the Park !—We shall all be burnt! 

Mr. Greenfat. Nonsense, woman, don’t 
lighten the children ! 

Miss Theodosia. Now you’re sure the 


rockets won’t fall on my new pink bonnet, 
nor the smoke soil my French white dress, 
nor the smell of the powder frighten me ! 
into fits ?—Now you’re quite sure of it, - 
John? 

Mr. Eelskin. Quite sure, my charmer: I 
have stood here repeatedly, and never had 
a hair of my head hurt. See, Blackmore is 
on the rope ; there he goes up—up—up ! 
—Isn’t it pretty, Miss ? 

Miss Theodosia. Oh, delightful!—Does 
he never break his neck ? 

Mr. Eelskin. Never—it’s insured ! Now 
he descends. How they shoot the maroons 
at him ! Don’t be afeard, lovee, they sha’n't 
hurt you. See, Miss, how gracefully he 
bows to you.—Isn’t it terrific ? 

Miss Theodosia. Is this alll —I thought 
it would last for an hour, at least. John, 
I’m so hungry ; I hope papa means to have 
supper ? 

Master Peter. Mamma, I’m so hungry. 

Master Humphrey . Papa, I’m so dry. 

Miss Arabella. Mamma, I want some¬ 
what to eat. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Greenfat, my dear, we 
must have some refreshments. 

Mr. Greenfat. Refreshments ! where will 
you get them ? All the boxes are full. 
—Oh, here’s one. Waiter! what, the devil, 
call this a dish of beef?—It don’t weigh 
three ounces ! Bring half a gallon of stout, 
and plenty of bread. Can’t we have some 
water for the children ? 

Mr. Eelskin. Shouldn’t we have a little 
wine, sir?—it’s more genteeler. 

Mr. Greenfat. Wine, Eelskin, wine !— 
Bad sherry at six shillings a bottle !— 
Couldn’t reconcile it to my conscience 
—We’ll stick to the stout. 

Mrs. Greenfat. Eat, my loves.—Some 
more bread for Bella.—There’s a bit of fat 
for you, Peter.—Humphy, you shall have 
my crust.—Pass the stout to Dosee, Mr 
John.—Don’t drink it all , my dear ! 

Mr. Greenfat. Past two o’clock !—Shame¬ 
ful !—Waiter, bring the bill. Twelve shil¬ 
lings and eightpence— abominable! — 
Charge a shilling a pot for stout—mon¬ 
strous ! Well, no matter ; we’ll walk home 
Come along. 

Master Peter. Mamma, I’m .so tired. 

Miss Arabella. Mamma, my legs ache 
so. 

Master Humphrey. Papa, I wish you’d 
carry me. 

Mr. Greenfat Come along—it wil 1 be 
five o’clock before we get home ! 

[Exeunt omnex 

H 


221 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


TO MV TEA-KETTLE. 

For the Table Book. 

1 . 

For many a verse inspired by tea, 

(A never-failing muse to me) 

Mv Kettle, let this tribute flow. 

Thy charms to blazon. 

And tell thy modest worth, although 
Thy face be brazen. 

2 . 

Let others boast the madd’mng bowl. 

That raises but to sink the soul, 

Thou art the Bacchus that alone 
I wish to follow s 
From thee I tipple Helicon, 

My best Apollo ! 

3. 

’Tis night—my children sleep—no noise 
Is heard, except thy cheerful voice; 

For when the wind would gam mine ear. 
Thou sing’st the faster— 

As if thou wert resolv’d to cheer 
Thy lonely master. 


And so thou dost: those brazen lungs 
Vent no decnit, like human tongues : 

That honest breath was never known 
To turn informer: 

And for thy feelings—all must own 
That none are warmer. 

5. 

But late, another eye and ear 
Would mark thy form, thy music hear : 

Alas 1 how soon our pleasures fly. 
Returning never! 

That ear is deaf—that friendly eye 
Is clos’d for ever I 

6 . 

Be thou then, now, my friend, my guide, 

And humming wisdom by my side, 

Teach me so patiently to bear 
Hot-water troubles. 

That they may end, like thine, in air. 

And turn to bubbles. 

7. 

Let me support misfortune’s fire 
Unhurt; and, when I fume with ire. 

Whatever friend my passion sees. 

And near me lingers, 

Let him still handle me with ease 
Nor burn his fingers. 

8 . 

Oi may my memory, like thy front. 

When I am cold, endure the brunt 
Of vitriol envy’s keen assaults. 

And shine the brighter. 

And ev’ry rub—that makes my faults 
• Appear the lighter. 

Sam Sam’s Son. 


TO MY TEA-POT. 

For the Table Book. 

1 . 

My Tea-pot! while thy lips pour forth 
For me a stream of matchless worth. 

I’ll pour forth my rhymes for the#! 
Don Juan’s verse is gross, they say ; 

But I will pen a grocer lay. 

Commencing—“ Amo tea." 

2 . 

Yes—let Anacreon’s votary sip 
His flowing bowl with feverish lip. 

And breathe abominations; 

Some day he’ll be bowl'd out for it — 

He’s brewing mischief, while I sit 

And brew my Tea-pot-ations. 

3. 

After fatigue, how dear to me 
The maid who suits me to a T, 

And makes the water bubble. 

From her red hand when I receive 
The evergreen, I seem to give 
At T. L. no trouble. 

4. 

I scorn the hop, disdain the malt, 

I hate solutions sweet and salt, 

Injurious I vote ’em ; 

For tea my faithful palate yearns; 

Thus—though my fancy never turns, 

11 always is tea-totum l 

5. 

Yet some assure me whilst I sip, 

That thou hast stain’d thy silver lip 
With sad adulterations— 

Slow poison drawn from leaves of sloe. 

That quickly cause the quick to go. 

And join their dead relations. 

6 . 

Aunt Malaprop now drinks noyeau 
Instead of Tea, and well I know 

That she prefers it greatly: 

She says, “ Alas ! I give up Tea, 

There’s been so much adultery 

Among the grocers lately !” 

7. 

She warns me of Tea-dealers’ tricks— 

Those double-dealing men, who mix 

Unwholesome drugs with some Te* 
’Tis bad to sip—and yet to give 
Up sipping’s worse , we cannot live 

“ Nec sine Tea , nec cum Tea" 

8 . 

Yet still, tenacious of my Tea, 

I think the grocers send it me 

Quite pure, (’tis what they call so.) 
Heedless of warnings, still I get 
“ Tea ver.iente die, et 

Tea decedente,” also. 

Sam Sam’s Son 









































THE TABLE BOOK. 



£>tratforS upon 3bon Cbuirl). 


From a sepia drawing, obligingly com¬ 
municated by J. S. J., the reader is presented 
with this view of a church, “ hallowed by 
beincr the sepulchral enclosure of the re¬ 
mains of the immortal Shakspeare. Jt 
exemplifies the two distinct styles, the 
early pointed and that of the fourteenth 
century. The tower is of the first con¬ 
struction; the windows of the transepts 
dossess a preeminent and profuse display 
of the mullions and tracery characteristic 
of the latter period.* _ 

• Mr. Carter, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1816. 


This structure is spacious and handsome 
and was formerly collegiate, and dedicate 
to the Holy Trinity. A row of limes 

trained so as to form an arched avenu ^ 
form an approach to the great door. A 
representation of a portion of thw pie- 
entrance is in an engraving of^he churcl. 
in the “ Gentleman s Magazine for 1807 
Another opportunity will occur for re la 
ting particulars respecting the venerab @ 
edifice, and the illustrious bard, whose birth 
and burial at Stratford upon Avon confer 
on the town imperishable fame. 


d 


Q 


223 































































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


©arrtcft 

No. XTl. 

[From the “ Brazen Age,” an Historical 
Play, by Thomas Heywood, 1613.] 

Venus courts Adonis. 

Venus. Why doth Adonis fly the Queen of Love, 
And shun this ivory girdle of my arms ? 

To he thus scarf’d the dreadful God of War 
Would give me conquer'd kingdoms. For a kiss, 

But half like this, I could command the Sun 
Rise ’fore his hour, to bed before his time; 

And, being love-sick, change his golden beanris. 

And make his face pale as his sister Moon. 

Look on me, Adon, with a stedfast eye, 

That in these chrystal glasses I may see 
My beauty that charms Gods, makes Men amazed 
And stown’d with wonder. Doth this roseat pillow 
Offend my Love ? 

With my white fingers will I clap thy cheek ; 

Whisper a thousand pleasures in thy ear. 

Adonis. Madam, you are not modest. I affect 
The unseen beauty that adorns the mind : 

This looseness makes you foul in Adon’s eye. 

If you will tempt me, let me in your face 
Read blusfulness and fear; a modest fear 
Would make your cheek seem much more beautiful. 

Venus. -wert thou made of stone, 

I have heat to melt thee ; I am Queen of Love. 

There is no practive art of dalliance 
Of which I am not mistress, and can use. 

I have kisses that can murder unkind words, 

And strangle hatred that the gall sends forth ; 

Touches to raise thee, were thy spirits half dead ; 
Words that can pour affection down thy ears. 

Love me! thou can’st not chuse; thou shalt not chuse. 

Adonis. Madam, you woo not well. Men covet not 
These proffer’d pleasures, but love sweets denied. 

These prostituted pleasures surfeit still; 

Where’s fear. >r doubt, men sue with best good will. 
Venus. Thou canst instruct the Queen of Love in 
love. 

Thou shalt not, Adon, take me by the hand ; 

Vet, if thou needs will force me, take my palm 
I’ll frown on him : alas ! my brow’s so smooth, 

It will not bear a wrinkle.—Hie thee hence 
Unto the chace, and leave me ; but not yet: 

I’ll sleep this night upon Endymion’s oank. 

On which the Swain was courted by the Moon. 

Dare not to come ; thou art in our disgrace : 

Yet. if thou come. I can afford thee place 


Phoebus jeers Vulcan. 

Vul. Good morrow, Phoebus; what’s the news 
abroad ?— 

For thou see’sf all things in the world are done. 

Men act by day-light, or the sight of sun. 

Phceb. Sometime I cast mv eye upon the sea. 

To see the tumbling seal or porpoise play. 

There see I merchants trading, and their sails 
Big-bellied with the wind ; sea fights sometimes 
Rise with their sn.oKe thick clouds to dark my beams 
Sometimes ! hx ny face up n tne earth, 


With my warm fervour to give metals, trees. 

Herbs, plants and flowers, life. Here in gardens walk 
Loose Ladies with their Lovers arm in arm. 

Yonder the laboring Plowman drives his team. 

Further I may behold main battles pitcht; 

And whom I favour most (by the wind’s help) 

I can assist with my transparent rays. 

Here spy I cattle feeding; forests there 
Stored with wild beasts; here shepherds with their 
lasses. 

Piping beneath the trees while their flocks graze. 

In cities I see trading, walking, bargaining. 

Buying and selling, goodness, badness, all things— 

And shine alike on all. 

Vul. Thrice happy Phoebus, 

That, whilst poor Vulcan is confin’d to Lemnos, 

Hast every day these pleasures. What news else ? 

Phceb. No Emperor walks forth, but I see his state ; 
Nor sports, but I his pastimes can behold. 

I see all coronations, funerals. 

Marts, fairs, assemblies, pageants, sights and shows. 

No hunting, but I better see the chace 

Than they that rouse the game. What see I not ? 

There’s not a window, but my beams break in; 

No chink or cranny, but my rays pierce through ; 

And there I see, O Vulcan, wondrous things: 

Things that thyself, nor any God besides, 

Would give belief to. 

And, shall I tell thee, Vulcan, ’tother day 
What I beheld?—I saw the great God Mars— 

Vul. God Mars— 

Phaeb. As I was peeping through a cranny, a-bed— 
Vul. Abed! with whom?—some pretty Wench, I 
warrant. 

Phceb. She was a pretty Wench. 

Vul. Tell me, good Phoebus, 

That, when I meet him, I may flout God Mars; 

Tell me, but tell me truly, on thy life. 

Phceb. Not to dissemble, Vulcan, ’twas thy Wife ! 

The Peers of Greece go in quest oj 
Hercules, and find him in woman's iveeds , 
spinning with Omphale. 

Jason. Our business was to Theban Hercules. 

’Twas told us, he remain’d with Omphale, 

The Theban Queen. 

Telamon , Speak, which is Omphale ? or which A1 
cides ? 

Pollux. Lady, our purpose was to Hercules ; 

Shew us the man. 

Omphale. Behold him here. 

Atreus. Where 5 
Omphale. There, at his task. 

Jason. Alas, this Hercules ! 

This is some base effeminate Groom, not he 
That with his puissance frighted all the earth. 

Hercules. Hath Jason, Nestor, Castor, Telamon, 
Atreus, Pollux, all forgot their friend ? 

We are the man. 

Jason. Woman, we know thee not: 

We came to seek the Jove born Hercules, 

That in his cradle strangled Juno’s snakes. 

And triumph’d in the brave Olympic games. 

He that the Cleonean lion slew. 


'22 4 









HIE TABLE BOOK. 


IV Erimantlnan hear, the ball of Marathon. 

The Lernean hydra, and the winged hart 
Telamon. We would see the Theban 
That Cacus slew, Busins sacrificed. 

And to his horses hurl’d stern Diomed 
To be devoured. 

Pollux. That freed Hesione 
From the sea whale, and after ransack’d Troy, 

And with his own hand slew Laomedon. 

Nestor. He by whom Dercilus and Albion fell; 

He that (Ecalia and Betricia won. 

Atreus. That monstrous Geryon with his three heads 
vanejuisht. 

With Linus, Lichas that usurpt in Thebes, 

And eaptived there his beauteous Megara. 

Pollwx. That Hercules by whom the Centaurs fell, 
Great Achelous, the Stymphalides, 

And the Cremona giants : where is he ? 

Telamon. That trait’rous Nessus with a shaft trans- 
fixt. 

Strangled Antheus, purged Augeus’ stalls. 

Won the bright apples of th’ Hesperides. 

Jason. He that the Amazonian baldrick won't 
That Achelous with his club subdued, 

\nd won from him the Pride of Caledon, 

Fair Deianeira, that now mourns in Thebes 
For absence of the noble Hercules ! 

Atreus. To him we came ; but, since he lives not 
here. 

Come, Lords; we will return these presents back 
I nto the constant Lady, whence they came. 

Hercules. Stay, Lords— 

Jason. Wlongst women ?— 

Hercules. For that Theban’s sake. 

Whom yon profess to love, and came to seek, 
bide awhile • and by my love to Greece, 

I’ll bring nefore you that lost Hercules, 
i or whom you came to enquire. 

Telamon. It works, it works— 

Hercules. How have I lost my ..elf! 

[>id we all this ? Where is that spirit become. 

That was in us ? no marvel, Hercules, 

'! hat thou be’st strange to them, that thus disguised 
Art to thyself unknown !—hence with this distaff. 

And base effeminate chares; hence, womanish tires ; 
And let me once more be myself again. 

Your pardon, Omphale ! 

I cannot take leave of this Drama with¬ 
out noticing a touch of the truest pathos, 
which the writer has put into the mouth of 
Meleager, as he is wasting away by the 
operation of the fatal brand, administered 
to him by his wretched Mother. 

My flams encreaseth still—Oh father O^neus ; 

Ana you Althea, whom I would call Mother, 

But that my genius prompts me thou’rt unkind ; 

Ind yet farewell! 

What is the boasted “ Forgive me, but 
mrgive me !” of the dying wife of Shore in 
'{owe, compared with these three little 
words ? 

C. L. 


CopotjrapI))). 

ST. MARGARET’S AT CLIFF 

For the Table Book. 

-Stand still. How fearful 

And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low ! 

The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air 
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down 
Hangs one that gathers samphire ; dreadful trade I 
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head; 

The fishermen that walk upon the beach 
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark, 
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock, a buoy, 

Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge. 
That on the unnumber’d idle pebbles chafes, 

Cannot be heard so high.— 

Shakspea rk. 

The village of St. Margaret’s at Cliff is 
situated at a small distance from the Soutl 
Foreland, and about a mile from tile high 
road half way between Dover and Deal 
It was formerly of some consequence, on 
account of its fair for the encouiagement 
of traders, held in the precincts of its 
priory, which, on the dissolution of the 
monastic establishments by llenry VIII . 
losing its privilege, or rather its utility, (foi 
the fair is yet held,) the village degenerated 
into an irregular group of poor cottages, a 
decent farm-house, and an academy for 
boys, one of the best commercial school 
establishments in the county of Kent. The 
church, though time has written strange 
defeatures on its mouldering walls, still 
bears the show of former importance; but 
its best claim on the inquisitive stranger is 
the evening toll of its single bell, which i> 
generally supposed to be the curfew, but is 
of a more useful and honourable character. 
It was established by the testament oi 
one of its inhabitants in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, for the guidance 
of the wanderer from the peril of the 
neighbouring precipice?, over which the 
testator fell, and died from the injuries lie 
received. He bequeathed the rent of a piece 
of land for ever, to be paid to the village 
sexton for tolling the bell every evening 
at eight o’clock, when it should be dark 
at that hour 

The cliffs in the range eastward of Dover 
to the Foreland are the most precipitous, 
but not so high as Shakspeare’s. They are 
the resort of a small fowl of the widgeon 
species, but something less than the wid¬ 
geon, remarkable for the size of its egg, 
which is larger than the swan’s, and of a 
pale green, spotted with brown; it makes 
its appearance in May, and, choosing the 
most inaccessible part of the precipice, de¬ 
posits its eggs, two in number, in holes 


225 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


how made it is difficult to prove : when the 
voung bird is covered with a thin down, 
and before any feathers appear, it is taken 
on the back of the parent, carried to ihe 
sea, and abandoned to its own resources, 
which nature amply supplies means to em¬ 
ploy, in the myriads of mackerel fry that 
at that season colour the surface of the deep 
with a beautiful pale green and silver. 
This aquatic wanderer is said to confine its 
visit to the South Foreland and the seven 
cliffs at Beachy-head, and is known by the 
name of Willy. Like the gull, it is unfit 
for the table, but valuable for the downy 
softness of its feathers. 

It was in this range of Dover cliffs that 
Joe Parsons, who for more than forty years 
had exclusively gathered samphire, broke 
^is neck in 1823. Habit had rendered the 
highest and most difficult parts of these 
awful precipices as familiar to this man as 
the level below. Where the overhanging 
rock impeded his course, a rope, fastened 
to a peg driven into a cliff above, served 
him to swing himself from one projection 
to another: in one of these dangerous at¬ 
tempts this fastening gave way, and he fell 
to rise no more. Joe had heard of Shak- 
speare, and felt the importance of a hero. 
It was his boast that he was a king too 
powerful for his neighbours, who dared not 
venture to disturb him in his domain; that 
nature alone was his lord, to whom he paid 
no quittance. A11 were free to forage on his 
grounds, but none ventured. Joe was twice 
wedded ; his first rib frequently attended 
and looked to the security of his ropes, and 
would sometimes terrify him with threats to 
cast him loose ; a promise of future kind¬ 
ness always ended the parley, and a thrash¬ 
ing on the next quarrel placed Joe again in 
peril. Death suddenly took Judith from 
this vale of tears ; Parsons awoke in the 
night and found her brought up in an ever¬ 
lasting roadstead : like a true philosopher 
and a quiet neighbour, Joe took his second 
nap, and when day called out the busy 
world to begin its matin labour, Joe called 
in the nearest gossip to see that all w'as 
done that decency requited for so good a 
wife. His last helpmate survives her hap¬ 
less partner. No one has yet taken posses¬ 
sion of his estate. The inquisitive and 
firm-nerved stranger casts his eyes below in 
vain: he that gathered samphire is himself 
gathered. The anchored bark, the skiff', 
j the choughs and crows, the fearful precipice, 

; and the stringy root, growing in unchecked 
j| abundance, bring the bard and Joe Parsons 
to remembrance, but no one now attempts 
I tbe u dreadful trade.” 

K. B. 


TO A SEA-WEED 
Picked up after a Storm. 

Exotic !—from the soil no tiller ploughs. 

Save the rude surge ;—fresh stripling from a grcv*< 
Above whose tops the wild sea-monsters rove . 

—Have not the genii harbour’d in thy boughs. 

Thou lilrny piece of wonder!—have not those 
Who still the tempest, for thy rescue strove. 

And stranded thee thus fair, the might to prove 

Of spirits, that the caves of ocean house ? 

How else, from capture of the giant-spray. 

Hurt-free escapest thou, slight ocean-flower? 

—As if Arachne wove, thus faultless lay 
The full-develop’d forms of fairy-bovver; 

—Who that beholds thee thus, nor with dismay 
Recalls thee struggling thro’ the storm’s dark hour !* 


MARRIAGE OF THE SEA. 

The doge of Venice, accompanied by 
the senators, in the greatest pomp, mar¬ 
ries the sea every year. 

Those who judge of institutions by their 
appearance only, think this ceiemony an 
indecent and extravagant vanity ; they ima¬ 
gine that the Venetians annually solem¬ 
nize this festival, because they believe 
themselves to be masters of the sea. But 
the wedding of the sea is performed with 
tire most noble intentions. 

The sea is the symbol of the republic: 
of which the doge is the first magis¬ 
trate, but not the master; nor do the Veni- 
tians wish that he should become so. Among 
the barriers to his domination, they lank 
this custom, which reminds him that he has 
no more authority over the republic, which 
he governs with the senate, than he has 
over the sea, notwithstanding the marriage 
he is obliged to celebrate with her. The 
ceremony symbolizes the limits of his power, 
and the nature of his obligations. 


OLD COIN INSCRIPTIONS. 

To read an inscription on a silver coin 
which, by much wear, is become wholly 
obliterated, put the poker in the fire; when 
red hot, place the coin upon it, and the 
inscription will plainly appear of a greenish 
hue, but will disappear as the coin cools. 
This method was practised at the Mint to 
discover the genuine coin when the silvei 
was last called in. 


* Poems and Translations from Schiller. 


226 














THE TABLE BOOK. 

THE LADY AND THE TROUBADOUR. 

For the Table Book. 

'EmoDrarde, daughter of Jacques de Tournay, Lord of Croiton, m Provence, becoming enamoured ot a 
Troubadour, by name Enguilbert de Marnef, who was bound by a vow to repair to the Camp of the Cru¬ 
saders in Palestine, besought him on the eve of his departure to suffer her to accompany him : da Marnef 
at first resolutely refused ; but at length, overcome by her affectionate solicitations, assented, and was 
joined by her the same night, after her flight from her father’s chastel, in the garb of a guild brother of 
*he joyeuse science. 

CHRONIQUE DE PoUTAILDEa 

Enguilbert! oil Enguilbert, the sword is in thine hand, 

Thou hast vowed before our Lady’s shrine to seek the Sainted land 
—Thou goest to fight for glory—but what will glory be, 

If thou lov’st me, and return’st to find a tomb and dust for me? 

Look on me Enguilbert, for I have lost the shame 

That should have stayed these tears and prayers from one of Tournay’s name : 
—Look on me, my own bright-eyed Love—oh wilt thou leave me—say 
To droop as sunless flowers do, lacking thee—light of my day ? 

Oh say that I may wend with thee—I’ll doff my woman’s ’tire, 

Sling my Father’s sword unto my side, and o’er my back my lyre: 

I’ll roam with thee a Troubadour, by day—by night, thy bride- - 
—Speak Enguilbert—say yes, or see my heart break if denied. 

Oh shouldst thou fall, my Enguilbert, whose lips thy wounds will close 
Who but thine own fond Emeugarde should watch o’er thy repose ? 

And pierced, and cold her faithful breast must be e’er spear or sword 
Should ought of harm upon thee wreak, my Troubadour—my Lord. 

_N a y smile not at my words, sweet-heart—the Goss hath slender beak 

But brings its quarry nobly down—I love tho’ I am weak 

_NIy Blood hath coursed thro’ Charlemagne’s veins, and better it should Jlow 

Upon the field with Infidels’, than here congeal with woe. 

_Ah Enguilbert—my soul’s adored ! the tear is in thine eye ; 

Thou wilt not—can’st not leave me like the widowed dove to die . 

_No_no_thine arm is round me—that kiss on my hot brow 

Spoke thy assent, my bridegroom love,— we are one for ever now. 

J. J. K 


THE GOLDEN TOOTH. 

In 1593, it was reported that a Silesian 
child, seven years old, had lost all its teeth, 
and that a golden tooth had grown in the 
place of a natural double one. 

In 1595, Horstius, professor of medicine 
in the university of Helmstadt, wrote the 
history of this golden tooth. He said it 
was partly a natural event, and partly mi¬ 
raculous, and that the Almighty had sent it 
to this child, to console the Christians for 
their persecution by the Turks. 

In the same year, Rullandus drew up 
another account of the golden tooth. 


Two years afterwards, Ingosteterus, an¬ 
other learned man, wrote against the 
opinion which Rullandus had given on this 
tooth of gold. Rullandus immediately re¬ 
plied in a most elegant and erudite disser¬ 
tation. 

Libavius, a very learned man, compiled 
all that had been said relative to this tooth, 
and subjoined his remarks upon it. 

Nothing was wanting to recommend 
these erudite writings to posterity, but 
proof that the tooth was gold—a gold¬ 
smith examined it, and found it a natural 
tooth artificially gilt. 


227 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


LE REVENANT. 

‘ There are but two classes of persons in the world—■ 
those who are hanged, and those who are not 
hanged: and it has been my lot to belong to the 
former.” 

There is a pathetic narrative, under 
the preceding title and motto in “ Black¬ 
wood’s Edinburgh Magazine,” of the pre¬ 
sent month, (April, 1827.) It is scarcely 
possible to abri ige or extract from it, and 
be just to its writer. Perhaps the following 
specimen may induce curiosity to the peru¬ 
sal of the entire paper in the journal just 
named. 

“ 1 have been hanged , and am alive," 

! says the narrator. “ I was a clerk in a 
Russia broker’s house, and fagged between 
Broad-street Buildings and Batson’s coffee¬ 
house, and the London-doeks, from nine in 
the morning to six in the evening, for a 
salary of fifty pounds a-year. I did this— 
not contentedly—but 1 endured it; living 
sparingly in a little lodging at Islington 
for two years; till l fell in love with a 
poor, but very beautiful girl, who was 
honest where it was very hard to be honest; 
and worked twelve hours a-day at sewing 
| and millinery, in a mercer’s shop in Cheap- 
1 side, for half a guinea a-week. To make 
short of a long tale—this girl did not know 
how poor I was; and, in about six months, 
I committed seven or eight forgeries, to 
the amount of near two hundred pounds. 
I was seized one morning—I expected it 
for weeks—as regularly as I awoke—every 
morning—and carried, affer a very few 
questions, for examination before the lord 
mayor. At the Mansion-house 1 had no¬ 
thing to plead. Fortunately my motions 
had not been watched ; and so no one but 
myself was implicated in the charge—as no 
one else was really guilty. A sort of in¬ 
stinct to try the last hope made me listen 
to the magistrate’s caution, and remain 
silent ; or else, for any chance of escape I 
had, I might as well have confessed the 
whole truth at once. The examination 
lasted about half an hour; when I was 
fully committed for trial, and sent away to 
Newgate. 

“The shock of my first arrest was very 
slight indeed ; indeed I almost question if 
it was not a relief, rather than a shock, to 
me. For months, 1 had known perfectly 
that my eventual discovery was certain. I 
tried to shake the thought of this off; but 
it was of no use—1 dreamed of it even in 
my sleep; and 1 never entered our count¬ 
ing-house of a morning, or saw my master 
take up the cash-book in the course of the 


day, that my heart was not up in my 
mouth, and my hand shook so that 1 could j 
not hold the pen—for twenty minutes after- j 
wards, I was sure to do nothing but blun-j 
der. Until, at last, when I saw our chid 
f lerk walk into the room, on new year’s 
morning, with a police officer, I was as ready 
for what followed, as if I Lad had six 
hours' conversation about it. I do not be¬ 
lieve I showed—for I am sure I did not 
feel it—either surprise or alarm. My 
‘ fottune,’ however, as the officer called 
it, was soon told. I was apprehended on 
the 1st of January ; and the sessions being 
then just begun, my time came rapidly 
round. On the 4th of the same month, the 
London grand jury found three bills against 
me for forgery ; and, on the evening of the 
5th, the judge exhorted me to ‘prepare for 
death for ‘ there was no hope that, in 
this world, mercy could be extended to 
me.’ 

“ The whole business of my trial and 
sentence passed over as coolly and for¬ 
mally as I would have calculated a ques¬ 
tion of interest, or summed up an under¬ 
writing account. I had never, though I 
lived in London, witnessed the proceedings 
of a criminal court before ; and I could 
hardly believe the composure and indiffer¬ 
ence—and yet civility—for there was no 
show of anger or ill-temper—with which 1 
was treated ; together with the apparent 
pel feet insensibility of all the parties round 
me, while I was rolling on—with a speed 
which nothing could check, and which in¬ 
creased every moment—to my ruin ! I was 
called suddenly up from the dock, when 
my turn for trial came, and placed at the 
bar; and the judge asked, in a tone which 
had neither seventy about it, nor compas¬ 
sion— nor carelessness, nor anxiety—nor 
any character or expression whatever that 
could be distinguished—‘ If there was any 
counsel appeared for the prosecution?’ A 
barrister then, who seemed to have some 
consideration—a middle aged, gentlemanly- 
looking man—stated the case against me— 
as he said he would do—very ‘ fairly and 
forbearingly ;’ but, as soon as he read the 
facts from his brief, ‘ that only’—I heard an 
officer of the gaol, w ho stood behind me, 
say—‘ put the rope about my neck.’ My 
master then was called to give his evi¬ 
dence ; which he did very temperately— 
but it was conclusive. A young gentle¬ 
man, who was my counsel, asked a few 
questions in cross-examination, after he 
had carefully looked over the indictment : 
but there was nothing to cross-examinr 
upon—I knew that well enough—though 1 


226 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


ras thankful for the interest he seemed to 
fake in my case. The judge then told me, 
1 thought move gravely than he had spoken 
| Defore—‘ That it was time for me to speak 
i »n my defence, if I had any thing to say.’ 

I had nothing to say. I thought one mo- 
! ment to drop down upon my knees, and beg 
for mercy ; but, again—I thought it would 
i only make me look ridiculous ; and I only 
I answered—as well as I could—‘ That I 
J would not trouble the court with any de¬ 
fence.’ Upon this, the judge turned round, 
with a more serious air still, to the jury, 
who stood up all to listen to him as he 
spoke. And I listened too—or tried to 
listen attentively—as haid as 1 could ; and 
yet—with all 1 could do—I could not ke< p 
my thoughts from wandering! For the 
sight of the court—.all so orderly, and re¬ 
gular, and composed, and formal, and well 
satisfied—spectators and all—while I was 
running on with the speed of wheels upon 
smooth soil downhill, to destruction— 
seemed as if the vvnole trial were a dream, 
and not a thing in earnest! The barristers 
sat round the table, silent, but utterly un¬ 
concerned, and two were looking over 
their briefs, and another was reading a 
newspaper; and the spectators in the galle¬ 
ries looked on and listened as pleasantly, 
as though it were a matter not of death 
going on, but of pastime or amusement ; 
and one very fat man, who seemed to be 
the clerk of the couit, stopped his writing 
when the judge began, but leaned back in 
his chair, with his hands in his breeches’ 
pockets, except once or twice that he took 
a snuff; and not one Jiving soul seemed to 
take notice—they did not seem to know 
the fact—that theie was a poor, desperate, 
helpless creature—whose days were fast 
running out—whose hours of life were even 
with the last grains in the bottom of the 
sand-glass—among them ! 1 lost the whole 
of the judge’s charge—thinking of I know 
not what—in a sort of dream—unable to 
steady my mind to any thing, and only bit¬ 
ing the stalk of a piece of rosemary that 
lay by me. But I heard the low, distinct 
wldsper of the foreman of the jury, as he 
brought in the verdict-— 4 Guilty,’ —and 
the last words of f ‘>e judge, saying—‘ that 
l should be hanged by the neck until I 
was dead ;' and bidding me ‘ prepare my¬ 
self for the next, life, for that my crime was 
one that admitted of no mercy in this.’ 
The gaoler then, who had stood close by 
me all the while, put his hand quickly 
iipon my shoulder, in an under v’lice, tell¬ 
ing me, to 1 Come along!’ Goi -g down 
the hall steps, two other officers met me; 


and, placing me between them, without 
saying a word, hurried me across the yard 
in the direction back to the prison. As 
the door of the court closed behind us, I 
saw the judge fold up his papers, and the 
jury being sworn in the next case. Two 
other culprits were brought up out of the 
dock ; and the crier called out for—‘ The 
prosecutor and witnesses against James 
Hawkins, and Joseph Sanderson, for bur¬ 
glary !’ 

“ I had no friends, if any in such a case 
could have been of use to me—no relatives 
but two ; by whom—I could not complain 
of them—I was at once disowned.—There 
was but one person then in all the world 
that seemed to belong to me ; and that one 
was Elizabeth Clare! And, when I thought 
of her, the idea of all that was to happen to 
myself was forgotten—I covered my face 
with my hands, and cast myself on the 
ground ; and I wept, for I was in despera¬ 
tion.—She had gone wild as soon as she 
had heard the news of my apprehension— 
never thought of herself, ' ut confessed her 
acquaintance with me. The result was, 
she was dismissed from her employment-- 
and it was her only means of livelihood. 

“She bad been every where—to my mas¬ 
ter—to the judge that tried me—to the 
magistrates—to the sheriffs—to the aider- 
men—she had made her way even to the 
secretary of state! My heait did misgive 
me at the thought of death ; but, in despite 
of myself, l forgot fear w<hen I missed her 
usual time of coming, and gathered from 
the people about me how she was em¬ 
ployed. I had no thought about the success 
or failure of her attempt. All my thoughts 
were—that she was a young girl, and 
beautiful—hardly in her senses, and quite 
unprotected—without money to help, or a 
friend to advise her—pleading to strangers 
—humbling herself perhaps to menials, 
who would think her veiy despair and 
helpless condition, a challenge to infamy 
and insult. Well, it mattered little ! The 
thing was no worse, because 1 was alive to 
see and suffer from it. Two days more, 
and all would be over; the demons that 
fed on huu“'n wretchedness would have 
their prey. She would be homeless—pen¬ 
nyless—friendless—she would have been 
the companion of a forger and a felon; it 
needed no witchcraft to guess the termina¬ 
tion.— 

44 We hear curiously, and read every day, 
of the visits of friends and relatives to 
wretehed criminals condemned to die. 
Those who read and hear of these things 
the most curiously, have little impiessioi 


22 ( J 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


of the sadness of the reality. It was six 
days after my first apprehension, when 
Elizabeth Clare came, for the last time, to 
’isit me in prison ! In only these short 
ux days her beauty, health, strength—all 
were gone ; years upon years of toil and 
sickness could not have left a more worn- 
out wreck. Death—as plainly as ever 
death spoke—sat in her countenance—she 
was broken-hearted. When she came, I 
had not seen her for two days. I could 
not speak, and there was an officer of the 
prison with us too: I was the property of 
the law now; and my mother, if she had 
lived, could not have blest, or wept for me, 
without a third person, and that a stranger, 
being present. I sat down by her on my 
bedstead, which was the only place to sit 
on in my cell, and wrapped her shawl 
close round her, for it was very cold wea¬ 
ther, and I was allowed no fire; and we 
sat so for almost an hour without exchang¬ 
ing a word.- 

***** 

“ She was got away, on the pretence that 
she might make one more effort to save me, 
with a promise that she should Return 
again at night. The master was an elderly 
man, who had daughters of his own; 
and he promised—for he saw I knew how 
the matter was—to see Elizabeth safe 
through the crowd of wretches among 
whom she must pass to quit the prison. 
She went, and I knew that she was going 
for ever. As she turned back to speak as 
the door was closing, I knew that I had 
seen her for the last time. The door of my 
cell closed. We were to meet no more on 
earth. I fell upon my knees—I clasped 
my hands—my tears burst out afresh—and 
I called on God to bless her.*'-:- 

The mental and bodily sufferings of the 
condemned man in his cell, his waking 
dreams, and his dead sleep till the morn¬ 
ing of execution, though of intense interest 
in the narrative, are omitted here that the 
reader may at once accompany the criminal 
to the place of execution- 

“ I remember beginning to move for¬ 
ward through the long arched passages 
which led from the press-room to the scaf¬ 
fold. I saw the lamps that were still burn¬ 
ing—for the daylight never entered here : [ 
heard the quick tolling of the bell, and the 
deep voice of the chaplain reading as he 
walked before us— 

M am the resurrection and the life, saith 
the Lord; he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, shall live. And 


though after my skin worms destroy 
this body, yet in my flesh shall I sec 
God r 

“ It was the funeral service—the order 
for the grave—the office for those that were 
senseless and dead—over us, the quick and 
the living- 

“ I felt once more—and saw 1 I felt the ' 
transition from these dim, close, hot, lamp- 
lighted subterranean passages, to the open 
platform and steps at the foot of the scaf¬ 
fold, and to day. I saw the immense 
crowd blackening the whole area of the 
street below me. The windows of the 
shops and houses opposite, to the fourth 
story, choked with gazers. I saw St. j 
Sepulchre’s church through the yellow fog 
in the distance, and heard the pealing of 
its bell. I recollect the cloudy, misty 
morning; the wet that lay upon the scaf¬ 
fold—the huge dark mass of building, the 
prison itself, that rose beside, and seemed 
to cast a shadow over us—the cold, fresh 
breeze, that, as I emerged from it, broke 
upon my face. I see it all now—the whole 
horrible landscape is before me. The 
scaffold—the rain—the faces of the multi- ; 
tude—the people clinging to the house-tops 
—the smoke that beat heavily downwards 
from the chimneys—the waggons filled with 
women, staring in the inn-yards opposite— 
the hoarse low roar that ran through the 
gathered crowd as we appeared. I never 
saw so many objects at once so plainly 
and distinctly in all my life as at that one 
glance; but it lasted only for an instant. 

“ From that look, and from that instant, 
all that followed is a blank-” 

To what accident the narrator owes his 
existence is of little consequence, compared 
with the moral to be derived from the sad 
story.—“ The words are soon spoken, and 
the act is soon done, which dooms a 
wretched creature to an untimely death ; 
but bitter are the pangs—and the suffer- i 
ings of the body are among the least of 
them—that he must go through before he 
arrives at it!” 

In the narrative there is more than seems 
to be expressed. By all who advocate or 
oppose capital punishment—by every being 
with a human heart, and reasoning powers 
—it should be read complete in the pages 
of “ Blackwood .” 


230 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 



asitnU ©Millie, tbe ^flurastle Alutstrel. 

* 

Lang may wor Tyneside lads sae true. 

In heart byeth blithe an’ mellow, 

Bestow the praise that’s fairly due 
To this bluff, honest fellow— 

And when he’s hamper’d i’ the dust. 

Still i’ wor memory springin’. 

The times we’ve run till like to brus* 

To hear blind Willie singin’. 

[ Newcastle Son®. 

William Purvis, or, as he is generally 
styled, blind Willie, is a well-known cha¬ 
racter, and native of Newcastle, where he 
has resided since his infancy. He was born 
blind, and is the son of Margaret Purvis, 
who died in All Saints’ workhouse, February 
7, 1819, in her hundredth year. 

Willie is, indeed, as the ingenious Mr. 

Sykes calls him in his “ Local Records,” a 
u famous musician,” for he has long been 
celebrated for his minstrelsy throughout 
’he northern counties, but more particularly 
\o in Northumberland. In Newcastle, 


Willie is respected by all—from the rudest 
to the gentlest hear* all love him—children 
seize his hand as he passes—and he is ever 
an equally welcome guest at the houses of 
the rich and the hovels of the pitmen. The 
hoppings of the latter are cheered by the 
soul-inspiring sound of his viol : nay, he 
is, [ may truly say, a very particle of a 
pitman’s existence, who, after a hard day’s 
labour, considers it a pleasure of the most 
exquisite nature to repair to some neigh¬ 
bouring pot-house, there to enjoy Willie’s 
music, and listen to the rude ballads he is 


231 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


in the habit of composing and singing to 
the* accompaniment of his own music. 
Poor Willie! may he live long and live 
nappy. When he dies many a tear will 
fid l from eyes that seldom weep, and hearts 
that know little of the more refined’ sensa¬ 
tions of our nature will heave a sigh. Wil¬ 
lie will die, but not his fame will die. In 
many of those humorous provincial songs, 
with which Newcastle abounds more than 
any other town I am acquainted with—the 
very airs as well as the words of which pos¬ 
sess a kind of local nationality—“ Blind 
Willie " is the theme. These songs are the 
admiration of all who know how to appre¬ 
ciate genuine humour; several of them have 
been sung for years, and I venture to pro¬ 
phecy, will be sung by future generations. 

Among the characters who have noticed 
“ VVillie ” may be mentioned the present 
duke of Northumberland, sir Matthew 
White Ridley, the late Stephen Kemble, 
Esq. and the admirable comedian Mat¬ 
thews. Sir Matthew White Ridley is a 
most particular favourite with “ Willie,” 
and it is no uncommon occurrence to hear 
Willie, as he paces along the streets of 
Newcastle,muttering to himself “ S ir Maffa! 
sir Maffa! canny sir Mafia! God bless sir 
Maffa!” 

One of Willie’s greatest peculiarities is 
thus alluded to by Mr. Sykes :—“ He has 
travelled the streets of Newcastle time out 
of mind without a covering upon his head. 
Several attempts have been made, by pre¬ 
senting him with a hat, to induce him to 
wear one, but after having suffered it for a 
day or two it is thrown aside, and the min- 
strel again becomes uncovered, preferring 
the exposme of his pate to the ‘ pelting of 
the pitiless storm.’ ” The likeness that ac¬ 
companies this notice is from a large quarto 
engraving, published at Newcastle, and 
will doubtless be acceptable to numerous 
leaders of that populous district wherein 
1 lind Willie is so popular. 


FA RM ERS. 


IN 


1722. 

M tn to the plough 
Wife to the now ; 
Girl to the sow ; 
Hoy to the mow ; 


1822. 

Man tally-k o *. 

Miss piano , 

Wife silk and satin ; 
Boy Greek and Latin ; 
d your rents will be netted. And you’ll all b * Gazetted 

G.* 


* The fimet. 


A REVERIE. 

For the Table Book. 

-On a cool delightful evening which 

succeeded one of the scorching days of 
last summer, 1 sallied forth for a walk in 

the neighbourhood of the city of-. 

Chance led me along a path usually much 
frequented, which was then covered thick 
with the accumulated dust of a long 
drought; it bore the impression of a thou¬ 
sand busy feet, of every variety of form arid 
size; from the first steps of the infant, 
whose nurse had allowed it to toddle his 
little journey to the outstretched arms of 
her who was almost seated to receive him, 
to the hobnailed slouch of the carter, whose 
dangling lash and dusty jacket annoyed the 
w'ell-dressed throng. But three pair or 
footsteps, which were so perfect that they 
eould not long have preceded my own. 
more than all, attracted my attention ; 
those on ihe left certainly bore the impress 
of the delicately formed foot of a female; 
the middle ones were shaped hy tire ample 
square-loed, gouty shoe of a senior; and 
those on the light were as certainly placed 
there by the Wellington boot of some 
dandy ; they were extravagantly right and 
left, the heel was small and high, for the 
middle of the foot did not tread on earth. 
—My imagination was instantly at work, 
to tenant these “ leathern conveniences ;” 
the last-mentioned 1 felt so certain were 
inhabited by an officer of the lancers, or an 
hussar who had witnessed Waterloo’s bloody 
fight, that I could almost hear the tinkle of 
his military spur. I pictured him young, 
tall, handsome, with black mustachios, dark 
eyes, and, as the poet says, 

“ His nose was large with curved line 

Which some men call the aquiline. 

And some do say the Romans bore 

Such noses ’fore them to the war.’ 

The strides were not so long as a tall man 
would make, but this I accounted for bv 
supposing they were accommodated to the 
hobbling gait of the venerable gentleman 
in the centre, who I imagined “ of the 
old school,” and to wear one of those few 
self-important w igs, which remain in thi- 
our day of sandy scratches. As these pow 
dered coverings never look well without a 
three cocked hat, I had e’en placed one 
upon it, and almost edged it with gold lace, 
which, however, would not do — it had 
rather too much of by-crone days:—to m. 

“ mind’s eye ” he was clothed in a stum 
coloured suit, and one of his feet, whic 


2 32 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


was not. too gouty to admit of a leather 
shoe, had upon it a large silver buckle. 
My “ high fancy” formed the lady a charm¬ 
ing creature, sufficiently en bon point, with 
an exceedingly genteel figure; not such as 
two parallel lines would describe, but rather 
broad on the shoulders, gently tapering to 
the waist, then gradually increasing in a 
delicately flowing outline, such as the “ sta¬ 
tue that enchants the world” would exhibit, 
if animated and clothed in the present 
fashionable dress; her voice, of course, 
was delightful, and the mild expression of 
her face to be remembeied through life — 
it could not be forgotten ; in short, she was 
as Sterne says, “ all that the heart wishes 
or the eye looks for in woman.” My reverie 
had now arrived at its height, my canvass 
was full, my picture complete, and I was 
enjoying the last delicate touches of creative 
fancy, when a sudden turn in the road 
placed before me three persons, who, on a 
moment’s reflection, 1 felt constrained to 
acknowledge as the authors of the footsteps 
which had led me into such a pleasing de¬ 
lusion ; but—no more like the trio of my 
imagination, than “ Hyperion to a satyr!” 
The dandy had red hair, the lady a red 
nose, and the middle man was a gouty 
sugar-baker; all very good sort of people, 
no doubt, except that they overthrew my 
aerial castle. T instantly retraced my 
steps, and was foolish enough to be sulky, 
nay, a very “ anatomie of m dancholy 
till a draught of “ Burton’s ” liquid amber 
at supper made me friends with the world 
again- 


HIGHLAND TRADITION. 

Macgregor. 

About the middle of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, the eldest son of Lamond, of Cowel, 
in Argyleshire, was hunting the red deer in 
Glenfine. At the same time the only son 
of Macgregor, of Glenstrae, the chief of 
that once powerful clan, was on a similar 
excursion in the same place, which was the 
boundary between the extensive territories 
of these two great families. Young La¬ 
mond had pierced a prime hart with an 
arrow; and the noble animal, galled by the 
shaft, which stuck in the wound, plunged 
into the river, and bent his course into 
Macgregor’s country. He was followed by 
Lamond, who outran all his companions. 
It unfortunately fell out. that a hart had 
been wounded by the young Macgregor at 
the tame time, among his own hills. The 


two deer crossed each other in their flight, 
and the first that fell was claimed by both 
the hunters. The youths, flushed by the 
ardour of the chase, and totally unknown 
to each other, hotly disputed. They were 
armed, as was the fashion of those days, 
and fought, and the young Macgregor fell. 
Lamond cut his way through the attend¬ 
ants, but was keenly pursued. Having 
wonderful fleetness of foot, he made his 
way forward; and ignorant of the country 
and of the people, and almost exhausted 
with thirst, hunger, anguish, and fatigue, 
rushed into the house of Macgregor of 
Glenstrae, on whose mercy he threw him¬ 
self, telling him that he had slain a man. 
Macgregor received him, and had given 
him refreshment, when the pursuers arrived, 
and told the unfortunate man the woful 
tale—that his son had fallen—his only 
child—the last of his ancient race—the 
hope of his life—the stay of his age. The 
old man was at this period left surrounded 
by enemies crafty anti powerful—he, friend¬ 
less and alone. The youth was possessed 
of every virtue that a father’s heart could 
wish ; his destroyer was now in his hands; 
but he had pledged his promise for his 
safety, and that pledge must be redeemed. 
It required all the power and influence of 
the aged chief to restrain the fury of his 
people from slaying young Lamond at the 
moment; and even that influence, great as 
it was, could only protect him, on an as¬ 
surance that on the next morning his life 
should be solemnly sacrificed for their 
beloved Gregor. 

In the middle of the night, Macgregor 
led Lamond forth by the hand, and,awaie 
of his danger, himself accompanied him to 
the shore of Lochfine, where he procured a 
boat, made Lamond enter it, and ordered 
the boatmen to convey him safely across 
the loch into his own country. “ 1 have 
now performed my promise,” said the old 
man, “ and henceforth I am your enemy—- 
beware the revenge of a father for his only 
son ! 

Before this fatal event occurred, the 
persecution against the unfortunate Mac- 
gregors had commenced, and this sad acci¬ 
dent did not contribute to diminish it. The 
old laird of Glenstrae struggled hard to 
maintain his estate and his independence, 
but his enemies prevailed against him. The 
conduct of young Lamond was grateful and 
noble. When he succeeded to the ample 
possessions of his ancestors, he beseeched 
old Macgregor to take refuge under Iris 
roof. There the aged chief was treated as 
a father, and ended his days. 


•23 d 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


HY-JINKS. 


A Scotch Amusement. 

This is a drunken sort of game.—The 
queff, or cup, is filled to the brim, then one 
of the company takes a pair of dice, and 
! cries “ Hy-jinks,” and throws. The num¬ 
ber he casts points out the person that must 
drink; he who threw beginning at himself 
number one, and so round, till the number 
of the person agree with that of the dice, 
(which may fall upon himself, if the num¬ 
ber be within twelve,) then he sets the dice 
to him, or bids him take them. He on 
i whom they fall is obliged to drink, or pay 
a small sum of money as forfeit; then he 
throws and so on: but if he forgets to cry 
“ Hy-jinks” he pays a forfeiture. Now, he, 
on whom it falls to drink, gets all the for- 
j feited money in the bank, if he drinks, 
and orders the cup to be filled again, and 
then throws. If he errs in the articles, he 
loses the privilege of drawing the money. 
The articles are (l drink ;) 2 draw ; 3 Jill; 

4 cry “ Hy-jinks;” 5 count just ; 6 choose 
your double man ; viz. when two equal 
numbers of the dice is thrown, the person 
whom you choose must pay double forfeit, 
and so must you when the dice is in his 
hand. 

A rare project this, and no bubble I can 
assure you, for a covetous fellow may save 
money, and get himself as drunk as he can 
desire in less than an hour’s time * 

S. S. S. 


Clubs. 

TIIE SILENT CLUB. 

There was at Amadan a celebrated aca¬ 
demy. Its first rule was framed in these 
words:— 

“ The members of this academy shall 
think much—write little—and be as mute 
as they can.” 

A candidate offered himself—he was too 
.ate—the vacancy was filled up—they 
knew his merit, and lamented their disap¬ 
pointment in lamenting his own. The 
president was to announce the event; he 
desired the candidate should be intro¬ 
duced. 

He appeared with a simple and mo¬ 
dest air, the sure testimony of merit. The 
president rose, and presented a cup of pure 
water to him, so full, that a single drop 


more would have made it overflow ; to 
this emblematic hint he added not a word 
but his countenance expressed deep afflio. 
tion. 

The candidate understood that he could 
not be received because the number was 
complete, and the assembly full; yet he 
maintained his courage, and began to think 
by what expedient, in the same kind oj 
language , he could explain that a supernu¬ 
merary academician would displace no¬ 
thing, and make no essential difference in 
the rule they had prescribed. 

Observing at his feet a rose, he picked it 
up, and laid it gently upon the surface of 
the water, so gently that not a drop of 
it escaped. Upon this ingenious reply, the 
applause was universal; the rule slept or 
winked in his favour. They presented im¬ 
mediately to him the register upon which 
the successful candidate was in the habit 
of writing his name. He wrote it accord¬ 
ingly ; he had then only to thank them in 
a single phrase, but he chose to thank them 
without saying a word. 

He figured upon the margin the number 
of his new associates, 100; then, having put 
a cipher before the figure 1, he wrote 
under it — u their value will be the same ”— 
0100 . 

To this modesty the ingenious president 
replied with a politeness equal to his ad¬ 
dress: he put the figure 1 before the 100, 
and wrote, “ they will have eleven times the 
value they had —1100.” 


CHARLESTOWN UGLY CLUB.* 


For the Table Book. 




* Notes on Allan Ramsay’s Elegy upon Maggy 
JoSir.ston. 


By a standing law of this “ ugly club, 
their club-room must always be the ugliest 
room in the ugliest house of the town. The 
only furniture allowed in this room is a 
number of chairs, contrived with the worst 
taste imaginable ; a round table made by a 
back-woodsman ; and a Dutch looking- 
glass, full of veins, which at one glance 
would make even a handsome man look a 
perfect “ fright.” This glass is frequently 
sent to such gentlemen as doubt then- 
qualifications, and neglect or decline to 
take up their freedom in the club. 

When an ill-favoured gentleman first 
arrives in the city, he is waited upon, in 
a civil and familiar manner, by some of the 
members of the club, who inform him that 
they would be glad of his company on the 
next evening of their meeting; and the 


* See cel. 263. 


234 




























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


gentleman commonly thanks the deputation 
for the attention of the club, to one so un¬ 
worthy as himself, and promises to consider 
the matter. 

It sometimes happens, that several days 
elapse, and the “ strange” gentleman thinks 
no more of the club. lie has perhaps re¬ 
peatedly looked into his own glass, asd won¬ 
dered what, in the name of sense, the club 
could have seen in his face, that should 
entitle him to the distinction they would 
confer on him. 

lie is, however, waited upon a second 
time by the most respectable members of 
the whole body, with a message from the 
president, requesting him not to be diffident 
of his qualifications, and earnestly desiring 
“ that he w'ill not fail to attend the club 
the very next evening—the members will 
feel themselves highly honoured by the pre¬ 
sence of one whose appearance has already 
attracted the notice of the whole society.’’ 

“ Zounds !” he says to himself on perus¬ 
ing the billet, “ what do they mean by 
teasing me in this manner? I am surely 
not so ugly,” (walking to his glass,) “ as 
to attract the notice of the whole town on 
first setting my foot upon the w'harf 1” 

! “ Your nose is very long,” cries the 

spokesman of the deputation. “ Noses,” 
sa)s the strange gentleman, “ are no crite¬ 
rion of ugliness : it’s true, the tip-end of 
mine would form an acute angle with a 
base line drawn horizontally from my under 
lip; but I defy the w'hole club to prove, 
that acute angles were ever reckoned ugly, 
from the days of Euclid down to this mo¬ 
ment, except by themselves.” 

“ Ah, sir,” answers the messenger, “ how 
liberal has nature been in bestowing upon 
you so elegant a pair of lantern jaws ! be¬ 
lieve me, sir, you will be a lasting honour 
to the club.” 

“ My jaws,” says the ugly man in a pet, 
“ are such as nature made them: and 
Aristotle has asserted, that all her works 
are beautiful.” 

The conversation ends for the present. 
The deputation leaves the strange gentle¬ 
man to his reflections, with wishes and 
hopes that he will consider further. 

Another fortnight elapses, and the strange 
gentleman, presuming the club have for¬ 
gotten him, employs the time in assuming 
vetit-maitre airs, and probably makes ad¬ 
vances to young ladies of fortune and 
beauty. At the expiration of this period, 
he receives a letter from a pretended female, 
(contrived by the club,) to the following 
purport 


“ M’ dear sir. 

“ There is such a congeniality between 
your countenance and mine, that I cannot 
help thinking you and I were destined for 
each other. I am unmarried, and have a 
considerable fortune in pine-barren land, 
which, with myself, I wish to bestow upon 
some deseiving man ; and from seeing you 
pass several times by my window, 1 know 
of no one better entitled to both than your¬ 
self. I am now almost two years beyond 
my grand climacteric, and am four feet fo>jr 
inches in height, rather less in circumfer¬ 
ence, a little dropsical, have lovely red hedr 
and a fair complexion, and, if the doctor 
do not deceive me, 1 may hold out twenty 
years longer. My nose is, like yours, rather 
longer than common ; but then to compen¬ 
sate, I am univeisally allowed to have 
charming eyes. They somewhat incline to 
each other, but the sun himself looks ob¬ 
liquely in winter, and cheers the earth with 
his glances. Wait upon me, dear sir, to¬ 
morrow evening. 

“ Yours till death, &c. 

“ M. M.” 

“What does all this mean?’’ cries the 
ugly gentleman, “ was ever man tormented 
in this manner! Ugly clubs, ugly women ! 
imps and fiends, all in combination to 
persecute me, and make my life miserable ! 
I am to be ugly, it seems, whether 1 will oi 
not.” 

At this critical juncture, the president ol 
the club, who is the very pink of ugliness 
itself, waits upon the strange gentleman, 
and takes him by the hand. “ My dear 
sir,” says he, “ you may as well walk with 
me to the club as not. Nature has designed 
you for us, and us for you. We are a set 
of men who have resolution enough to date 
to be ugly ; and have long let the world 
know, that we can pass the evening, and 
eat and drink together with as much social 
glee and real good humour as the hand¬ 
somest of them. Look into this Dutch 
glass, sir, and be convinced that we canno* 
do without you.” 

“ If it must be so, it must,” cries the 
ugly gentleman, “ there seems to be no 
alternative; I will even do as you say !” 

It appears from a paper in “ The American 
Museum ” of 1790, that by this mode the 
“ ugly club ” of Charleston has increased, 
is increasing, and cannot be diminished 
According to the last accounts, “ strange ” 
gentlemen who do not comply with invita¬ 
tions to join the club in person are elected 
“ honorary ” members, and their names 
enrolled nolens volens. 

P. N. 


235 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


SUMMER DRINKS. 

Imperial. 

Take two gallons of water, two ounces 
of ginger bruised, and two lemons ; boil 
them together; when lukewarm, pour the 
whole on a pound and a half of loaf sugar, 
and two ounces of cream of tartar; add 
four table spoonfuls of yeast, and let them 
Work together for six hours; then strain 
the liquor, and bottle it off in small stone 
bottles: it will be ready for use in a few 
hours. 

Sherbet. 

Take nine Seville oranges and three 
lemons, grate off the yellow from the rinds, 
and put the raspings into a gallon of water, 
with three pounds of double refined sugar, 
and boil it to a candy height ; then take it 
off the fire, and add the pulp of the oranges 
and lemons; keep stirring it till it be 
almost cold, then put it in a vessel for use. 

Lemon Water. 

Put two slices of lemon, thinly pared, 
into a tea-pot, with a little bit of the peel, 
and a bit of sugar, or a large spoonful of 
capillaire, pour in a pint of boiling water, 
and stop it close for two hours. 

Ginger Beer. 

To four gallons of water, put three 
pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of gin¬ 
ger, one ounce and a half of hops, and 
aboui half a pound of fern-root cut small; 
boil these together till there be about three 
gallons. To colour it, burn a little sugar 
and put it in the liquor. Pour it into a 
vessel when cold, add two table-spoonfuls 
of barm, and then proceed as w ith common 
beer. 


CABBAGE, AND TAILORS. 

The Roman name Brassica came, as is 
supposed, from “ prseseco,” because it was 
cut off from the stalk : it was also called 
Caulis in Latin, on account of the good¬ 
ness of its stalks, and from which the Eng¬ 
lish name Cole, Colwort, or Colewort, is 
derived. The word cabbage, by which all 
the varieties of this plant are now impro¬ 
perly called, means the firm head or ball 
that is formed by the leaves turning close 
over each other; from that circumstance we 
say the cole has cabbaged —From thence 
arose the cant word applied to tailors, who 
formerly worked at the private houses of 
their customers, where they were often ac¬ 
cused of cabbaging : which means the roll¬ 
ing up pieces of cloth instead of the list 
and shreds, which they claim as their due.* 

• Phillips’s Hist, of Cultivated Vegetables. 


APRIL. 

From the French of Remy Belleau, 

April ! sweet month, the daintiest of all. 

Fair thee befall: 

April! fond hope of fruits that lie 
In buds of swathing cotton wrapt. 

There closely lapt 

Nursing their tender infancy— 

April! that dost thy yellow, green and blue. 
Around thee strew, 

When, as thou go'st. the grassy floor 
Is with a million flowers depaint, 

Whose colours quaint 
Have diaper’d the meadows o’er— 

April! at whose glad coming zephyrs rise 
With whisper’d sighs, 

Then on their light wings brush away. 

And lung amid the woodlands fresh 
Their aery mesh. 

To tangle Flora on her way—> 

April ! it is thy hand that doth unlock 
From plain and rock, 

Odours and hues, a balmy store. 

That breathing lie on Nature’s breast. 

So richly blest. 

That earth or heaven can ask no more— 

April! thy blooms, amid the tresses laid 
Of my sweet maid, 

A down her neck and bosom flow ; 

And in a wild profusion there. 

Her shining hair 

With them hath blent a golden glow— 

April! the dimpled smiles, the playful grace. 

That in the face 
Of Cytherea haunt, are thine; 

Ar.d thine the breath, that, from the skies, 

The deities 

Inhale, an offering at thy shrine — 

’Tis thou that dost with summons blythe and 90 ft 
High up aloft. 

From banishment these heralds bring. 

These swallows, that along the air 
Send swift, and bear 
Glad tidings of the merry spring. 

April! the hawthorn and the eglantine. 

Purple woodbine, 

fetreak d pink, and lily-cup and rose, 

And thyme, and marjoram, are spreading, 

Where thou art treading, 

And their sweet eyes for thee unclose. 

The little nightingale sits singing ave 
On leafy spray. 

And in her fitful strain doth run 
A thousand and a thousand chanire^, 

With voice that ranges 
Through every sweet division 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


April! it is when thou dost come again. 

That love is fain 

With gentlest breath the fires to wake. 

That cover’d up and slumbering lay. 

Through many a day 

When winter’s chill our veins did slake. 

Sweet month, thou seest at this jocund prime 
Of the spring time, 

Thd hives pour out their lusty young. 

And hear’st the yellow bees that ply, 

With laden thigh, 

Murmuring the flovv’ry wilds among. 

May shall with pomp his wavy wealth unfold. 
His fruits of gold. 

His fertilizing dews, that swell 
In manna on each spike and stem 
And like a gem. 

Red honey in the waxen cell. 

Who will may praise him, but my voice shall be. 
Sweet month for thee ; 

Thou that to her do’st owe thy name, 

Who saw the sea wave’s foamy tide 
Swell and divide, 

Whence forth to life and light she came. 


ETYMOLOGY. 

The following are significations of a few 
common terms :—■ 

Steward, literally means the keeper of 
the place; it is compounded of the two old 
words, stede and ward: by the omission of 
the first d and e the word steward is 
formed. 

Marshal means one who has the care of 
horses: in the old Teutonic, mare was syno¬ 
nymous with horse, being applied to the 
kind ; scale signified a servant. 

Mayor is derived from the Teutonic 
Meyer , a lover of might. 

Sheriff is compounded of the old words 
shy re and reve —an officer of the county, - 
one who hath the overlooking of the shire. 

Yeoman is the Teutonic word gemen, 
corrupted in the spelling, and means a 
commoner. 

Groom signifies one who serves in an 
inferior station. The name of bridegroom 
w'as formerly given to the new-married 
man, because it was customary for him to 
wait at table on his bride and friends on 
his wedding day. 


All our words of necessity are derived 
from the German ; our words of luxury and 
those used at table, from the French. '1 he 
sky, the earth, the elements, the names of 
animals, household goods, and articles of 
f ood, are the same in German as in Eng¬ 


lish ; the fashions of dress, and every thing 
belonging to the kitchen, luxury, and orna 
ment, are taken from the French ; and to 
such a degree of exactness, that the names 
of animals which serve for the ordinary 
food of men, such as ox, calf, sheep, when 
alive, are called the same in English as in 
German ; but when they are served up for 
the table they change their names, and are 
called beef, veal, mutton, after the French.* 

ORGANS. 

For the Table Book. 

A few particulars relative to organs, in 
addition to those at col. 260, may be in¬ 
teresting to musical readers. 

The instrument is of so great antiquity, 
that neither the time nor place of invention, 
nor the name of the inventor, is identified; 
hut that they were used by the Greeks, and 
from them borrowed by the Latins, is gene¬ 
rally allowed. St. Jerome describes one 
that could be heard a mile off; and says, 
that there was an organ at Jerusalem, 
which could be heard at the Mount oi 
Olives. 

Organs are affirmed to have been first 
introduced into France in the reign oi 
Louis I., a. d. B15, and the construction 
and use of them taught by an Italian priest, 
who learned the art at Constantinople. By 
some, however, the introduction of them 
into that country is carried as far back as 
Charlemagne, and by others still further. 

The earliest mention of an organ, in the 
northern histories, is in the annals of the 
year 757, when the emperor Constantine, 
surnamed Copronymus, sent to Pepin oi 
France, among other rich presents, a “ mu¬ 
sical machine," which the French writers 
describe to have been composed of “ pipes 
and large tubes of tin,’’ and to have imitated 
sometimes the “ roaring of thunder,’’ and. 
at others, the “ warbling of a flute.” 

Bellarmine alleges, that organs were first 
used in churches about 660. According to 
Bingham, they were not used till after the 
time of Thomas Aquinas, about a. d. 
1250. Gervas, the monk of Canterbury, 
who flourished about 1200, says, they were 
in use about a hundred years before his 
time. If his authority be good, it wouin 
countenance a general opinion, that organ- 
were common in the churches of Italy. 
Germany, and England, about the ten 1 
century. 

March, 1827. 


• Datcufi. 


237 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


PERPLEXING MARRIAGES. 

At Gwennap, in Cornwall, in March 
1823, Miss Sophia Bawden was married 
to Mr. R. Bawden, both of St. Day. By 
this marriage, the father became brother-in- 
law to his son ; the mother, mother-in-law 
to her sister ; the mother-in-law of the son, 
his sister-in-law ; the sister of the mother- 
in-law, her daughter-in-law; the sister of 
the daughter-in-law, her mother-in-law; 
the son of the father, brother-in-law to his 
mother-in-law, and uncle to his brothers 
and sisters; the wife of the son, sister-in- 
law to her father-in-law, and aunt-in-law to 
her husband ; and the offspring of the son 
i and his wife would be grandchildren to 
their uncle and aunt, and cousins to their 
father. 


In an account of Kent, it is related that 
one Hawood had two daughters by his 
first wife, of which the eldest was married 
to John Cashick the son, and the youngest 
to John Cashick the father. This Cashick 
the father had a daughter by his first wife, 
whom old Hawood married, and by her 
; had a son: with the exception of the for¬ 
mer wife of old Cashick, all these persons 
I were living at Faversham in February, 

! 1050, and his second wife could say as 
j follows :— 

I My father is my son, and ] My sister is my daughter, 
I’m mother’s mother; | I’m grandmother to my brother. 


STEPS RE-TRACED. 

Catherine ae Medicis made a vow, that 
if some concerns which she had undertaken 
terminated successfully, she would send a 
pilgrim on foot to Jerusalem, and that at 
every three steps he advanced, he should 
go one step back. 

It was doubtful whether there could be 
found a man sufficiently strong and patient 
to walk, and go back one step at every 
third. A citizen of Verberie, who was a 
merchant, offered to accomplish the queen’s 
vow most scrupulously, and her majesty 
promised him an adequate recompense. 
The queen was well assured by constant in¬ 
quiries that he fulfilled his engagement with 
exactness, and c*\ his return, he received a 
considerable sum of money, and was en¬ 
nobled. His coat of arms were a cross 
and a branch of palm-tree. His descend¬ 
ants preserved the arms; but they dege¬ 
nerated from their nobility, by resuming 
the commerce which their ancestor quit¬ 
ted.* 

• Nouv. Hist, de Dech. de Valois. 


street Circulars. 

No. I. 

For the Table Book . 

WHISTLING JOE. 

He whistles as he goes for want of bread.* 


Old books declare,—in Plutus’ shade. 
Whistling was once a roaring trade,— 

Great was the call for nerve and gristle , 
That Charon, with his Styx in view, 

Pierced old Phlegethon through and through, 
And whist-ied in the ferry-whistle— 

That Polyphemus whistled when 
He p-layed the pipe r in a pen, 

And sought Ulysses’ bark to launch , 

That Troy, King Priam had not lost, 

But for the whistlers that were horsedf 
Within the horse’s wooden paunch. 

Jupiter was a whist-ling wight, 

And Juno heard him with delight; 

And Boreas was a reedy swain, 

Awak’mng Venus from the sea : 

But of the Moderns ?—Joe is he 
That whistles in the streets for gain. 

You wonder as you hear the tone 
Sound like a herald m a zone 
Distinctly clear, minutely sweet; 

You list and Joe is dancing, now 
You laugh, and Joe returns a bow 
Returning in the crooked street. 

He scrapes a stick across his arm 
And knocks his knees, in need, to charm 
Instead of tabor and a fiddle, 

Et omne soils ,—on his sole ! 

He, solus omnis, like a pole 
Supports his body in the middle. 

l'hus, of the sprites that creep, or oeg, 

With wither’d arm, or wooden leg, 
Uncatalogued in Bridewell’s missal; 

Joe is the fittest for relief, 

He whistles gladness in his grief, § 

And hardly earns it for his whistle. 

J. R. P. 


* Vide Dryden’s Cyinon, 

“ He whistled as he went for want of thought." 

t This word rhymes with lost, to oblige the cockneys. 

J Like the punning clown in the stocks, that whistled 
Over the wood laddie l 

“ Whistle! and I will come to thee my lov«. n 


238 








































THE TABLE iiUUxv. 


iBauntsp Cijarstiap. 

The Thursday before Good Friday. 

There are ample particulars of the pie- 
sent usages on this day at the chapel royal, 
St. James’s, in the Every-Day Book , with 
accounts of celebrations in other coun¬ 
tries ; to these may be added the cere¬ 
monies at the court of Vienna, recently 
related by Dr. Bright :— 

“ On the Thursday of this week, which 
was the 24th of March, a singular reli¬ 
gious ceremony was celebrated by the 
court. It is known in German catholic 
countries by the name of the Fussivas- 
chung , or the ‘ washing of the feet.’ The 
large saloon, in which public court enter¬ 
tainments are given, was fitted up for the 
purpose; elevated benches and galleries 
were constructed round the room for the 
reception of the court and strangers; and 
in the area, upon two platforms, tables 
were spread, at one of which sat twelve 
men, and at the other twelve women. They 
had been selected from the oldest and 
most deserving paupers, and were suitably 
clothed in black, with handkerchiefs and 
square collars of white muslin, and girdles 
round their waists. 

“ The emperor and empress, with the 
archdukes and archduchesses, Leopoldine 
and Clementine, and their suites, having 
all previously attended mass in the royal 
chapel, entered and approached the table 
to the sound of solemn music. The Hun¬ 
garian guard followed, in their most splen¬ 
did uniform, with their leopard-skin jackets 
falling from their shoulders, and bearing 
trays of different meats, which the emperor, 
empress, archdukes, and attendants, placed 
on the table, in three successive courses, 
before the poor men and women, who 
tasted a little, drank each a glass of wine, 
and answered a few questions put to them 
by their sovereigns. The tables were then 
removed, and the empress and her daugh¬ 
ters the archduchesses, dressed in black, 
with pages bearing their trains, approached. 
Silver bowls were placed beneath the bare 
feet of the aged women. The grand cham¬ 
berlain, in a humble posture, poured water 
upon the feet of each in succession, from a 
! golden urn, and the empress wiped them 
with a fine napkin she held in her hand. 
The emperor performed the same cere¬ 
mony on the feet of the men, and the rite 
concluded amidst the sounds of sacred 


(Sooi JrfOap ©asttr, 

“ Visiting the Churches ” in Fr> n<» 

On Good Friday the churches are all 
dressed up ; canopies are placed over the 
altars, and the altars themselves are de¬ 
corated with flowers and other ornaments, 
and illuminated with a vast number of wax 
candles. In the evening every body of every 
rank and description goes a round of visits 
to them. The devout kneel down and re¬ 
peat a prayer to themselves in each ; but 
the majority only go to see and be seen— 
to admire or to criticise the decorations of 
the churches and of each other—to settle 
which are arranged with the most taste, 
which are the most superb'. This may be 
called the feast of caps, for there is scarcely 
a lady who has not a new cap for the occa¬ 
sion. 

Easter Sunday, on the contrary, is the 
feast of hats ; for it is no less general for 
the ladies on that day to appear in new hats. 
In the time of the convents, the decoration j 
of their churches for Passion-week was an ; 
object in which the nuns occupied them¬ 
selves with the greatest eagerness. No • 
girl dressing for her first ball ever bestowed 
more pains in placing her ornaments to the 
best advantage than they bestowed in de¬ 
corating their altars. Some of the churches 
which we visited looked very well, and 
very showy : but the weather was warm ; 
and as this was the first revival of the 
ceremony since the revolution, the crowd 
was so great that they were insupportably 
hot. 

A number of Egyptians, who had accom¬ 
panied the French army on its evacuation 
of Egypt, and were settled at Marseilles, 
were the most eager spectators, as indeed I 
had observed them to be on all occasions 
of any particular religious ceremonies being 
performed. I never saw a more ugly or 
dirty-looking set of people than they were 
in general, women as well as men, but they 
seemed fond of dress and ornament. They 
had swarthy, dirty-looking complexions, 
and dark hair; but were not by any means 
to be considered as people of colour. Their 
hair, though dark, had no affinity with that 
of the negroes; for it was lank and greasy, 
not with any disposition to be woolly. 
Most of the women had accompanied 
French officers as cheresamies: the Egyptian 
ladies were indeed said to have had in j 
general a great taste for the French offi ! 
cers.* 


mu-uc. 


• Mia* Plumptr*. 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


PHLEBOTOMY. 

Bleeding was much in fashion in the 
middle ages. In the fifteenth century, it 
was the subject of a poem; and Robert 
Boutevylleyn, a founder, claimed in the 
abbey of Pipewell four bleedings per un- 
\nu>n. Among the monks this operation 
was termed “ minution.” 

In some abbeys was a bleeding-house, 
called “ Fleboto-maria.” There were cer¬ 
tain festivals when this bleeding was not 
allowed. The monks desired often to be 
bled, on account of eating meat. 

In the order of S. Victor, the brethren 
were bled five times a year; in September, 
before Advent, before Lent, after Easter, 
and at Pentecost, which bleeding lasted 
three days. After the third day they came 
to Mattins, and were in the convent; on 
the fourth day, they received absolution in 
the chapter. In another rule, one choir 
was bled at the same time, in silence and 
osalmody, sitting in order in a cell * 


OLD CEREMONIES, &c. 

Order of the Maunday, made at 
Greenwich on the 19th of Maroh, 
1572; 14 Eliz From No. 6183 Add. 
MSS. in the British Museum. 

Extracted by W. H. Dewhurst 

Fur the Table Book. 

First. —The hall was prepared with a 
n'tig table on each side, and formes set by 
them ; on the edges of which tables, and 
under those formes, were lay’d carpets and 
cushions, for her majestie to kneel when 
she should wash them. There was also 
another table set across the upper end of 
the hall, somewhat above the foot pace, for 
the chappelan to stand at. A little beneath 
the midst whereof, and beneath the said 
foot pace, a stoole and cushion of estate 
was pitched for her majestie to kneel at 
during the service time. This done, the 
holy water, basons, alms, and other things, 
being brought into the hall, and the chap¬ 
pelan and poore folkes having taken the 
said places, the laundiesse, armed with a 
faire towell, and taking a silver bason filled 
with warm water and sweet flowers, washed 
their feet all after one another, and wiped 
the same with his towell, and soe making a 
crosse a little above the toes kissed them. 
After hym within a little while followed the 
subalmoner, doing likewise, and after hym 
the almoner hymself also. Then lastly, her 
majestie came into the hall, and after some 


* Fosbroke’s British Monnchism. 


singing and prayers made, and the gospel 
of Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet 
read, 39 ladyes and gentlewomen (for soe 
many were the poore folkes, according to 
the number of the yeares complete of her 
majestie’s age,) addressed themselves with 
aprons and towels to waite upon her majes¬ 
tie, and she kneeling down upon the 
cushions and carpets, under the feete of 
the poore women, first washed one foote of 
every one of them in soe many several 
oasons of warm water and sweete flowers, 
brought to her severally by the said ladies 
and gentlewomen, then wiped, crossed, and 
kissed them, as the almoner and others had 
done before. When her majestie had thus 
gone through the whole number of 39, (of 
which 20 sat on the one side of the hall, 
and 19 on the other,) she resorted to the 
first again, and gave to each one certain 
yardes of broad clothe, to make a gowne, so 
passing to them all. Thirdly, she began at 
the first, and ga,ve to each of them a pair 
of shoes. Fourthly, to each of them a 
wooden platter, wherein was half a side of 
salmon, as much ling, six red herrings, and 
cheat lofes of bread.* Fifthly, she began 
with the first again, and gave to each of 
them a white wooden dish with claret wine. 
Sixthly, she received of each waiting lady 
and gentlewoman their towel and apron, 
and gave to each poore woman one of the 
same; and after this the ladies and gentle¬ 
women waited noe longer, nor served as 
they had done throwe out the courses be¬ 
fore. But then the treasurer of the cham¬ 
ber (Mr. Hennage) came to her majestie 
with 39 small white purses, wherein were 
also 39 pence, (as they saye,) after the 
number of yeares to her majesties said age, | 
and of him she received and distributed I 
them severally. Which done, she received ! 
of h im soe manye leather purses alsoe, each I 
containing 20 sh. for the redemption of her 
majestie s gown, which (as men saye) by 
ancient ordre she ought to give some of 
them at her pleasure ; but she, to avoide 
the trouble of suite, which accustomablie 
was made for that preferment, had changed 
that rewarde into money, to be equally 
dividtd amongst them all, namely, 20 sh. a 
peice, and she alsoe delivered particularly 
to the whole companye. And so taking 
her ease upon the cushion of estate, and 
hearing the quire a little while, her majes¬ 
tie withdrew herself, and ti e company de¬ 
parted : for it was by that time the sun was 
setting. 

W. L(ambf.rt.) 


• Manchet. or cheat-bread. 


240 













TI1E TABLE BOOK. 

Taken by W. II. Dewhurst from the same MSS. 

Extracts from the churchwarden's accompts of the parish of St. Helen, in Abingdon, 
Berkshire, from the first year of the reign of Philip and Mary, to the thirty-fourth 
of Q Elizabeth , now in the possession of the Kev. Mr. George Benson. 

With some Observations on them, by the late professor J. Ward. 


Ann. MDLV. or 1 & 2 of Phil, and Mari/ 

Payde for makeinge the roode, and peynt- 

ing the same . 

for makeinge the herse lights, and 

paschall tapers. 

for makeinge the roode lyghtes. 

for a legend. 

for a hollie water pott. 

Ann. MDLVI. or 2 & 3 of P. and M. 

Payde for a boke of the articles . 

for a shippe of franhencense . 

for new wax, and makeinge the herse 

lights. 

for the font taper, and the paskall 
taper . 

Receyved for the holye loof lyghts. 

for the rode lyghtes at Christmas ... 
at the buryall and moncthes mynd of 

George Chynche . 

for 12 tapers, at the yeres mynd of 

Maister John Hide. 

at the buriall and monethes mynd of 
the good wifF Braunche. 

Ann. MDLV 11. or 3 & 4 of P. and M. 

Receyved of the parishe of the rode lyghts 

at Christmas. 

of the clarke for the holve loft. 

at the buryall of Rich. Balled for 4 

tapers. 

• * * * * 

Payde for peynting the roode of Marie 
and John, the patron of the churche 
to fasten the tabernacle where the 
patron of tl^e church now standeth 
for the roode Marie and John, with 

the patron of the churche. 

for makeing the herse lyghts . 

for the roode Marie and John, and the 

patron of the churche. 

to the sextin, for watching the sepul- 

ter two nyghts... 

to the suffrigan for hallowing the 
churche yard, and other imple¬ 
ments of the church. 

for the waste of the pascall and for 
holye yoyle. 

Ann. MDLVIII. MDLIX. or 4 & 5 of P. 

^ M. and 1 & 2 of Eliz. 

Receyved for roode lyghts at Xmas, 1558. 

for roode lyghts at Xmas, 1559. 

at Ester, for the pascall lyghte, 1558 
for waxe to thense the church on 

Ester daye. 

at Ester, for the pascall lyghte, 1559 

for the holie loflf, 1558 . 

for the holie lo'ff, 1559.. 


Payde to the bellman for raeate, drinke, 
and cooles, watching the sepulture 

for the communion boke .. 

for takeing down the altere . 

for 4 song bokes and a sawter ...... 

Ann. MDLX. or 3 of Eliz. 

Payde for tymber and makeing the com¬ 
munion table. 

for a carpet for do.. 


s. 

d. 

5 

4 

11 

1 

10 

6 

5 

0 

6 

0 

0 

2 

0 

20 

5 

8 

6 

r"» 

/ 

33 

4 

'-3 

2 ob. 

0 

22 

0 

21 

12 

4 

21 

9 


8 

0 

6 

6 

8 

0 

8 

18 

0 

3 

8 

7 

0 

0 

8 

30 

0 

- 5 

10 

18 

6 

18 

3ob. 

34 

0 

0 

20 

35 

0 

34 

0 

34 

8 

0 

19 

5 

0 

0 

20 

6 

8 

6 

0 

2 

8 


Payde for mending and paving the place 

1 s. 

d. 


where the aultere stoode. 

2 

8 


for too dossin of morres belles . 

1 

0 


for fower new saulter bockes. 

8 

0 


for gathering the herse lyghtes. 

4 

0 


Ann. MDLXI. or 4 of Eliz. 

Payde for 4 pownde of candilles upon 
Cristmas daye in the morning for the 
masse . 

0 

12 


for a table of the cominandementes 
and cealender, or rewle to find out 
the lessons and spallmes, and for 
the frame. 

2 

0 


to the somner for bringing the order 
for the roode lofte. 

0 

8 


to the carpenter for takeing down the 
roode lofte, and stopping the holes 
in the wall, where the joisces stoode 

15 

8 


to the peynter for wrigting the scrip¬ 
ture, where roode lofte stoode and 
overthwarte the same isle. 

3 

4 


to the clarkes for maynteyning and 
repeyring the song bokes in the 
quyre .... 

4 

0 


Ann. MDLXII. or 5 of Eliz. 

Payde for a bybill for the church. 

10 

0 


Ann. MDLXIII. or 6 of Eliz. 

Payde for a boke of Wendsdayes fasting, 
which contayns omellies. 

0 

6 


Ann. MDLXIV. or 7 of Eliz. 

Payde for a communion boke. 

4 

0 

i 

for reparations of the cross in the 
market place. 

5 

2 

I 

Ann. MDLXV. or 8 of Eliz. 

Payde for too bokes of common prayer 
agaynste invading of the Turhe ... 

0 

6 


for a repetition of the communion 
boke . 

4 

0 


Ann. MDLXVI. or 9 of Eliz. 

Payde for setting up Robin Hoode's 
bowere .. 

0 

18 


Ann. MDLXXIII. or 16 of Eliz. 

Payde for a cjuire of paper to make four 
bokes of Geneva salmes . 

0 

4 


for 2 bockes of common prayer new 
sett forth. 

0 

4 


Ann. MDLXX1V. or 17 of Eliz. 
Payde for candilles for the church at 

o 

15 


Ann. MDLXXVI. MDLXXVII. or 19 & 
20 of Eliz 

Payde for a new byble.... 

40 

0 


for a booke of common prayer.. 

7 

0 


for wrytyng the commandements in 
the quyre, and peynting the same. 

19 

0 


Ann. MDLXXVIII. or 21 of Eliz. 
Payde for a booke of the articles . 

0 

10 


Ann. MDXCI. or 34 of Eliz. 

Payde for an houre glasse for the pulpitt. 

0 

4 

j 






211 























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Observations, &c. on the preceding 
Charges. 

The churchwarden’s accounts of a parti¬ 
cular parish* may in themselves be thought, 
justly, as a matter of no great consequence, 
and not worthy of much regard. But these 
seem to deserve some consideration, as they 
relate to a very remarkable period in our 
history, and prove by facts the great altera¬ 
tions that were made in religious affairs 
under the reigns of queen Mary and queen 
Elizabeth, together with the time and man¬ 
ner of putting them into execution; and 
may therefore serve both to confirm and 
illustrate several things related by our ec¬ 
clesiastical historians. 

1. We find mention made in these ex¬ 
tracts of the rood and rood loft. By the 
former of which was meant either a crucifix, 
or the image of some saint erected in popish 
churches. And here that name is given to 
the images of saint Mary and saint John, 
and to saint Helen, the patroness of the 
church. These images were set in shrines, 
or tabernacles, and the place where they 
stood was called the rood loft, which was 
commonly over or near the passage out of 
the body of the church into the chancel. 
In 1548, the first of king Edward VI., all 
images and their shrines were ordered to be 
taken down, as bishop Burnett informs us. 
But they were restored again on the acces¬ 
sion of queen Mary, as we find here, by 
the first article. 

2. The ship for frankincense, mentioned 
in the year 1556, was a small vessel in the 
form of a ship or boat, in which the Koman 
catholics burn frankincense to perfume their 
churches and images. 

3. The boke of articles, purchased in 
1556, seems to be that which was printed 
and sent over the kingdom by order of 
queen Mary, at the end of the year 1554, 
containing instructions to the bishops for 
visiting the clergy. 

4. We find frequent mention made of 
lights and other expenses at a funeral, the 
months mind, the years and two years mind, 
and the obit of deceased persons, which 
were masses performed at those seasons for 
the rest of their souls; the word mind, 
meanivg the same as memorial or remem¬ 
brance. And so it is used in a sermon yet 
extant of bishop Fisher, entitled A morn- 
ynge remembrance had at the monteth minde 
of the most noble prynces Margarete, coun- 
tesse of Richmonde and Darbye, 8tc. As 

i 

t * Fuller’s Hist, of Waltham Abbey, p. 13. T. 

f Lewis’s Hist, of the English Translation of the Bible, 

j p. 199. 


to the term obits, services of that kind seem 
to have been annually performed. The 
office of the mass for each of these solemni¬ 
ties may be seen in the Roman Missal, 
under the title of Missal pro defunctii. 
And it appears by the different sums here 
charged, that the expenses were suited to 
persons of all ranks, that none might be 
deprived of the benefit which was supposed 
to accrue from them. 

5. It was customary in popish countries 
on Good Friday to erect a small building, 
to represent the sepulchre of our Saviour. 
In this they put the host, and set a person 
to watch both that night and the next. On 
the following morning very early, the host 
being taken out, Christ is risen. This was 
done here in 1557 and two following years, 
the last of which was in the reign of queen 
Elizabeth. Du Fresne has given us a par¬ 
ticular account of this ceremony as per¬ 
formed at Rouen in France, where three 
persons in female habits used to go to the 
sepulchre, in which two others were placed 
to represent angels, who told them Christ 
was risen. (J Latin Glossary, under the words 
Sepulchro officinum .) The building men¬ 
tioned must have been very slight, since 
the whole expense amounted to no more 
than seventeen shillings and sixpence. 

6. In the article of wax to thense the 
church, under the year 1558, the word thense 
is, I presume, a mistake for cense, as they 
might use wax with the frankincense in 
censing or perfuming the church. 

7. In 1559 the altar was taken down, 
and in 1560 the communion table was put 
in its place, by order of queen Elizabeth. 

8. Masses for the dead continued to this 
time, but here, instead of a moneths mynde, 
the expression is a months monument. But 
as that office was performed at the altai, 
and this being taken down that year, the 
other could not be performed. And yet we 
have the word mass applied to the service 
performed on Christmas-day the year fol¬ 
lowing. 

9. The morrice bells, mentioned under 
the year 1560 as purchased by the parish, 
were used in their moriice dances, a diver¬ 
sion then practised at their festivals; in 
which the populace might be indulged from 
a political view, to keep them in good 
humour. 

10. In 1561 the rood loft was taken 
down, and in order to obliterate its remem¬ 
brance, (as had been done before in the 
reign of king Edward VI.,) some passages 
out of the Bible were painted in the place 
where it stood, which could give but little 
offence, since the images had been removed 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


j the preceding year by the queen’s injunc¬ 
tion, on the representation of the bishops. 

11. In 1562 a Bible is said to have been 
bought for the church, which cost ten shil¬ 
lings. This, I suppose, was the Geneva 

j Bible, in 4to., both on account of its low 
price, and because that edition, having the 
division of verses, was best suited for public 
use. It was an English translation, which 
had been revised and corrected by the Eng¬ 
lish exiles at Geneva, in queen Mary’s reign, 
and printed there in 1560, with a dedica¬ 
tion to queen Elizabeth. In the year 1576 
we find another Bible was bought, which 
was called the New Bible, and is said to 
have cost forty shillings; which must have 
been the large folio, usually called arch¬ 
bishop Parker’s Bible, printed at London, 
in 1568, by Richard Jugge, the queen’s 
printer. They had prayer-books , psalters, 
and song-books, for the churches in the 
beginning of this reign, as the whole Bible 
was not easily to be procured. 

12. In 1565 there is a charge of sixpence 
for two common prayer-books against in¬ 
vading the Turke. It was then thought the 
common cause of the Christian states in 
Europe to oppose the progress of the 
Turkish arms by all methods, both civil 
and religious. And this year the Tuiks 
made a descent upon the Isle of Malta, 
where they besieged the town and castle of 
St. Michael tour months, when, on the ap¬ 
proach of the Christian fleet, they broke up 
the siege, and suffered considerable loss in 
their flight. (Thuanus, lib. 38.) And as the 
war was afterwards carried on between 
them and the emperor Maximillian in Hun¬ 
gary, the like prayer-books were annually 
purchased for the parish till the year 1569 
inclusive.* 

13. In 1566 there is an article of eight¬ 
een pence for setting up Robin Hoode’s 
bowere. This, I imagine, might be an ar¬ 
bour or booth, erected by the parish, at 
some festival. Though for what purpose it 
received that name I know not, unless it 
was designed for archers. 

14. In 1573 charge is made of paper for 
lour bookes of Geneva psalms. It is well 

nown, that, the vocal music in parochial 
churches received a great alteration under 
_ne reign of queen Elizabeth, being changed 
from antiphonyes into metrical psalmody, 
jvhich is here called the Geneva psalms. 

15. In the year 1578 tenpence were paid 
or a book of the articles. These articles were 
agreed to ana subscribed for by both houses 


• Pref ad Camdeni “ Eliz.” p, xxix. 1. i. g. 


of convocation in 1562, and printed the 
year following. But in 1571, being agair. 
revised and ratified by act of parliament, 
they seem to have been placed in churches. 

16. The last article in these extracts is 
fourpence for an lioure glass for the pulpit. 
How early the custom was of using hour 
glasses in the pulpit, I cannot say; but 
this is the first instance of it I ever met 
with. 

It is not to be thought that the same re¬ 
gulations were all made within the same 
time in all other places. That depended 
with the several bishops of their dioceses, 
and according to their zeal for the Reforma¬ 
tion. Abingdon lies in the diocese of Sa¬ 
lisbury, and, as bishop Jewel, who was first 
nominated to that see by queen Elizabeth, 
and continued in it till the year 1571, 
was so great a defender of the reformed 
religion, it is not to be doubted but every 
thing was there carried on with as much 
expedition as was judged consistent with 
prudence. 


(gam'rft fllaps. 

No. XIII. 

[From the “ Battle of Alcazar, a Tragedy, 
1594.] 

Muly Mahamet, driven from his throw 
into a desart, robs the Lioness to feed hi .* 
fainting IVife Calipolis. 

Muly. Hold thee, Calipolis; feed, and faint no mor 
This flesh I forced from a Lioness; 

Meat of a Princess, for a Princess’ meat. 

Learn by her noble stomach to esteem 
Penury plenty in extremest dearth ; 

Who, when she saw her foragement bereft. 

Pined not in melancholy or childish fear; 

But, as brave minds are strongest in extremes, 

So she, redoubling her former force. 

Ranged through the woods, and rent the breedin 
vaults 

Of proudest savages, to save herself. 

Feed then, and faint not, fair Calipolis; 

For, rather than fierce famine shall prevail 
To gnaw thy entrails with her thorny teeth. 

The conquering Lioness shall attend on thee. 

And lay huge heaps of slaughter’d carcases 
As bulwarks in her way to keep her back. 

I will provide thee of a princely Ospray, 

That, as she flieth over fish in pools. 

The fish shall turn their glistering bellies up. 

And thou shall take the liberal choice of all. 

Jove’s stately Bird with wide-commanding wing 
Shall hover still about thy princely head. 


243 













THE TABLE BOOK 


Anil eat down fowl* 1>y shoals into thy laji. 
Feed then, aucl faint not, fait Calipolis.* 


[From the “ Seven Champions of Christen¬ 
dom,” by John Kirk, acted 1638.] 

■Calib, the Witch , in the opening Scene, 
in a Storm. 

Calib. Ha! louder a little; so, that burst was well. 
Again ; ha, h-a ! house, house your heads, ye fear- 
struck mortal fools, when Calib’s consort plays 
4 hunts-up to her. How rarely doth it languell 
In mine ears ! these are mine organs ; the toad, 

I'he bat, the raven, and the fell whistling bird, 

Are all my anthem-singing quiristers. 

''uch sapless roots, and liveless wither’d woods, 

Are pleasanter to me than to behold 

The jocund month of May. in whose green head of youth 

the amorous Flora strews ner various flowers, 

And smiles to see how brave she has deckt her girl. 
But pass we May, as game for fangled fools. 

That dare not set a foot in Art’s dark, sec¬ 
ret, and bewitch dig path, as Calib has. 

Here is my mansion 

Within the rugged bowels of this cave, 

This crag, this cliff, this den ; which to behold 
Would freeze to ice the hissing trammels of Medusa. 
Yet here enthroned I sit, more richer in my spells 
And potent charm*, than is the stately Mountain Queen, 
Drest with the beauty of her sparkling gems, 

To vie a lustre ’gainst the heavenly lamps. 

But we are sunk in these antipodes ; so choakt 
With darkness is great Calib’s cave, that it 
Can stifle day. It can ?—it shall—for we do loath the 
light; 

And, as our deeds are blactt, we hug the night. 

But where’s this Boy, my George, my Love, my Life, 
Whom Calib lately dotes on more than life ? 

I must not have him wander from my love 
Farther than summons of my eye, or beck. 

Can call him back again. But ’tis my fiend- 
•begotfen and deform'd Issuet, misleads him : 

For which I’ll rock him in a storm of hail, 

And dash him ’gainst the pavement on the rocky den ; 
He must not lead my Joy astray from me. 

The parents of that Boy, begetting him, 

Begot and bore the issue of their deaths; 

Which donej, the Child I stole. 

Thinking alone to triumph in his death, 

And bathe my body in his popular gore ; 

But dove-like Nature favour’d so the Child, 


* This address, for its barbaric splendor of concep¬ 
tion, extravagant vein of promise, not to mention some 
idiomatic peculiarities, and the very structure of the 
verse, savours strongly of Marlowe ; but the real 
author, I believe, is unknown. 

+ A sort of young Caliban, her son, who presently 
enters, complaining of a “ bloody coxcomb” which the 
Young Saint George had given him. 

X Calib had killed the parents of the Young Saint 
George. 


That Calib’s killing knife fell from ner hard ; 
And, ’stead of stabs, I kiss’d the red-l’»pt Bo*. 


[From “Two Tragedies in One,” by Ro¬ 
bert Yarrington, who wrote m the ifcikn 
of Elizabeth.] 

Truth, the Chorus, to the Spectators. 

All you, the sad Spectators of this Act, 

Whose hearts do taste a feeling pensiveuess 
Of this unheard-of savage massacre : 

Oh be far off to harbour such a thought, 

As this audacious murderer put in act ! 

I see your sorrows flow up to the brim, 

And overflow your cheeks with brinish tears! 

But though this sight bring surfeit to the eye. 

Delight your ears with pleasing harmony, 

That ears may countercheck vour eyes, and say, 

“ Why shed you tears ? this deed is but a Play."* 


Murderer to hu Sister , about to stoic 
away the trunk of the body, having severed 
it from the limbs. 

Hark, Rachel! I will cross the water strait. 

And fling this middle mention of a Man 
Intc some ditch. 

It is curious, that this old Play comprises 
the distinct action of two Atrocities ; the 
cne a vulgar murder, committed in our 
own Thames Street, with the names and 
incidents truly and historically set down ; 
the other a Murder in high life, supposed 
to be acting at the same time in Italy, the 
scenes alternating between that country and 
England : the Story of the latter is mu tat is 
mutandis no other than that of our own 
“ Babes in the Wood,” transferred to Italy, 
from delicacy no doubt to some of the 
family of the rich Wicked Uncle, who 
might yet be living. The treatment of the 
two differs as the romance-like narratives 
in “ God’s Revenge against Murder,” in 
which the Actors of the Murders (with the 
trifling exception that they were Murderers') 
are represented as most accomplished and 
every way amiable young Gentlefolks ot 
either sex—as much as that differs from the 
honest unglossing pages of the homely 
Newgate Ordinary. 

C. L. 


• The whole theory of the reason of our delight ii 
Tragic Representations, which has cost so many 
elaborate chapters of Criticism, is condensed in thes* 
four last lines: Aristotle quintessentialised. 


244 




















THE TABLE BOOK. 


€i)t 2M& Bear (©arirn 

AT BANKSIDE, SOUTHWARK. 

Bear Baiting—Masters of the Bears 

and Dogs—Edward Alleyn—The 
Falcon Tavern, &c. 

Tlie Bull and the Bear baiting, on the 
Bankside, seem to have preceded, in point 
of time, the several other ancient theatres 
of the metropolis. The precise date of their 
erection is not ascertained, but a Bear¬ 
garden on the Bankside is mentioned by one 
Crowley, a poet, of the reign of Henry VIII., 
as being at that time in existence. lie 
informs us, that the exhibitions were on a 
Sunday, that they drew full assemblies, and 
that the price of admission was then one 
halfpenny ! 

4 What follie is this to keep with danger, 

A great mastive dog, and fowle ouglie bear; 

And to this end, to see them two tight. 

With terrible tearings, a ful ouglie sight. 

And methinkes those men are most fools of al, 

Whose store of money is but very smal; 

And yet every Sunday they wil surely spend 
One penny or two, the bearward’s living to mend. 

“ At Paris garden each Sunday, a man shal not fail 
To find two or three hundred for the bearwards vale, 
One halfpenny apiece they use for to give, 

When some have no more in their purses, I believe ; 
Wei, at the last day, their conscience wil declare, 

That the poor ought to have al that they may spare. 

If you therefore give to see a bear tight. 

Be sure God his curse upon you wil light 1” 

Whether these “ rough games,” as a 
certain author terms them, were then ex¬ 
hibited in the same or similar amphitheatres, 
to those afterwards engraved in our old 
plans, or in the open air, the extract does 
not inform us. Nor does Stowe’s account 
afford any better idea. He merely tells us, 
that there were on the west bank “ two 
bear gardens , the old and the new ; places, 
wherein were kept beares, bulls, and othr> r 
beasts to be bayted ; as also mastiv'es n 
■everal keneis, nourished to bayt them. 
These beares and other beasts,” he adds, 
“ are there kept in plots of ground, scaf¬ 
folded about, for the beholders to stand 
safe.” 

In Aggass’s plan, taken 1574, and the 
plan of Braun, made about the same time, 
these plots of ground are engraved, with 
the addition of two circi , for the accommo¬ 
dation of the spectators, bearing the names 
of the “ Bowll Baytyng, and theBeare Bayt- 
inge .” In both plans, the buildings appear 
to be completely circular, and were evi¬ 


dently intended as humble imitations of 
the ancient Roman amphhheatre. They 
stood in two adjoining fields, separated only 
by a small slip of land ; but some differences 
are observable in the rpots on which they 
are built. 

In Aggas’s plan, which is the earliest, 
the disjoining slip of land contains only one 
large por>d, common to the two places of 
exhibition ; but in Braun, this appears 
divided into three ponds, besides a similar 
donveniency near each theatre. The use of 
these pieces of water is very well explained 
in Brown’s Travels, (1685) who has given 
a plate of the “ Elector of Saxony his beare 
garden at Dresden,” in which is a large 
pond, with several bears amusing them¬ 
selves in it; his account of which is highly 
Curious: 

“ In the hunting-house, in the old town,” 
says he, “ are fifteen bears, very well pro¬ 
vided for, and looked unto. They have 
fountains and ponds, to wash themselves in, 
wherein they much delight: and near to 
the pond are high ragged posts or trees, set 
up for the bears to climb up, and scaffolds 
made at the top, to sun and dry themselves; 
where they will also slee, , and come and 
go as the keeper calls them.” 

The ponds, and dog-kennels, for the 
bears on the Bankside, are clearly marked 
in the plans alluded to ; and the construc¬ 
tion of the amphitheatres themselves may 
be tolerably well conceived, notwithstand¬ 
ing the smallness of the scale on which 
they are drawn. They evidently consisted, 
within-side, of a lower tier of circular seats 
for the spectators, at the back of which, 
a sort of screen ran all round, in part opek, 
so as to admit a view from without, evident 
in Braun’s delineation, by the figures who 
are looking through, on the outside. The 
buildings are unroofed, and in both plans 
shown during the time of performance, 
which in Aggas’s view is announced by the 
display of little flags or streamers on the | 
top. The dogs are tied up in slips near 
each, ready for the sport, and the com¬ 
batants actually engaged in Braun’s plan. 
Two little houses for retirement are at the 
head of each theatre. 

The amusement of bear-baiting in Eng¬ 
land existed, however, long before the 
mention here ma e of it. In the North¬ 
umberland Household Book, compiled in 
the reign of Henry VII , enumerating “ al 
maner of rewardis customable usede yearely 
to be yeven by my Lorde to strangers, as 
players, mynstraills, or any other strangers, 
whatsomever they be,” are the follow¬ 
ing • 




245 










Che SBfar dfartim tn £>outl)toarfc, a.d. 1574. 

pRCM THE LONG PRINT OF LONDON BY VlSCHER CALLED THE ANTWERP VlEW. 


** Well, Syr (says he), the bearz wear 
brought foorth intoo coourt, the dogs set 
too them, too argu the points eeven face to 
face, they had learnd coounsell allso a both 
parts: what may they be coounted parciall 
that are retained but a to syde, I ween. 
No wery feers both tou and toother eager 
in argument: if the dog in pleadyng 
woold pluk the bear by the throte, the bear 
with trauers woould claw him again by the 
skaip, confess and a list; but a voyd a 
coold not that waz bound too the bar: and 
hiz counsell toll’d him that it coold be toe 
him no poliecy in pleading. Thearfore 
thus with fending and proouing, with 
plucking and tugging, skratting and byting, 
by plain tooth and nayll, a to side and 
toother, such erspes of blood and leather 
was thear between them, az a month’s 


Furst, my Lorde usith and accustomyth to gyff 
yerely, the Kinge or the Queeue’s barwarde. If 
they have one, when they custome to com unto 
hym, yearely—vj. s. viij. d.” 

• Item, my Lorde usith and accustomyth to gyfe 
yerly, when his Lordshipe is at home, to his bar- 
ward, when he comyth to my Lorde in Christmas, 
with his Lordshippe’s beests, for mahynge of his 
Lordship pastyme, the said xij. days—xx. s.” 

It made one of the favourite amusements 
of the romantic age of queen Elizabeth, 
and was introduced among the princely 
pleasures of Kenilworth in 1575, where the 
droll author of the account introduces the 
bear and dogs deciding their ancient grudge 
per duellum.* 

I ---------—--- 

• Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth, p. 2J, quoted by 
Vr. p ennant, in his Account of London, p. 36. 


246 






















































































































€I)c astar <@arimt tn JS>oufl)toarfe, a. d. 1648. 

From the large four-sheet View of London by Hollar. 
THE LAST KNOWN REPRESENTATION OF THE PLACE 


lcking, I ween, wyl not recoover, and yet 
remain az far oout az euer they wear. It 
waz a sport very pleazaunt of theez beastys : 
to see the bear with hiz pink nyez leering 
after hiz enmiez approch, the nimblness and 
wayt of ye dog too take his auauntage, and 
the fors and experiens of the bear agayn to 
auoyd the assauts : if he wear bitten in one 
place, hoow he woold pyneh in anoother 
too get free : that if he wear taken onez, 
then what shyft with byting, with clawyng, 
with roring, torsing and tumbling, he woold 
work to wynde bymself from them; and 
when he was lose, to shake hiz earz twyse 
or thryse wyth the blud and the slaver 
1 aboout hiz fiznamy, was a matter of a goodly 
releef.” 

It is not to be wondered at, that an 
amusement, thus patronised by the great, 
and even by royalty itself, ferocious as it 
| was, should be the delight of the vulgar, 

: whose untutored taste it was peculiarly cal¬ 
culated to please. Accordingly, bear-baiting 
seems to have been amazingly frequented, 
at this time, especially on Sundays. On 
one of these days, in 1582, a dire accident 
befell the spectators. The scaffolding sud¬ 
denly gave way, and multitudes of people 
were killed, or miserably maimed. This 
; was looked upon as a judgment, and as 


such was noticed by divines, and other grave 
characters, in their sermons and writings. 
The lord mayor for that year (sir Thomas 
Blanke) wrote on the occasion to the lord 
treasurer, “ that it gave great reason to 
acknowledge the hand of God, for breach ol 
the Lord’s Day,” and moved him to redress 
the same. 

Little notice, however, was taken of his 
application; the accident was forgot; and 
the barbarous amusement soon followed as 
much as ever, Stowe assuring us, in his 
work, printed many years afterwards, “that 
for baiting of bulls and bears, they were, 
till that time, much frequented, namely, in 
beargardens on the Bankside.” The com¬ 
monalty could not be expected to reform 
what had the sanction of the highest ex¬ 
ample, and the labours of the moralist were 
as unavailing as in the case of pugilism in 
the present day. 

In the succeeding reign, the general in¬ 
troduction of the drama operated as a check 
to the practice, and the public taste took a 
turn. One of these theatres gave place to 
“ the Globethe other remained long 
after. This second theatre, which retained 
its original name of the “ Bear-baiting.” 
was rebuilt on a larger scale, about the 
beginning of James the First’s reign : and 


247 























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


of an octagonal form instead of round, as 
before; in which respect it resembled the 
other theatres on the Bankside. The first 
engraving in this article contains a view of 
it in this state, from the long print of Lon¬ 
don by Vischer, usually called the Antwerp 
view. In this representation, the slips, or 
dog kennels, are again distinctly marked, 
a-< well as the ponds. The second engraving, 
from Hollar’s view about 1648, shows it as 
it was a third time rebuilt on a larger scale, 
and again of the circular shape, when 
‘ plays” and prize-fighting were added to 
the amusements exhibited at it. 

In the reign of James I. the “ Bear¬ 
garden” was under the protection of 
loyalty, and the mastership of it made a 
patent place. The celebrated actor Alleyn 
enjoyed this lucrative post, as keeper of 
the king’s wild beasts, or master of the 
royal bear-garden, situated on the Bank- 
side, in Southwark. The profits of this 
place are said by his biographer to have 
been immense, sometimes amounting to 
5001 a year; and well account for the great 
fortune he raised. A little before his death 
he sold his share and patent to his wife’s 
father, Mr. Hinchtoe, for 580/. 

We have a - good'account of the “ Bear- 
baiting,” in the reign of Charles II., by one 
Mons. Jorevin, a foreigner, whose observa¬ 
tions on this country were published in 
1672,* and who has given us the following 
curious detail of a visit he paid to it :— 

I “ We went to see the Bergiardin, by 
Sodoark,f which is a great amphitheatre, 
where combats are fought between all sorts 
of animals, and sometimes men, as we once 
Saw. Commonly, when any fencing-mas¬ 
ters are desirous of showing their courage 
and their great skill, they issue mutual chal¬ 
lenges, and, before they engage, parade 
the town with drums and trumpets sound¬ 
ing, to inform the public there is a challenge 
between two brave masters of the science 
of defence, and that the battle will be fought 
on such a day. We went to see this com¬ 
bat, which was performed on a stage in the 
middle of this amphitheatre, where, on the 
flourishes of trumpets, and the beat of 
drums, the combatants entered, stripped to 
their shirts. On a signal from the drum, 
they drew their swords, and immediately 
began the fight, skirmishing a long time 
without any wounds. They were both very 
skilful and courageous. The tallest had the 


* Republished in the Antiquarian Repertory. Ed. 
1806, under the title of “ A Description of England and 
Ireland, in the 17th Century, by Mons. Jorevin.” vol. 
iv. p. 549. 

t Bear-Garden, Southwark 


advantage over the least; for, according to 
the English fashion of fencing, they endea¬ 
voured rather to cut, than push in the 
French manner, so that by his height he 
had the advantage of being able to strike 
his antagonist on the head, against which, 
the little one was on his guard. He had, 
in his turn, an advantage over the great 
one, in being able to give him the Jarnac 
stroke, by cutting him on his right ham, 
which he left in a manner quite unguarded. 
So that, all things considered, they were 
equally matched. Nevertheless, the tall 
one struck his antagonist on the wrist, 
which he almost cut off; but this did not 
prevent him from continuing the fight, after 
he had been dressed, and taken a glass or 
two of wine to give him courage, when he 
t >ok ample vengeance for his wound ; for a 
little afterwards, making a feint at the ham, 
the tall man, stooping in order to parry it, 
laid his whole head .open, when the little 
one gave him a stroke, which took off a 
slice of his head, and almost all his ear. 
For my part, I think there is an inhumanity, 
a barbarity, and cruelty, in permitting men 
to kill each other for diversion. The sur¬ 
geons immediately dressed them, and bound 
up their wounds ; which being done, they 
resumed the combat, and both being sen¬ 
sible of their respeative disadvantages, they 
therefore were a long time without giving 
or receiving a wound, which was the cause 
that the little one, failing to parry so ex¬ 
actly, being tited with this long battle 
received a stroke on his wounded wrist, 
which dividing the sinews, he remained 
vanquished, and the tall conqueror received 
the applause of the spectators. For my 
part, I should have had more pleasure in 
seeing the battle of the bears and dogs, 
which was fought the following day on the 
same theatre.” 

It does not appear at what period the 
Bear-baiting was destroyed, but it was, 
probably, not long after the above period 
Strype, in his first edition of Stowe, pub¬ 
lished 1720, speaking of “ Bear Alley,” on 
this spot, says, “ Here is a glass-house, and 
about the middle a neiv-built court, well- 
inhabited, called Bear-garden Square ; so 
called, as built in the place where the Bear¬ 
garden formerly stood, until removed to 
the other side of the water; which is more 
convenient for the butchers, and such like, 
who are taken with such rustic sports as 
the baiting of bears and bulls.” The theatre 
was evidently destroyed to build this then 
neib court.* 


• Lond. Illuatral. 


248 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


^Wording to an entry in the Parochial 
B^ks in 1586, one Morgan Pope agreed 
to pay the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, 
for the Bear-garden, and the ground where 
the dogs were kept, 6s.Qd. arrears and 6a\ 8 d. 
for tithes. 

The old Bear-garden at Bankside, and 
the Globe theatre wherein Shakspeare’s 
plays were originally performed, and he 
himself sometimes acted, was in the manor 
or liberty of Paris Garden. Near this, and 
in the same manor, were the Hope, the 
Swan, and the Rose theatres. It appears 
from u an ancient Survey on vellum made 
in the reign of queen Elizabeth,” that 

Olde Paris Garden Lane ” ran from 
Backside, in the direction of the present 
Blackfriars-road, to stairs at the river’s-side 
near to, or perhaps on the very spot now 
occupied by, the Surry end of Blackfriars- 
bridge, and opposite to this lane in the road 
of the Bankside stood an old stone cross, 
which, therefore, were it remaining, wordd 
now stand in Blackfriars-road, near llol- 
land-street, leading to the present Fal¬ 
con glass-house, opposite to which site 
was the old Falcon tavern, celebrated for 
having been the daily resort of Shakspeare 
and his dramatic companions. Till of lute 
years, the Falcon inn was a house of great 
business, and the place from whence coaches 
went to all parts of Kent, Surry, and 
Sussex. In 1805, before the old house was 
taken down, Mr. Wilkinson, of Cornhill, 
caused a drawing to be made, and published 
an engraving of it. “ The Bull and Bear 
Baiting” were two or three hundred yards 
eastward of the Falcon, and beyond were 
the Globe and the other theatres just men¬ 
tioned. “ The site o t the Old Bear-garden 
retaining its name, is now' occupied by Mr. 
Bradley’s extensive iron-foundery, in which 
shot and shells are cast for the govern¬ 
ment.”* 

The royal officer, called the “ master of 
the bears and dogs,” under queen Elizabeth 
and king James L, had a fee of a farthing 
per day. Sir John Darrington held the 
office in 1600, when he was commanded 
on a short notice to exhibit befoie the queen 
in the Tilt-yard ; but not having a proper 
stock of animals, he was obliged to apply 
to Edward Alleyn, (the founder of Dulwich- 
college,) and Philip Henslow, then owner 
of the Bear-garden in Southwark, lor their 
assistance. On his death, king James 
granted the office to sir William Steward, 
who, it seems, interrupted Alleyn and 
Henslow as not having a license, and yet 


* Manning and Bray’s Surry. 


refused to take their stock at a reasonable 
price, so that they were obliged to buy his 
patent. Alleyn and Henslow complained 
much of this in a petition to ttie king, con¬ 
taining many curious circumstances, which 
Mr. Lysons has published at length. Alleyn 
held this office till his death, or very near 
it: he is styled by it in the letters patent 
for the foundation of his college in 1620 
Among his- papers there is a covenant from 
Peter Street, for the building at the Bear¬ 
garden, fifty-six feet long and sixteen wide, 
the estimate of the carpenter’s work being 
sixty-five pounds. 

The latest patent discovered to have been 
granted for the office of master of the bears 
and dogs is that granted to sir Sanders 
Duncombe in 1639, for the sole practising 
and profit of the fighting and combating of 
wild and domestic beasts in England, for 
fourteen years. 

This practice was checked by the parlia¬ 
ment in 1642. Oil the 10th of December 
in that year, Mr. Whittacre presented in 
writing an examination of the words ex¬ 
pressed by the master of the Bear-garden, 
“ that he would cut the throats of those 
that refused to subscribe a petition where¬ 
upon it was resolved, on the question “ that 
Mr. Godfray, master of the Bear-garden, 
shall be forthwith committed to Newgate— 
Ordered, the masters of the Bear-garden, 
and all other persons who have interest 
there, be enjoined and required by this 
house, that for the future they do not per¬ 
mit to be used the game of bear-baiting in 
these times of great distraction, till this 
house do give further order herein.” The 
practice, however, did not wholly discon¬ 
tinue in the neighbourhood of London til 
1750. Of late years this public exhibition 
was revived in Duck-lane, Westminster, and 
at the present time is not wholly sup¬ 
pressed. 


Xiteraturr. 

A NEW POEM. 

“ Ah ab, in four Cantos. By S. R. J ackson .” j 

Mr. Jackson, the author of several poems, 1 
whose merits he deems to have been dis- i 
regarded, puts forth “ Ahab,” with renewed 
hope, and a remarkable address. He 
says— 

“ Reader, hast thou not seen a solitary 
buoy floating on the vast ocean ? *he w«vps 
dash against it, and the broad keel ot the 
vessel sweeps over and presses it down, 
yet it rises again to the surtace, prepared 


249 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


for every assault—I am like that buoy. 
Thrice have I appeared before you, thrice 
have the waves of neglect passed over me, 
and once more I rise, a candidate for your 
; good opinion. My wish is not merely to 
succeed, but to merit success. Palmam 
~ui meruit ferat , was the motto of one who 
will never be forgotten, and I hope to 
quote it without seeming to be presump¬ 
tuous. I am told by some who are deemed 
competent judges, that I am deserving of 
encouragement, and I here solicit it. 

“ During the printing of this work, one 
has criticised a rough rhyme, another cried 
—* Ha! what you turned poet V and 
giving his head a significant shake, said, 
* better mind Cocker.’ ‘ So I would,’ I 
replied, 1 but Cocker won’t mind me.’ In 
all the various changes of my life the Muse 
has not deserted me: beloved ones have 
vanished—friends have deceived—but she 
has remained faithful. One critic has 
j advised this addition, another that curtail¬ 
ment ; but remembering the story of the 
old man and the boy, and the ass, I plod 
on : not that I am indifferent to opinion— 
far from it; but there are persons whose 
advice one cannot take—who find fault 
merely for the sake of ta.king, and impale 
an author from mere spleen. 

“ The poem now submitted to your notice 
is founded on the 21st and 22d chapteis in 
the First Book of Kings: in it I have en¬ 
deavoured to show, that crime always 
brings its own punishment; that whenever 
we do wrong, an inward monitor reminds 
us of it: and have sought to revive in the 
spirits of Englishmen that patriotic feeling 
which is daily becoming more dormant. 

“ At this season,* when the leaves are 
falling fast, booksellers, as well as trees, get 
cold-hearted—they will not purchase; nor 
can I blame them, for if the tide of public 
opinion sets in against poetry, they would 
oe wrong to buy what they cannot sell. 
Yet they might, some of them at least, 
treat an author more respectfully ; they 
might look at his wor<k, it would not 
take them a long time to do so; and 
they could then tell if it would suit them 
or not. Unfortunately, a manuscript need 
but be in verse, and it will be worth 
nothing. I fancy the booksellers are like 
the hoise in the team, they have carried 
ihe poet’s bells so long that they have be¬ 
come weary of the jingle. Be this as it 
may, I have tried, and could not get a 
purchaser. It was true I had published 
before, but my productions came out un¬ 


• Michaelmas, 1826. 


aided, and remained unnoticed. I had nn 
patron’s name to herald mine. I sent 
copies to the Reviews, but, with the excep¬ 
tion of the Literary Chronicle and Gentle¬ 
man’s Magazine, they were unnoticed. The 
doors to publicity being thus closed against 
me, what could I do, but fail, as better 
bards have done before me————” 

There is an affecting claim in the ver¬ 
sified conclusion of the preface. 

“ ’Tis done ! the work of many a pensive hour 
Is o’er : the fruit is gather’d from the tree. 

Warm’d by care’s sun, and by affliction’s shower 
Water’d and ripen’d in obscurity. 

Few hopes have I that it may welcome be ; 

Yet do I not give way to black despair; 

Small barks have liv’d through many a stormy sea, 
Small birds wing’d far their way through boundless 
air 

And joy’s sweet rose tow’rd o’er the weeds of envious 
care. 

“ With these feelings I submit my poem 
to notice, and but request such patronage 
as it may deserve.” 

The following invocation, which com 
mences the poem, will arrest attention. 

“ God ! whom my fathers worshipp’d, God of all. 

From mid thy throne of brightness hear my call: 

And though unworthiest I of earthly things, 

To wake the harp of David’s silent strings ; 

Though, following not the light which in my path 
Shone bright to guide me, I have brav’d thy wrath 
And walk’d with other men in darkness, yet. 

If penitent, my heart its sins regret— 

If, bending lowly at thy shrine, l crave 

Thy aid to guide my bark o’er life’s rough wave. 

Till all the shoals of error safely past. 

In truth’s calm haven I repose at last: 

0, let that sweet, that unextinguish’d beam 
Which fondly came to wake me from my dream. 

Again appear my wand’ring steps to guide. 

Lest my soul sink, and perish in its pride. 

I ask not, all-mysterious as Thou art. 

To see Thee, but to feel Thee in my heart; 

Unfetter’d by the various rules and forms 
That bound the actions of earth’s subtle worms. 

From worldly arts and prejudices free. 

To know that Thou art God, and worship Thee. 

And, whether on the tempest’s sweeping wing 
Thou comest, or the breath that wakes the spring 
If m the thunder’s roar thy voice I hear. 

Or the loud blast that marks the closing year ; 

Or in the gentle music of the breeze. 

Stirring the leaves upon the forest trees ; 

Still let me feel thy presence, let me bear 
In mind that Thou art with me every where, 

And oh ) since inspiration comes from Thee 
To mortal mind, like rain unto the tiee. 

Bidding it flourish and put forth its fruit. 

So bid my soul, whose voice has long been mute. 
Awaken; give me words of fire to sing 
The deeds and fall of Israel’s hapless king. 


250 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


Perhaps the reader may be further pro¬ 
pitiated in the author’s behalf l>y the 

“ Dedication." 

“ To the Rev. Christopher Benson, M. A. 

Prebendary of Woicester, and Rector of 

St. Giles in the Fields. 

“ Sir—Being wholly unused to patronage, 
I know not how to invoke it, but by plainly 
saying, that I wish for protection to what¬ 
ever may be deemed worthy of regard in 
the following pages. 

“ I respectfully dedicate the poem to you, 
sir, from a deep sense of the esteem whore- 
in you are held ; and, I openly confess, 
with considerable anxiety that you may 
approve, and that your name may sanction 
and assist my efforts. 

“ In strictness perhaps I ought to have 
solicited your permission to do this ; but, 
with the wishes I have expressed, and con¬ 
scious of the rectitude of my motives, I 
persuade myself that you will see I could 
not afford to hazard your declining, from 
private feelings, a public testimony of un¬ 
feigned respect, from a humble and 
unknown individual. 

“ I am, sir, your most obedient 

And sincerely devoted servant, 

“ Samuel Richard Jackson. 
“ Sept. 29, 1826." 

Mr. Jackson has other offspring besides 
the productions of his muse, and their infant 
voices may be imagined to proclaim in 
plain prose that the present volume, and it 
is a volume—a hundred pages in full sized 
octavo—is published for the author, by 
Messrs. Sherwood and Co. “ price 4.v. in 
boards."—Kind-hearted readers will take 
the hint. 


PULPIT CLOCKS, AND HOUR 
GLASSES. 

In the annals of Dunstable Priory is 
this item: “ In 1483, made a clock over 
the pulpit.” 

A stand for a hour-glass still remains in 
many pulpits. A rector of Bibury used to 
preach two hours, regularly turning the 
glass. After the text, the esquire of the 
parish withdrew, smoked his pipe, and 
returned to the blessing. Lecturers’ pulpits 
have also hour-glasses. The priest had 
sometimes a watch found him by the 
parish.* 


• Fosbroko’s British Wonachism. 


(faster. 

RESTORATION OF THE CATHOLIC 
RELIGION IN FRANCE. 

The catholic religion was that in which 
the French were brought up; and they 
were, from habit at least, if not from con. 
viction, attached to it: so far was its over¬ 
throw from meeting with the general ap- i 
probation and concurrence of the nation, 
that if it was acquiesced in for a time, it was 
merely from a feeling of inability to avert 
the blow; and the persecution which it 
experienced only served, as all persecution 
does, to endear the object of it more 
strongly to them. 

Such would have been the effect, even if 
the attempt made had only been to substi- ■ 
tute by force some other mode of faith in ! 
its place; but when the question was to 
annihilate religion itself, no sane mind 
could possibly dream of ultimate success. 
The sense of dependence upon some un¬ 
seen power far above our comprehension, 
is a principle inherent in human nature;— 
no nation has yet been discovered, how 
remote soever from civilisation in its cus¬ 
toms and manners, in which some ideas 
of a power superior to all earthly ones 
were not to be found. 

The French are generally characterised 
as fond of novelty, and always seeking 
after it with eagerness ; and yet, however 
paradoxical it may appear, it is no less 
true, that in many respects no people 
adhere more tenaciously to ancient habits 
and customs. Nothing contributed so es¬ 
sentially to the final overthrow of the vio¬ 
lent revolutionists—no, not even the horror 
excited by the torrents of blood which they 
shed—as their endeavouring all at once to 
deprive the people of many habits and 
customs which they particularly cherished ; 
nor did any thing contribute more strongly 
to Bonaparte’s power, than his restoring 
them. 

These reflections were suggested to Miss 
Plumtre by one of the most remarkable 
scenes that occurred while she was at Paris— 
the procession to the church of Notre-Dame 
on Easter Sunday, for the public restora¬ 
tion of the catholic worship. The free 
exercise of their religion had been for 
several months allowed to the people, and 
the churches, which had long been shut, 
were reopened ; but this was the first 
occasion on which the constituted autho 
rities had, as a body, assisted in any reli¬ 
gious ceremony. As to the reestablish¬ 
ment of religion being grateful to tli% 


25i 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


people, not a doubt remained in her mind ; 
every opportunity which had been afforded 
her of investigating the matter, since she 
first landed in France, had given her so 
strong a conviction of it, that it could not 
be increased by any thing she was about to 
witness. But another experiment which 
was to be made on the occasion was a 
greater subject of curiosity ; and this was, 
that the procession and ceremonies were to 
be in some sort a revival of the ancient 
court splendour and pageantry. 

Deeply impressed with this kind of curi¬ 
osity, and knowing that the only way 
to be fully informed of the sentiments of 
the people was to make one among them, 
she and her friends took their stations 
in the square before the great entrance 
to the Palais-royal, where a double rank 
| of soldiers formed a lane to keep a passage 
clear for the procession. They procured 
chairs from a neighbouring house, which 
j served as seats till the cavalcade began, 
and then they stood on them to see it pass. 
She describes the ceremonies in the follow¬ 
ing manner. 

The square was thronged with people, 
and we could with the utmost facility 
attend to the sentiments uttered by the 
circle round us. The restoration of reli¬ 
gion seemed to engage but a small part of 
their attention—that was an idea so familiar 
( to them, that it had almost ceased to excite 
emotion; but they were excessively occu¬ 
pied by speculations on the procession, 
j which report had said was to be one of 
the most magnificent sights ever seen in 
France, at least since the banishment of 
royalty with all its brilliant train of ap¬ 
pendages. 

At length it began :—It consisted firs* 
of about five thousand of the consular 
guard, part infantry, part cavalry; next 
followed the carriages of the senate, the 
legislative body, the tribunate, and all the 
public officers, with those of the foreign 
ambassadors, and some private carriages 
After these came the eight beautiful cream- 
coloured horses which had been just be¬ 
fore presented to Bonaparte by the king of 
Spain, each led by a young Mameluke, in 
the costume of his country; and then 
lloustan, Bonaparte’s Mameluke, friend, 
and attendant, upon all occasions. Then 
came the coach with the three consuls, 
drawn by eight horses, with three footmen 
behind, who, with the coachmen, were all 
in rich liveries, green velvet laced with 
gold, and bags : the servants of some of 
rhe great public officers were also in bags 
tnd liver.es. About a hundred dragoons 


following the consular carriage closed the 
procession. 

A sort of cynical philosopher who stood 
near us made a wry face every now ana 
then, as the procession passed, and once ; 
or twice muttered in his teeth, Qui est-ce 
qui pent dire que cet homme la n'a point de 
l'ostentation ? “ Who will pretend to say 

that this man is not ostentatious ?” But j 
the multitude, after having been lavish of 
“ charmant /” “ superbe /” “ magniftque /’’ 
and other the like epithets, to all that pre¬ 
ceded the consular carriage, at last, whej 
they saw that appear with the eight horses, 
and the iich liveries and bags, gave a 
general shout, and exclaimed, Ah , voila 
encore la bourse et la livrrfe! — oh , comme 
pa est beau !—Comme pa fait plaisir ! voila ! 
qui commence veritablement un peu a pren¬ 
dre conlenr ! “ Ah ! see there again the 

bag and the livery !—Oh, how handsome 
that is !—What pleasure it gives to see it ! 
—Tliis begins indeed to assume something 
like an appearance!” Nor in the plea¬ 
sure they felt at the revival of this parade, 
did the idea seem once to intrude itself, of 
examining into the birth of him who pre¬ 
sided over it, or his pretensions to being 
their chief magistrate : it was enough that 
their ancient hobby-horse was restored, 
and it was matter of indifference to them 
by whom the curb which guided it was 
held. Among those whom I had a more 
particular opportunity of observing, was a 
well-dressed and respectable-looking man, 
about the middle age, who from his appear¬ 
ance might be supposed some creditable 
tradesman. He had been standing by me 
for some time before the procession began, 
and we had entered into conversation ; he 
was eloquent in his eulogium of Bonaparte, 
for having made such an extraordinary 
progress in calming the spirit of faction, 
which had long harassed the country ; and 
particularly he spoke with exultation of his 
having so entirely silenced the Jacobins, 
there appeared every reason to hope 
that their influence was fallen, never to 
rise again. He was among the most eager 
in his expressions of admiration of the 
procession ; and at the conclusion of it, 
turning to me, he said, with a very tri¬ 
umphant air and manner, Comme les Ja¬ 
cobins seront hebite de tout ceci. “ How 
the Jacobins will be cast down with all 

this r 

While the procession was passing, the 
remarks were confined to geneial exclama¬ 
tion, as the objects that presented them¬ 
selves struck the fancy of the spectators; 
but when all was gone by, comparisons in 


252 








TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


| abundance began to fly. about, between the 
splendour here displayed, and the mean 
appearance of every thing during the reign 
oi Jacobinism, which all ended to the dis¬ 
advantage of the latter, and the advantage 
of the present system : Tout ttoit si mesquiue 
dans ce terns la—Ceci est digue d'une na¬ 
tion telle qne la France. “ Every thing was 
so mean in those days—This is worthy of 
such a nation as France.” Some, who 
were too much behind to have seen the 
consular carriage, were eager in their in¬ 
quiries about it. They could see, and had 
admired, the bags and liveries, but they 
could not tell what number of horses there 
were to the carriage; and they learned, 
with great satisfaction, that there were 
eight. Ah, c'est bien, they said, c'est 
comtne autrefois—enjin nous reconnoissons 
notrepays. “ Ah, 'tis well—’tis as formerly 
—at length we can recognise our own 
country again.” And then the troops— 
never was any thing seen plus superbe, plus 
magnifique —and they were all French, no 
Swiss guards. Here the ancien regime 
came in for a random stroke. 

After discussing these things for a while, 
the assembly dispersed into different parts 
of the town, some going towards the church, 
to try whether^ny thing further was to be 
seen there; but most went to walk in the 
gardens of the Thuilleries, and other parts, 
to see the preparations for the illumination 
.n the evening, and thus pass the time 
away till the procession was likely to re¬ 
turn. We employed ourselves in this 
manner; and, after walking about for near 
two hours, resumed our former stations. 
Here we saw the procession return in the 
^me order that it had gone ; when it was 
received with similar notes of approbation. 
In the evening there was a concert for the 
! public in the gardens of the Thuilleries, 

| and the principal theatres were opened to 
I the public gratis. The chateau and gar- 
! dens of the Thuilleries were brilliantly illu¬ 
minated, as were the public offices and 
the theatres, and there were fireworks in 
different parts of the town. 

A very striking thing observable in this 
day, was the strong contrast presented be- 
; tween a great gathering together of the 
people in France and in England ; and I 
must own that this contrast was not to the 
advantage of my own fellow-countrymen. On 
such occasions honest John Bull thinks he 
does not show the true spirit of liberty, 
unless he jostles, squeezes, elbows, and 
pushes his neighbours about as much as 
possible. Among the Parisian populace, 
on the contrary, there is a peaceableness of 


demeanour, a spirit of order, and ar. enaea* 
vour in each individual to accommodate 
his neighbour, which I confess 1 thougltf 
far more pleasing—shall I not say also 
more civilized—than honest John’s free¬ 
born elbowing and pushing. All the 
libei ty desired by a Frenchman on such 
occasions, is that of walking about quietly 
to observe all that passes, and of imparting ! 
his observations and admiration to his 
neighbour ; for talk he must—he would 
feel no pleasure unless he had some one to 
whom his feelings could be communicated. 

We went the next morning to see the 
decorations of Notre-Dame, before they 
were taken down. All that could be done 
to give the church a tolerable appearance 
had been effected ; and when full of com¬ 
pany its dilapidated state might perhaps be 
little seen; but empty, that was still very 
conspicuous. The three consuls sat toge¬ 
ther under a canopy, Bonaparte in the 
middle, with Cambaceres on his right 
hand, and Lebrun on his left. Opposite 
to them sat cardinal Caprara, the pope’s 
legate, under a corresponding canopy. 

A very curious circumstance attending 
this solemnity was, that the sermon was 
preached by the very same peison who had 
preached the sermon at Rheims on the 
coronation of Louis XVI., Monsieur Bois- 
gelin, then archbishop of Aix, in Provence, 
now archbishop of Tours. His discourse 
was allowed by all who heard it to be a 
very judicious one. He did not enter into 
politics, or launch into fulsome flattery of 
those in power; but dwelt principally on 
the necessity of an established religion, no / 
only as a thing right in itself, but as essen¬ 
tial to the preservation of good morals 
among the people—illustrating his argu¬ 
ment by the excesses into which they had 
been led during the temporary abandon¬ 
ment of religion, and bestowing com¬ 
mendation upon those by whom it had 
been restored.* 


Easter at Portaferry, Belfast, &t. 

For the Table Book. 

On Easter Monday several hundred o* 
young peisons of the town and neighbour¬ 
hood of Portaferry, county of Down, resort, 
dressed in their best, to a pleasant walk 
near that town, called “ The Walter.” The 
avowed object of each peison is to see the 
fun, which consists in the men kissing the 
females, without reserve, whether married f 


* Miss Plumotre 


































THE TA BLEBO OK. 

i 


or single. 'This mode of salutation is quite 
a matter of course; it is never taken amiss, 
nor with much show of coyness; the 
female must be very ordinary indeed, who 
returns home without having received at 
least a dozen hearty busses. Tradition is 
silent as to the origin of this custom, which 
of late years is on the decline, especially in 
the respectability of the attendants. 

On the same day several thousands of 
the working classes of the town and vicinity 
of Belfast, county of Antrim, resort to the 
Cave-hill, about three miles distant, where 
the day is spent in dancing, jumping, run¬ 
ning, climbing the rugged rocks, and drink¬ 
ing. Here many a rude brawl takes place, 
many return home with black eyes and 
bloody noses, and in some cases with 
oroken bones. Indeed it is with them the 
greatest holiday of the year, and to not a 
few it furnishes laughable treats to talk 
about, till the return of the following spring. 
On this evening a kind of dramatic piece 
s usually brought forward at the Belfast 
heatre, called “ The Humours of the Cave- 


OLD MAP OF SCOTLAND. 

In the year 1545 was published at Ant¬ 
werp, the Cosmography of Peter Apianus, 
“ expurgated from all faults,” by Gemma 
Frisius, a physician and mathematician of 
Louvain. It is sufficient to say, that in 
this correct “ expurgated ” work, Scotland 
is an island, of which York is one of the 
ffiief cities * 


PFN BEHIND THE EAR—PAPER. 

The custom of carrying a pen behind the 
ear, lately common, is ancient. In the life 
of S. Odo is the following passage : “ He 
saw a pen sticking above his ear, in the 
manner of a writer.” 

Mabillon says, that he could find no 
paper books more ancient than the tenth 
century: but the pen made of a feather 
was certainly common in the seventh cen¬ 
tury ; and though ascribed to the classical 
ancients, by Montfaucon’s mistaking a pas¬ 
sage of Juvenal, it is first mentioned by 
Adrian de Valois, a writer of the fifth cen¬ 
tury. This rather precedes Beckmann, 
who places the first certain account of ii to 
fsadore.f 


• Fosbrcke’s British Monachisw 

LM <JL 


Suburban bonnets. 

IV. 

HAMPSTEAD. 

Hampstead ! I doubly venerate thy nuns, 

Because 'twas in thy meadows that I grew 
Enamour’d of that literary fame 

Which youthful poets eagerly pursue, 

And first beheld that beauty-beaming form. 

Which death too quickly tore from my embrace 
That peerless girl, whose blushes were as warm 
As ever glow’d upon a virgin face 1 
Hence, lovely village ! I am still thy debtor. 

For pleasures now irrevocably flown— 

For that transcendant maid, who, when I met her 
Along thy meadows musing, and alone. 

Look’d like a spirit from the realms above. 

Sent down to prove the sov’reignty of Love 1 

V. 

THE NEW RIVER. 

Thou pleasant river 1 in the summer time 
About thy margin I delight to stray. 

Perusing Byron’s captivating rhyme, 

Ana urinking inspiration from his lay ! 

For there is something in thy placid stream 
That gives a keener relish to his song. 

And makes the spirit of his numbers seem 
More fascinating as I move along:— 

There is besides upon thy waves a moral, 

With which it were ridiculous to quarrel; 

For, like the current of our lives, they flow 
Thro* multifarious channels, till they go 
Down into darkness, and preserve no more 
The 44 form and feature” they possess’d before ! 

VI. 

MINERVA TERRACE, ISLINGTON 

Ye, who are anxious for a “ country seat,” 

Pure air, green meadows, and suburban views, 
Rooms snug and light, not over large, but neat, 

And gardens water’d with refreshing dews. 

May find a spot adapted to your taste. 

Near Barnsbury-parfc, or rather Barnsbury-fowm, 
Where ev’ry thing looks elegant and chaste, 

And wealth reposes on a bed of down! 

I, therefore, strongly recommend to those 
Who want a pure and healthy situation, 

To choose Minerva Terrace, and repose 
’Midst prospects worthy of their admiration 
How long they’ll last is quite another thing. 

Not longer, p’rhaps, than the approaching spring ! 

J. G, 

Islinrtnn, March 25, 1327. 


264 




















HIE TABLE BOOK. 



ionlfon Cries!. 

** Buy a fine sinfjing-bird !” 


The criers of singing birds are extinct: 
we have only the bird-,se//er,s. This en¬ 
graving, therefore, represents a by-gone 
character: it is from a series of etchings 
called the “ Cries of London,” by Marcellus 
Lauron, a native of the Hague, where he 
was born in 1653. He came to England 
with his father, by whom he was instructed 
in painting. He drew correctly, studied 
nature diligently, copied it closely, and so 
surpassed his contemporaries in drapery, 
that sir Godfrey Kneller employed him to 
clothe his portraits. He likewise excelled 
in imitating the different styles of eminent 
i masters, executed conversation pieces of 
considerable merit, and died at London in 
; 1705. His “London Cries” render his 
name familiar, on account of the popularity 
which these performances still possess, and 
there being among them likenesses of 
several “ remarkable people ” of the times. 
“ Lauron’s Cries ” are well known to col¬ 
lectors, with whom the portrait of a pedlar, 
if a “ mentioned print,” is quite as covet- 
able as a peer’s. 


Mr. Fenn of East Dereham, Norfo.i, 
writing to the Rev. Mr. Granger, who was 
the Linnaeus of “ engraved British port¬ 
raits,” sends him a private etching or two 
of a “ Mr. Ode’s doing,” and says, “ He 
is a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, 
and is exceedingly lucky in taking ofl any 
peculiarity of person. Mr. Orde is a gen¬ 
tleman of family and fortune, and in these 
etchings makes his genius a conveyance of 
his charity, as he gives the profits arising 
from the local sale of the impressions in 
the University, to the originals from whom 
he draws his likenesses.— Randal, the 
Orangeman, got enough by the sale of him¬ 
self to equip himself from head to foot : 
he always calls his oranges, &c. by some 
name corresponding to the time he sells 
them; as, at the commencement, Com¬ 
mencement oranges; at a musical enter¬ 
tainment, Oratorio oranges. By this hu¬ 
mour he is known throughout the Univer¬ 
sity, where he is generally called Dr.Randal. j 
His likeness, manner, and gait, are exactly j 
taken off.—The Cla-e-hall fruit-woman too j 

. . . -i 


255 


s 





















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


is very striking, as indeed are all the etch¬ 
ings.”* 

Mr. Malcolm tells of a negro-man 
abroad, who cried. L< balloon lemons, qua¬ 
lity oranges, quality lemons, holiday limes, 
with a certain peculiarity, and whimsicality, 
that recommended him to a great deal of 
custom. He adventured in a lottery, ob¬ 
tained a prize of five thousand dollars, be¬ 
came raving mad, through excess of joy, 
and died in a few days.” 

Lauron’s “ London Cries ” will be fur¬ 
ther noticed: in the mean time it may 
suffice to say, that this is the season where- 
in a few kidnappers of the feathered tribe 
walk about with their little prisoners, and 
tempt young fanciers to “ buy a fine sing¬ 
ing bird.” 

April 9,1827. * 


Harriett 13 laps. 

No. XIV. 

[From the “ Arraignment of Paris,” a 
Dramatic Pastoral, by George Peel, 
1584.] 

Flora dresses Ida Hill , to honour the 
coming of the Three Goddesses. 

Flora. Not Iris in her pride and bravery 
Adorns her Arch with such variety ; 

Nor doth the Milk-white Way in frosty night 
A ppear so fair and beautiful in sight, 

A s done these fields, and groves, and sweetest bowers, 
Bestrew’d and deck’d with parti-colour’d flowers. 
Along the bubbling brooks, and silver glide. 

That at the bottom doth in silence slide. 

The watery flowers and lilies on the banks 
Like blazing comets burgeon all in ranks ; 

Under the hawthorn and the poplar tree. 

Where sacred Phoebe may delight to be: 

The primrose, and the purple hyacinth. 

The dainty violet, and the wholesome minth ; 

The double daisy, and the cowslip (Queen 
Of summer flowers), do over-peer the green ; 

And round about the valley as ye pass. 

Ye may ne see (for peeping flowers) the grass.— 

They are at hand by this. 

Juno hath left her chariot long ago. 

And hath return’d her peacocks by her Rainbow ; 

And bravely, as becomes the Wife of Jove, 

Doth honour by her presence to our grove : 

Fair Venus she hath let her sparrows fly, 

To tend on her, and make her melody; 

Her turtles and her swans unyoked be, 

And flicker near her side for company : 

Pallas hath set her tigers loose to feed, 

* Letters between Rev. J. Granger, &c. 


Commanding them to wait when she hath need : 
And hitherward with proud and stately pace. 
To do us honour in the sylvan chace, 

They march, like to the pomp of heav’n above, 
Juno, the Wife and Sister of King Jove, 

The warlike Pallas, and the Queen of Love. 


The Muses , and Country Gods , assemble 
to welcome the Goddesses. 

Pomona. - with country store like friends we 

venture forth. 

Think’st, Faunus, that these Goddesses will take our 

I 

gifts in worth ? 

Faunus. Nay, doubtless; for,’shall tell thee, Dame, 
’twere better give a thing, 

A sign of love, uDto a mighty person, or a King, 

Than to a rude and barbarous swain both bad and 
basely born ; 

For gently takes the gentleman that oft the 

OLOWN WILL SCORN. 


The Welcoming Song. 

Country Gods. 0 Ida, O Ida, O Ida, happy hill! 
This honour done to Ida may it continue still! 

Muses. Ye Country Gods, that in this Ida wonne, 
Bring down your gifts of welcome, 

For honour done to Ida. 

Gods. Behold in sign of joy vre sing. 

And signs of joyful welcome bring. 

For honour done to Ida. 

Pan. The God of Shepherds, and his mates, 

With country cheer salutes your States ; 

Fair, wise, and worthy, as you be 1 
And thank the gracious Ladies Three, 

For honour done to Ida. 


Paris. CEnone. 

Paris. CF.none, while we bin disposed to walk, 

Tell me, what shall be subject of our talk. 

Thou hast a sort of pretty tales in store ; 

’Dare say no nymph in Ida's woods hath more. 

Again, beside thy sweet alluring face, 

In telling them thou hast a special grace. 

Then prithee, sweet, afford some pretty thing. 

Some toy that from thy pleasant wit doth spring. 

(En. Paris, my heart’s contentment, and my choice 
Use thou thy pipe, and I will use my voice ; 

So shall thy just request not be denied, 

And time well spent, and both be satisfied. 

Paris. Well, gentle nymph, although thon 3« 
wrong. 

That can ne tune my pipe unto a song. 

Me list this once, CEnone, for thy sake. 

This idle task on me to undertake. 

(They sit under a tree together.) 

CEn. And whereon then shall be my roundelay f 
For thou hast heard my store long since, ’dare sa*»— 


25G 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


How Saturn did divide his kingdom tho’ 

To Jove, tc Neptune, and to Dis below : 

How mighty men made foul successless war 
/ gainst the Gods, and State of Jupiter: 

How Phoreyas’ ’ympe, that was so trick and fair. 

That tangled Neptune in her golden hair. 

Became a Go r gon for her lewd misdeed ;— 

A prefy fable, Paris, for to read ; 

A piece of cunning trust me for the nonce. 

That wealtn and beauty alter men tc stones : 

How Salmacis, resembling Idleness, 

Turns men to women all thro’ wantonness : 

How Pluto raught Queen Pluto’s daughter thence. 

And what did follow of that love-otfence : 

Of Daphne turn’d into the Laurel Tree, 

That shews a myrror of virginity : 

How fair Narcissus, tooting on his shade. 

Reproves disdain, and tells how form doth vade : 

How cunning Philomela’s needle tells, 

| What force in love, what wit in sorrow, dwells : 

What pains unhappy Souls abide in Hell, 

They say, because on Earth they lived not well,— 
Ixion’s wheel, proud Tantal’s pining woe, 

Prometheus’ torment, and a many moe; 

How Danaus’ daughters ply their endless task ; 

What toil the toil of Sysiphus doth ask. 

All these are old, and known, I know; yet, if thou wilt 
have any, 

Chase some of these; for, trust me else, CEnone hath 
not many. 

Paris. Nay, what thou wilt, but since my cunning 
not compares with thine, 

Begin some toy that I can play upon this pipe of mine. 
CEn. There is a pretty Sonnet then, we call it 
Cupid’s Cursf.: 

“ They that do change old love for new, pray Gods they 
change for worse.” 

(They sing.') 

CEn. Fair, and fair, and twice so fair. 

As fair as any may be. 

The fairest shepherd on our green, 

A Love for any Lady. 

Paris. Fair, and fair, and twice so fair, 

As fair as any may be. 

Thy Love is fair for thee alone, 

And for no other Lady. 

(En. My Love is fair, my Love is gay. 

And fresh as biu the flowers in May, 

And of my Love my roundelay. 

My merry, merry, merry roundelay. 

Concludes with Cupid’s Curse : 

They that do change old love for new, 

Pray Gods they change for worse. 

Both. { Fair ’ an<1 [ a ! r< J C ‘ }( repeated.) 

1 Fair, and fair, &c. 

CEn. My Love can pipe, my Love can sing. 

My love can many a pretty thing. 

And of his lovely praises ring 
My merry, merry, merry roundelays 


Amen to Cupid’s Curse : 

They that do change old love for new, 
Pray Gods they change for worse. 


Both. 


( Fair, and fair, &c. 
1 Fair, and fair, &c. 


I 

J 


(repeated.) 


To MY ESTEEMED FRIEND, AND EXCELLENT 

Musician, V. N., Esq. 


Dear Sir, 

I conjure you in the name of all the 
Sylvan Deities, and of the Muses, whom 
you honour, and they reciprocally love and 
honour you,—rescue this old and passion¬ 
ate Ditty —*the very flower of an old for¬ 
gotten Pastoral, which had it been in. all 
parts equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of 
Fletcher had been but a second name in 

this sort of Writing-rescue it from the 

profane hands of every common Composer: 
and in one of your tranquillest moods, 
when you have most leisure from those sad 
thoughts, which sometimes unworthily beset 
you ; yet a mood, in itself not unallied to 
the better sort of melancholy ; laying by 
for once the lofty Organ, with which you 
shake the Temples; attune, as to the Pipe 
of Paris himself, to some milder and more 
love-according- instrument, this pretty 
Courtship between Paris and his (then-not 
as yet-forsaken) (Enone. Oblige me; and 
all more knowing Judges of Music and of 
Poesy; by the adaptation of fit musical 
numbers, which it only wants to be the 
rarest Love Dialogue in our language. 

Your Implorer, 

C. L. 


<£tt>moIogp. 

“ For the nonce.” 


The original of nonce, an old word used 
by George Peel, is uncertain : it signi¬ 
fies purpose, intent, design. 

I saw a wolf 

Nursing two whelps ; I saw her little ones 
In wanton dalliance the teat to crave. 

While she her neck wreath'd from them/or the nonce. 

Spenser. 


They used at first to fume the fish in a house built 


for the nonce. 


Carew . 


When in your motion you are hot. 

And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him 
A chalice for the nonce. 


257 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Such a light and metall’d dance ; 

Saw yon never; 

And they lead men/or the nonce. 

That turn round like grindle stones. 

Ben Jonson. 

A voider for the nonce, 

I wrong the devil should I pick their bones. 

Cleavdand. 

Coming ten times for the nonce, 

I never yet could see it flow but once. 

Cotton. 

These authorities, adduced by Dr. John¬ 
son, Mr. Archdeacon Nar^s conceives to 
have sufficiently explained the meaning o! 
the word, which, though obsolete, is still 
“ provincially current.” He adds, that it is 
sometimes written nones , and exemplifies 
the remark by these quotations :— 

The mask of Monkes, devised for the nones. 

Mirror for Magistrates. 

And cunningly contrived them for the nones 

In likely rings of excellent device. 

Drayton. 

We also find “ for the nones ” in 
Chaucer. 

* 


THE BANQUET OF THE DEAD, OR 
GENERAL BIBO’S TALE. 

A Legend of Kirby Malhamuale 
Church-yard, Craven, Yorkshire. 

For the Table Book. 

Come all ye jovial farmers bold, and damsels sweet 
and fair, 

And listen unto me awhile a doleful tale you’ll hear. 

Bloody Squire, or Derbyshire Tragedy. 

Proem. 

On Sheep-street-hill, in the town of Skip- 
ton, in Craven, is a blacksmith’s-shop, 
commonly called “ the parliament-house.” 
During the late war it was the resort of all 
the eccentric characters in the place, who 
were in the habit of assembling there for 
the purpose of talking over the political 
events of the day, the knowledge whereof 
was gleaned from a daily paper, taken in 
by Mr. Kitty Cook, the occupier of the 
premises, and to the support of which the 
various members contributed. One win¬ 
ter’s morning in the year 1814, owing to a 
very heavy snow, the mail was detained on 
\ts road to the great discomfiture and vexa¬ 
tion of the respectable parliamentary mem¬ 
bers, who were all as usual at their posts at 
tAe nour of nine. There happened on that 


morning to be a full house, and I ver\ well 
recollect that Tom Holderd, General Bibo, 
Roger Bags, Duke Walker, Town Gate 
Jack, and Bill Cliff of Botany,* all of 
whom are since dead, were present. After 
the members had waited a long time, with¬ 
out the accustomed “ folio of four pages 
making its appearance, general Bibo arose 
and turning to the speaker, who in pensive 
melancholy was reclining on the anvil, he \ 
thus addressed him :— 

“ Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the 
mail will not arrive to day, (hear ! hear!) 
and therefore, that the members of this 
honourable house may not, at the hour of 
twelve, which is fast approaching, go home 
to their dinners without having something 
to communicate to their wives and families, 

I will, with your permission, relate one of 
those numerous legendary tales, with which 
our romantic district so much abounds— 
May I do so?” 

Kitty upon this gave the anvil a thunder¬ 
ing knock, which was his usual signal of 
assent, and the general proceeded to relate 
the full particulars, from which is extracted 
the following 

?irgcntr. 

It was the 14th day of July, in the year 
17—, when the corpse of a villager was 
interred in the romantic church-yard of 
Kirby Malhamdale. The last prayer of 
the sublime burial service of the English 
church rvas said, and the mourners had 
taken a last lingering look at the narrow 
tenement which enshrined mortality. All 
had departed, with the exception of the 
sexton, a village lad of the name of Kitchen, 
and a soldier, whose long, flowing, silvery 
hair and time-worn frame bespoke a very 
advanced age; he was seated on a neigh¬ 
bouring stone. The grave was not entirely 
filled up, and a scull, the melancholy rem¬ 
nant of some former occupier of the same 
narrow cell, was lying beside it. Kitchen 
took up the scull, and gazed on the sockets, 
eyeless then, but which had contained orbs, 
that perhaps had reflected the beam sent 
from beauty’s eye, glowed with fury on the 
battle-field, or melted at the tale of com¬ 
passion. The old soldier observed the boy, 
and approaching him said, “Youth! that 
belonged to one who died soon after the 
reign of queen Mary. His name was 
Thompson, he was a military man, and as 
mischievous a fellow as ever existed—av. 


* The Saint Giles’s of Skipton, where the lower oi 
der of inhabitants generally reside. 


258 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


for many a long year he was a plague to 
Kirby Malhamdale.” 

“ Then/’ replied the boy, “ doubtless his 
death was a benefit, as by it the inhabitants 
of the valley would be rid from a pest.” 

“ Why, as to that point,” answered the 
veteran, “ I fear you are in the wrong. 
Thompson’s reign is not yet finished; ’tis 
whispered he often returns and visits the 
scenes of his childhood, nay, even plays his 
old tricks over again. It is by no means 
improbable, that at this very instant he is 
at no great distance, and listening to our 
conversation.” 

“ What,” ejaculated the boy, “ he will 
neither rest himself nor allow other people 
to do so, the old brute!” and he kicked the 
scull from him. 

“ Boy,” said the soldier, “ you dare not 
do that again.” 

“ Why not ?” asked Kitchen, giving it at 
the same time another kick. 

“ Kick it again,” said the soldier. 

The boy did so. 

The veteran smiled grimly, as if pleased 
with the spirit which the boy manifested, 
and said, in a joking way, “ Now take up 
that scull, and say to it—Let the owner of 
this meet me at the midnight hour, and 
invite me to a banquet spread on yon green 
jStone by his bony fingers— 

Come ghost, come devil. 

Come good, come evil. 

Or let old Thompson himself appear. 

For I will partake of his midnight cheer.”* 

Kitchen, laughing with the glee of a 
schoolboy, and with the thoughtlessness 
incident to youth, repeated the ridiculous 
'ines after his director, and then leaving the 
church-yard vaulted over the stile leading 
to the school-house, where, rejoining his 
companions, he quickly forgot the scene 
wherein he had been engaged ; indeed it 
impressed him so little, that he never men¬ 
tioned the circumstance to a single indi¬ 
vidual. 

The boy at his usual hour of ten retired 
to rest, and soon fell into a deep slumber, 
from which he was roused by some one 
rattling the latch of his door, and singing 
beneath his window. He arose and opened 
the casement. It was a calm moonlight 


* Should any reader of this day find fault with the 
inelegant manner in which the dialogue is carried on 
between Kitchen and the soldier, in defence I beg leave 
to say, the dialogue is told as general Bibo related it, 
and though in many parts of the tale I have made so 
many alterations, that I should not be guilty of any 
impropriety in calling it an original: I do not consider 
myself authorized to change the dialogues occasionally 
introduced. 


night, and he distinctly discerned the old 
soldier, who was rapping loudly at the 
door, and chanting the elegant stanzas he 
had repeated at the grave of the villager. 

“ And what pray now may you be want¬ 
ing at this time of night?” asked the boy, 
wholly undaunted by the strangeness of the 
visitation. “ If you cannot lie in bed your¬ 
self, you ought to allow others to rest.” 

“ What,” replied the old man, “ hast thou 
so soon forgotten thy promise ?” and he re¬ 
peated the lines “ Come good , come evil, 
&c.” 

Kitchen laughed at again hearing the 
jingle of these ridiculous rhymes, which to 
him seemed to be “ such as nurses use to 
frighten babes withal.” At this the sol¬ 
dier’s countenance assumed a peculiar ex¬ 
pression, and the full gaze of his dark eye, 
which appeared to glow with something 
inexpressibly wild and unearthly, was bent 
upon the boy, who, as he encountered it, 
felt an indescribable sensation steal over 
him, and began to repent of his incautious 
levity. After a short silence the stranger 
again addressed him, but in tones so hollow 
and sepulchral, that his youthful blood was 
chilled, and his heart beat strongly and 
quickly in his bosom. 

“ Boy, thy word must be kept! Pro¬ 
mises made with the grave are not to be 
lightly broken— 

“ Amidst the cold graves of the coffin’d dead 
Is the table deck’d and the banquet spread; 

Then haste thee thither without delay, 

For nigh is the time, away ! away !” 

“ Then be it as you wish,” said the boy, 
in some slight degree resuming his courage; 
“ go ; I will follow.” On hearing this the 
soldier departed, and Kitchen watched his 
figure till it was wholly lost in the mists of 
the night. 

* * * * # 

At a short distance from Kirby MaHiam-* 
daie church, on the banks of the Aire, was 
a small cottage, the residence of the Rev. 
Mr.-, the rector of the parish. [Ge¬ 

neral Bibo mentioned his name, but I shall 
riot, for if I did some of his descendants 
might address themselves to the Table 
Book, and contradict the story of their 
ancestor having been engaged in so strange 
an adventure as that contained in the 

sequel of this legend.] Mr.-• had 

from his earliest years been addicted tc 
scientific and literary pursuits, and was gene¬ 
rally in his study till a late hour. On thi? 
eventful night he was sitting at a table 
strewed with divers ancient tomes, lnrentn 
perusing an old Genevan edition ot tl • 


259 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


Institutes of John Calvin. While thus 
employed, and buried in profound medita¬ 
tion, the awful and death-like stillness was 
broken, and he was roused from his reverie 
by a hurried and violent knocking at the 
door, fie started from his chair, and 
rushing out to ascertain the cause of this 
strange interruption, beheld Kitchen with 
a face as pale as a winding-sheet. “ Kit¬ 
chen, what brings you here at this untimely 
hour?” asked the clergyman. The boy was 
silent, and appeared under the influence of 

extreme terror. Mr.-, on repeating 

the question, had a confused and indistinct 
account given him of all the circumstances. 

The relation finished, Mr.-looked 

at the boy, and thus addressed him: “Yes, 
I thought some evil would come of your 
misdeeds ; for some time past your conduct 
has been very disorderly, you having long 
set a bad example to the lads of Malham- 
dale. But this is no time for upbraiding. 
I will accompany you, and together we 
will abide the result of your rash engage¬ 
ment.” 

Mr.-and the boy left the rectory, 

and proceeded along the road leading to 
the church-yard ; as they entered the sacred 
1 precinct, the clock of the venerable pile 
told the hour of midnight. It was a beau¬ 
tiful night—scarcely a cloud broke the 
cerulean appearance of the heavens — 

' countless stars studded heaven’s deep blue 
I vault—the moon was glowing in her high¬ 
est lustre, and shed a clear light on the 
j old grey church tower and the distant hills 
—scarcely a breeze stirred the trees, then 
in their fullest foliage—every inmate of the 
viilage-inn* was at rest—there was not a 
; sound, save the murmuring of the lone 
: mountain river, and the deep-toned baying 
of the watchful sheep-dog. 

Mr.- looked around, but, seeing 

no one, said to the boy, “ Surely you have 
been dreaming—your tale is some illusion, 
j some chimera of the brain. The occurrences 
ot the day have been embodied in your 
visions, and the over excitement created by 
the scene at the tomb has worked upon 
your imagination.” 

“Oh no, sir!” said Kitchen, “but his eyes 
which glared so fearfully upon me could 
i not have been a deception. I saw his tall 
figure, and heard his hollow sepulchral 
voice sing those too well-remembered lines, 


* In Kirby MalhamJale church-yard is a public 
House, verifying the lines of the satirist:— 

Wheie God erects a house of prayer, 

The devil builds a chapel theie. 


but—Heavens! did you not see it?” lie 
started, and drawing nearer to the priest, 
pointed to the eastern window of the edi¬ 
fice. Mr.-looked in the direction, 

and saw a dark shadowy form gliding amid 
the tombstones. It approached, and as its 
outline became more distinctly marked, he 
recognised the mysterious being described 
to him in his study by the terrified boy.— 
The figure stopped, and looking long and 
earnestly at them said, “ One ! two ! How 
is this ? I have one more guest than l in¬ 
vited ; but it matters not, all is ready, follow 
ine— 

“ Amidst the cold graves of the coffin’d dead, 

Is the table deck’d and the banijuet spread.' 

The figure waved its arm impatiently, 
and beckoning them to follow moved on in 
the precise and measured step of an old 
soldier. Having reached the eastern win¬ 
dow, it turned the corner of the building, 
and proceeded directly to the old green 
stone, near Thompson’s grave. The thick 
branches of an aged yew-tree partially 
shaded the spot from the silver moonlight, 
which was peacefully falling on the neigh¬ 
bouring graves, and gave to this particular 
one a more sombre and melancholy charac¬ 
ter than the rest. Here was, indeed, a 
table spread, and its festive preparations 
iornied a striking contrast with the awful | 
mementos strewed around. Never in the j 
splendid and baronial halls of De Clifford,* i 
never in the feudal mansion of the Nor¬ 
tons,f nor in the refectory of the monks of j 
Sawley, had a more substantial banquet; 
been spread. Nothing was wanting there 
of roast or boiled—the stone was plentifully 
decked; yet it was a fearful sight to see, 
where till now but the earthworm had everi 
revelled, a banquet prepared as for revelry, i 
The boy looked on the stone, and as he 
gazed on the smoking viands a strange 
thought crossed his brow—at what fire 
weie those provisions cooked. The seats 
placed around were coffins, and Kitchen 
every instant seemed to dread lest their 
owners should appear, and join the sepul¬ 
chral banquet. Their ghostly host having 
placed himself at the head of the table, 
motioned his guests to do the same, and 

they did so accordingly. Mr.-thee 

in his clerical character rose to ask the ac¬ 
customed blessing, when he was interrupted. 
“ It cannot be,” said the stranger as he 
rose ; “ I cannot hear at my board a pro* 


* Skipton-castle. 

+ Ry]sfon«-hall. See Worclsvrorth’s beautiful tour* 
tht White Do*. 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


testant grace. When I trod the earth as a 
mortal, the catholic religion was the religion 
of the land ! It was the blessed faith of my 
forefathers, and it was mine. Within those 
walls I have often listened to the solemni¬ 
zation of the mass, but now how different! 
listen !” He ceased. The moon was over¬ 
cast by a passing cloud, the great bell tolled, 
a screech-owl dew from the tower, lights 
were seen in the building, and through one 
of the windows Mr.-beheld dis¬ 

tinctly the bearings of the various hatch¬ 
ments, and a lambent flame playing over 
the monument of the Lamberts — music 
swelled through the aisles, and unseen 
beings with voices wilder than the unmea¬ 
sured notes 

Of that strange lyre, whose strings 

The genii of the breezes sweep, 

chanted not a Gratias agimus, but a De 
I’refund is. All was again still, and the 
stranger spoke, “ What you have heard is 
my grace. Is not a De Profundis the most 
proper one to be chanted at the banquet 
of the dead !” 

Mr.-, who was rather an epicure, 

now glanced his eye over the board, and 
finding that that necessary appendage to a 
good supper, .stilt, was wanting, said, an 
astonished tone, “ Why, where's the salt ?" 
when immediately the stranger and his feast 
vanished, and of all that splendid banquet 
nothing remained, save the mossy stone 
whereon it was spread. 

Such was the purport of general Bibo's 
tale; and wiry those simple words had so 
wondrous an effect has long been a subject 
of dispute vvifh the illuminati of Skipion 
and Malhamdale. Many are the conjec¬ 
tures, but the most probable one is this,— 
the spectre on hearing the word salt was 
perhaps reminded of the lied Sea, and 
having, like all sensible ghosts, a dislike to 
that awful and tremendous gulf, thought 
the best way to avoid being laid there was 
to make as piecipitate a retreat as possible. 


Kirby, or as it is frequently called, Kirby 
Mulhumdale , from the name of the beautiful 
valley in which it is situate, is one of the 
most sequestered villages in Craven, and 
well worthy of the attention of the tourist, 
from the loveliness of its surrounding sce¬ 
nery and its elegant church, which hitherto 
modern barbarity has left unprofaned by 
decorations and ornaments, as churchward¬ 
ens and parish officers style those acts of 
Vandalism, by which too many of the Cra¬ 


ven churches have neen spoiled, and on 
which Dr. Whitaker has animadverted 
in pretty severe language. That excellent 
historian and most amiable man, whose 
memory will ever be dear to the inhabitants 
of Craven, speaking of Kiiby church, says, 
“ it is a large, handsome, and uniform build¬ 
ing of red stone, probably of the age of 
Henry VII. It has one ornament peculiar, 
as far as I recollect, to the churches in 
Craven, to which the Tempests were bene¬ 
factors. Most of the columns have in the 
west side, facing the congregation as they 
turned to the altar, an elegant niche and 
tabernacle, once containing the statue of a 
saint. In the nave lies a grave-stone, with 
a cross fleury in high relief, of much greater 
antiquity than the present church, and pro¬ 
bably covering one of the canons of Dere¬ 
ham.” * 

At the west end of the church, on each 
side of the singer’s gallery, are two em¬ 
blematical figures, of modern erection, 
painted on wood ; one of them, Time with 
his scythe, and this inscription, “ Make use 
of time the other is a skeleton, with the 
inscription “ Remember death.” With all 
due deference to the taste of the parishion¬ 
ers, it is my opinion that these paintings are 
both unsuited to a Christian temple, and 
the sooner they are removed the better. 
The gloomy mythology of the Heathens ill 
accords with the enlightened theology of 
Christianity. 

At the east end of the church are monu¬ 
mental inscriptions to the memory of John 
Lambert, the son, and John Lambert, th 
grandson of the well-known general Lam 
bert, of roundhead notoriety. The resi 
dence of the Lamberts was Calton-hall, ia 
the neighbourhood ; and at Winterburn, a 
village about two miles from Calton, is < ne 
of the oldest Independent chapels in the 
kingdom, having been erected and endowed 
by the Lamberts during the usurpation of 
Cromwell; it is still in possession of this 
once powerful sect, and was a picturesque 
object : it had something of sturdy non- 
ennformity in its appearance, but alas ! 
modern barbarism has been at work on it, 
and given it the appearanceof a respecta¬ 
ble barn. The deacons, who “ repaired and 
beautified ” it, ought to place their names 
over the door of the chapel, in characters 
readable at a mile’s distance, that the 
traveller may he informed by whom the 
chape, erected by the Lamberts was de¬ 
formed. 

I often have lamented, that ministers o» 


261 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


religion have so little to do with the repairs 
of places of worship. The clergy of all 
denominations are, in general, men of cul¬ 
tivated minds and refined tastes, and cer¬ 
tainly better qualified to superintend altera¬ 
tions than country churchwardens and 
parish officers, who, though great pretenders 
to knowledge, are usually ignorant destroy¬ 
ers of the beauty of the edifices confided 
to their care. 

T. Q. M. 

4ml* 1827. 


SALT. 

The conjecture of T. Q. M. concerning 
the disappearance of the spectre-host, and 
the breaking up of the nocturnal banquet, 
in the church-yard of Kirby Malhamdale, 
is ingenious, and entitled to the notice of 
the curious in spectral learning: but it 
may be as well to consider whether the 
point of the legend may not be further 
illustrated. 

j According to Moresin, salt not being 
liable to putrefaction, and preserving things 
seasoned with it from decay, was the em¬ 
blem of eternity and immortality, and 
mightily abhorred by infernal spirits. “ In 
reference to this symbolical explication, 
how beautiful,” says Mr. Brand, “ is that 
expression applied to the righteous, ‘ Ye 
are the salt of the earth ! ’ ” 

On the custom in Ireland of placing a 
plate of salt over the heart of a dead per¬ 
son, Dr. Campbell supposes, in agreement 
with Moresin’s remark, that the salt was 
considered the emblem of the incorruptible 
part; “ the body itself,” says he, “ being 
the type of corruption.” 

It likewise appears from Mr. Pennant, 
that, on the death of a highlander, the 
| friends laid on the breast of the deceased 
a wooden platter, containing a small quan¬ 
tity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed ; 
the earth an emblem of the corruptible 
body—the salt an emblem of the immortal 
spirit. 

The body’s salt the sonl is, which when gone 
The flesh soone sucks in putrefaction. 

Herrick. 

The custom of placing a plate of salt 
upon the dead, Mr. Douce says, is still re¬ 
tained in mar v parts of England, and par¬ 
ticularly in Leicestershire ; but the pewter 
plate and salt are laid with an intent to 
ninder air from getting into the body and 
distending it, so as to occasl^ bursting or 


inconvenience in closing the coffin. Though 
this be the reason for the usage ai pre¬ 
sent, yet it is doubtful whether the practice 
is not a vulgar continuation of the ancient 
symbolical usage ; otherwise, why is salt 
selected ? 

To these instances of the relation that 
salt bore to the dead, should be annexed 
Bodin’s affirmation, cited by Reginald Scot; 
namely, that as salt “ is a sign of eternity, 
and used by divine commandment in all j 
sacrifices,” so “ the devil loveth no salt 
in his meat'' —This saying is of itself, 
perhaps, sufficient to account for the sud- j 
den flight of the spectre, and the vanish¬ 
ing of the feast in the church-yard of 
Kirby Malhamdale on the call for the salt. 

Finally may be added, salt from the 
“ Hesperides ” of Herrick :— 

TO PERILLA 

Ah, my Perilla ! dost thou grieve to see 
Me, day by day, to steale away from thee? 

Age cals me hence, and my gray haires bid con>« 

And haste away to mine eternal home ; 

’Twill not be long, Perilla, after this, 

That I must give thee the supremest kisse : 

Dead when I am, first cast in salt , and bring 
Part of the creame from that religious spring. 

With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet; 

That done, then wind me in that very sheet 
Which wrapt thy smooth limbs, when thou didst 
plore 

The gods protection but the night before; 

Follow me weeping to my turfe, and there 
Let fall a primrose, and with it a teare : 

Then, lastly, let some weekly strewings be 
Devoted to the memory of me; 

Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep 
Still in the cold and silent shades of sleep. 

• 


A CORPORATION. 

Mr. Howel Walsh, in a corporation case 
tried at the Tralee assizes, observed, that 
“ a corporation cannot blush. It was a 
body it was true ; had certainly a head—a 
new one every year—an annual acquisition 
of intelligence in every new lord mayor, : 
Arms he supposed it had, and long ones 
too, for it could reach at any thing. Legs, 
of course, when it made such long strides. 
A throat to swallow the rights of the com¬ 
munity, and a stomach to digest them ! 
But whoever yet discovered, in the anatomy 
of any corporation, either bowels, oi a 
heart ?” 


262 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 





WHEREIN THE SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM DIED. 


In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half-hung, 

The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung. 

On once a flock-bed, but repair’d with straw, 

With tape-ty’d curtains, never meant to draw, 

The George and Garter dangling from that bed 
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red. 

Great Villiers lies—alas! how chang’d from him. 

That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim ! 

Gallant and gay, in Cliveden’s proud alcove 
The bow’r of wanton Shrewsbury and Love : 

Or just as gay at council, in a ring 
Of mimick’d Statesmen, and their merry King. 

No wit to flatter, ’reft of all his store! 

No fool to laugh at, which he valued more! 

There victor of his health, of fortune, friend^ 

And fame ; this lord of useless thousands ends>. Pope. 

In an amusing and informing topogra¬ 
phical tract, written and published by Mr. 

John Cole of Scarborough, there is the 
preceding representation of the deathbed- 
louse of the witty and dissipated nobleman, 
whose nam° is recorded beneath the en¬ 
graving. Prom this, and a brief notice of 
ihe duke in a work possessed by most of 
the readers of the Table Book * with some 
extracts from documents, accompanying 
Mr. Cole’s print, an interesting idea may be 
‘ormed of this nobleman’s last thoughts, 
and the scene wherein he closed his eyes. 


* The Every-Day Book . 


The room wherein he died is marked 
above by a star * near the window. 

Kirkby-Moorside is a market town, about 
twenty-six miles distant from Scarborough, 
seated on the river Rye. It was formerly 
part of the extensive possessions of Villiers, 
the first duke of Buckingham, who was 
killed by Felton, from whom it descended 
with his title to his son, who, after a profli¬ 
gate career, wherein he had wasted his 
brilliant talents and immense property, 
repaired to Kirkby-Moorside, and died 
there in disease and distress. 

In a letter to bishop Spratt, dated “Ker- 
by-moor Syde, April 17, 1687,” the ear* 


263 







































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


of Arrar relates that, being accidentally at 
York on a journey towards Scotland, and 
hearing of the duke of Buckingham’s ill¬ 
ness, he visited him. “ He had been 
long i 1 1 of an ague, which had made 
him v eak; but his understanding was 
as good as ever, and his noble parts were 
so entire, that though I saw death in 
his looks at first sight, he would by no 
means think of it.—I confess it made my 
*>e irt bleed to see the duke of Buck.ngham 
in so pitiful a place, and in so bad a con¬ 
dition.—The doctors told me his case was 
desperate, and though he enjoyed the free 
exercise of his senses, that in a day or two 
at most it would kill him, but they durst 
not tell him of it; so they put a hard part 
on me to pronounce death to him, which I 
saw approaching so fast, that I thought it 
was high time for him to think of another 
world.—After having plainly told him his 
condition, I asked him whom I should send 
for to be assistant to him during the small 
time he had to live : he would make me no 
answer, which made me conjecture, and 
having formerly heard that he had been 
inclining to be a Roman Catholic, I asked 
him if I should send for a priest; for 1 
thought any act that could be like a Chris¬ 
tian, was what his condition now wanted 
most; but he positively told me that he 
was not of that persuasion, and so v\ould 
not hear any more of that subject, for he 
was of the church of England.—After some 
time, beginning to feel his distemper mount, 
he desired me to send for the parson of 
this parish, who said prayers for him, which 
he joined in very freely, but still did not 
think he should die; though this was yes¬ 
terday, at seven in the morning, and he 
died about eleven at night. 

“ i have ordered the corpse to be em¬ 
balmed and carried to Ilelrnsley castle, and 
there to remain till my lady duchess her 
pleasure shall be known. There must be 
speedy care taken: for there is nothing 
here but confusion, not to be expressed. 
Though his stewards have received vast 
sums, there is not so much as one farthing, 
as they tell me, for defraying the least 
expense. But I have ordered his intestines 
to be buried at Ilelrnsley, where his body 
s to remain till farther orders. Being the 
nearest kinsman upon the place, I have 
taken the liberty to give his majesty an 
account of his death, and sent his George 
and blue ribbon to be disposed as his ma¬ 
jesty shall think fit. I have addressed it 
undercover to my lord president, to whom 
I beg you would carry the bearer the 
minute he arrives.” 


A letter, in Mr Cole's publication, writ 
ten by the dying duke, confesses his ill- 
spent life, and expresses sincere remorse tot 
the prostitution of his brilliant talents. 

“ From the youncf.ii Villif.rs, Duk i. 
of BuckiN on A»i, cn ms Deathhlo 
to Dr. VV— 

“ Dear doctor, 

“ I always looked upon you to be a per¬ 
son of true virtue, and know you to have a 
sound understanding ; for, however I have 
acted in opposition to the principles of re¬ 
ligion, or the dictates of reason, 1 can 
honestly assure you I have always had the 
highest venera ion for both. The woilci 
and T shake hands; for T dare affirm, wt 
are heartily weary of each other. O, what 
a prodigal have I been of that most valuable 
of all possessions, Tmie! I have squan¬ 
dered it away with a profusion unparal¬ 
leled ; and now, when the enjoyment of a 
few days would bt worth the world, 1 
cannot flatter myself with the prospect oi 
half a dozen hours. How despicable, my 
dear friend, is that man who never prays to 
his God, but in the time of distress. In 
what manner can he supplicate that Om¬ 
nipotent Being, in his afflictions, whom, m 
the time of his prosperity, he never remem¬ 
bered with reverence. 

“ Do not brand me with infidelity, when 1 
tell you, that I am almost ashamed to offer 
up my petitions at the throne of Grace, or 
to implore that divine mercy in the next 
world which I have so scandalously abuseu 
in this. 

“ Shall ingratitude to man be looked upon 
as the blackest of crimes, and not ingrati¬ 
tude to God ? Shall an insult offered to a 
king be looked upon in the most offensive 
light, and yet no notice (be) taken when the 
King of kings is treated with indignity and 
disrespect ? 

“ The companions of my former libertin¬ 
ism would scarcely believe their eyes, were 
you to show this epistle. They would 
laugh at me as a dreaming enthusiast, oi 
pity me as a timorous wretch, who was 
shocked at the appearance of futurity ; but 
whoever laughs at me for being right, or 
pities me for being sensible of my errors, is 
more entitled to my compassion than re¬ 
sentment. A future state may well enough 
strike terror into anv man who has not 
acted well in this life; and he must nave 
an uncommon share of courage indeed who 
does not shrink at the presence of God. 
The apprehensions of death will soon bring 
the most profligate to a proper use of his 


204 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


understanding. To what a situation am I 
now reduced ! Is this odious little hut a 
suitable lod ing for a prince ? Is this 
anxiety of mind becoming the character of 
a Christian? From my rank l might have 
expected affluence to wait upon my life ; 
from religion and understanding, peace to 
smile upon my end : instead of which I 
am afflicted with poverty, and haunted with 
remorse, despised by my country, and, I 
fear, forsaken by my God. 

“ There is nothing so dangerous as ex¬ 
traordinary abilities. I cannot be accused 
of vanity now, by being sensible that I was 
once possessed of uncommon qualifications, 
especially as I sincerely regret that 1 ever 
had them. My rank in life made these 
accomplishments still more conspicuous, 
and fascinated by the general applause 
which they procured, I never considered 
the proper means by which they should be 
displayed. Hence, to procure a smile from 
a blockhead whom 1 despised, l have fre¬ 
quently treated the virtues with disrespect ; 
and sported with the holy name of Heaven, 
to obtain a laugh from a parcel of fools, 
who were entitled to nothing but con¬ 
tempt. 

“ Your men of wit generally look upon 
themselves as discharged from the duties 
of religion, and confine the doctrines of the 
gospel to meaner understandings. It is a 
sort of derogation, in their opinion, to com¬ 
ply with the rules of Christianity; and they 
reckon that man possessed of a narrow 
genius, who studies to be good. 

“ What a pity that the holy writings are 
not made the criterion of true judgment ; 
or that any person should pass for a fine 
gentleman in this world, but he that ap¬ 
pears solicitous about his happiness in the 
next. 

“ I am forsaken by all my acquaintance, 
utterly neglected by the friend of my 
bosom, and the dependants on my bounty ; 
but no matter! I am not fit to convei se 
with the former, and have no ability to 
serve the latter. Let me not, however, be 
wholly cast off by the good. Favour me 
with a visit as soon as possible. Writing 
to you gives me some ease, especially on a 
subject I could talk of for ever. 

“ I am of opinion this is the last visit I 
shall ever solicit from you ; my distemper 
is poweiful; come and pray for the depart¬ 
ing spirit of the poor unhappy 

“ Buckingham.” 

* 

The following is from the parish register 
of Kirkby Moorside. 


Copy. 

buried in the yeare of our Lord [1687., 

April ye 17. 

Gorges uiluas Lord dooke of bookingarn , etc. 

This vulgar entry is the only public me¬ 
morial of the death of a nobleman, whose 
abuse of faculties of the highest order, sub¬ 
jected him to public contempt, and the 
neglect of his associates in his deepest 
distress. If any lesson can reach the sen¬ 
sualist he may read it in the duke’s fate and 
repentant letter. 

The publication of such a tract as Mr. 
Cole's, from a provincial press, is an agree¬ 
able surprise. It is in octavo, and bears 
the quaint title of the “ Antiquarian Trio,” 
because it describes, 1. The house wherein 
the duke of Buckingham died. 2. Rudston 
church and obelisk. 3. A monumental 
effigy in the old town-hall, Scarborough, 
with a communication to Mr. Cole from 
the Rev. J. L. Lisson, expressing lus 
opinion,that it represents John de Mowbray, 
who was constable of Scarborough ca^le 
in the reign of Edward II. Engravings 
illustrate these descriptions, and there is 
another on wood of the church of Hun- 
tnanby, with a poem, for which Mr. Cole is 
indebted to the pen of “ the present in¬ 
cumbent, the Kev. Archdeacon Wrangham, 
M. A. F. R. S.” 


literature. 

“ Servian popular Poetry, translated 
by John Bowring,” 1827. 

It is an item of “ Foreign Occurrences," 
in the “ Gentleman’s Magazine,” July, 
1807, that a firman of the grand signior 
sentenced the whole Servian nation to ex¬ 
termination, without distinction of age or 
sex ; if any escaped the sword, they were 
to be reduced to slavery Every plain 
matter-of-fact man knew from his Gazet¬ 
teer that Servia was a province of Turkey 
in Europe, bounded on the north by the 
Danube and Save, which separate it from 1 
Hungary, on the east by Bulgaria, on the 
west by Bosnia, and on the south by Al¬ 
bania and Macedonia; of course, he 
presumed that fire and sword had passed 
upon the country within these boundaries, 
and that the remaining natives had been de¬ 
ported ; and consequently, to render the 
map of Turkey m Europe perfectly correct, 
he look his pen, and biotted out “ Servia ” 


265 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


It appears, however, that by one of those 
accidents, whi:h defeat certain purposes 
of state policy, and which are quite as 
common to inhuman affairs, in “ sublime ” 
i as in Christian cabinets, there was a 
change of heads in the Turkish admi¬ 
nistration. The Janizaries becoming dis- 
1 pleased with their new uniforms, and with 
the ministers of Selim, the best of grand 
1 signiors, his sublime majesty was gra¬ 
ciously pleased to mistake the objects of 
| their displeasure, and send them the heads 
| of Mahmud Effendi, and a few ex-minis- 
| ters, who were obnoxious to himself, in¬ 
stead of the heads of Achmet Effendi, and 
others of his household ; the discontented 
therefore immediately decapitated the latter 
themselves ; and, further, presumed to de 
pose Selim, and elevate Mustapha to the 
I Turkish throne. According to an ancient 
custom, the deposed despot threw himself 
at the feet of his successor, kissed the 
border of his garment, retired to that de¬ 
partment of the seraglio occupied by the 
princes of the blood who cease to reign, 
and Mustapha, girded with the sword of 
the prophet, was the best of grand sig¬ 
niors in his stead. This state of affairs at 
the court of Constantinople rendered it 
inconvenient to divert the energies of the 
faithful to so inconsiderable an object as 
I the extinction of the Servian nation ; and 
thus Servia owes its existence to the Jani¬ 
zaries’ dislike of innovation on their dress ; 
and we are consequently indebted to that 
respectable prejudice for the volume of 
“ Servian popular Poetry,” published by 
Mr. Bowring. We might otherwise have 
read, as a dry matter of history, that the 
Servian people were exterminated a. d. 

1807, and have passed to our graves without 
'suspecting that they had songs and bards, 
and were quite as respectable as their fero¬ 
cious and powerful destroyers. 

Mr. Bowring’s “ Introduction ” to his 
specimens of “ Servian popular Poetry,” is 
a rapid sketch of the political and literary 
history of Servia. 

“The Servians must be reckoned among 
tlmse races who vibrated between the 
north and the east; possessing to-day, dis¬ 
possessed to-morrow; now fixed, and now 
wandering: having their head-quarters in 
Sarmatia for many generations, in Mace¬ 
donia for following ones, and settling in 
Servia at last. But to trace their history, 
as to trace their course, is impossible. At 
last the eye fixes them between the Sava 
and the Danube, and Belgrade grows up 
as the central point round which the power 
of Servia gathers itself together, and 


stretches itself along the right bank of the 
former river, southwards to the range of 
mountains which spread to the Adriatic 
and to the verge of Montengro. Looking 
yet closer, we observe the influence of the 
Venetians and the Hungarians on the cha¬ 
racter and the literature of the Servians. 
We track their connection now as allies, 
and now as masters ; once the receivers of 
tribute from, and anon as tributaries to, 
the Grecian empire ; and in more modern 
times the slaves of the Turkish yoke. Every 
species of vicissitude marks the Servian 
annals—annals represented only by those 
poetical productions of which these are j 
specimens. The question of their veracity 
is a far more interesting one than that of 
their antiquity. Few of them narrate events 
previous to the invasion of Europe by the 
Turks in 1355, but some refer to facts co¬ 
eval with the Mussulman empire in Adri- 
anople. More numerous are the records of 
the struggle between the Moslem and the 
Christian parties at a later period; and last 
of all, they represent the quiet and friendly 
intercourse between the two religions, if 
not blended in social affections, at least 
associated in constant communion.” 

Respecting the subject more immediately 
interesting, Mr. Bowring says— 

“ The earliest poetry of the Servians has 
a heathenish character; that which follows 
is leagued with Christian legends. But 
holy deeds are always made the condition 
of salvation. The whole nation, to use the 
idea of Gbthe, is imaged in poetical super¬ 
stition. Events are brought about by the 
agency of angels, but the footsteps of Satan 
can be nowhere traced; the dead are often 
summoned from their tombs ; awful warn¬ 
ings, prophecies, and birds of evil omen, 
bear terror to the minds of the most cou¬ 
rageous. 

“ Over all is spread the influence of a 
remarkable, and. no doubt, antique mytho. 
logy. An omnipresent spirit—airy and 
fanciful—making its dwelling in solitudes— 
and ruling over mountains and forests—a 
being called the Vila, is heard to issue its 
irresistible mandates, and pour forth its 
prophetic inspiration : sometimes in a form 
of female beauty—sometimes a wilder 
Diana—now a goddess, gathering or dis¬ 
persing the clouds—and now an owl, among 
ruins and ivy. The Vila, always capricious, 
and frequently malevolent, is a most im¬ 
portant actor in all the popular poetry of 
Servia. The Trica Polonica is sacred to 
her. She is equally renowned for the 
beauty of her person and the swiftness ot 
her step ‘ Fair as the mountain Vila/ 


26 G 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


is the highest compliment to a Servian 
lady — ‘ Swift as the Vila,’ is the most 
eloquent eulogium on a Servian steed. 

“ Of the amatory poems of the Servians, 
Gdthe justly remarks, that, when viewed 
all together, they cannot but be deemed of 
singular beauty ; they exhibit the expres¬ 
sions of passionate, overflowing, and con¬ 
tented affection ; they are full of shrewd¬ 
ness and spirit; delight and surprise are 
admirably portrayed ; and there is, in all, 
a marvellous sagacity in subduing diffi¬ 
culties, and in obtaining an end ; a natural, 
but at the same time vigorous and energetic 
tone ; sympathies and sensibilities, with¬ 
out wordy exaggeration, but which, not¬ 
withstanding, are decorated with poetical 
imagery and imaginative beauty; a correct 
picture of Servian life and manners—every 
thing, in short, which gives to passion the 
force of truth, and to external scenery the 
character of reality. 

“The poetry of Servia was wholly tradi¬ 
tional, until within a very few years. It 
had never found a pen to record it, but has 
been preserved by the people, and prin¬ 
cipally by those of the lower classes, who 
had been accustomed to listen and to sing 
these interesting compositions to the sound 
of a simple three-stringed instrument, called 
a Gusle; and it is mentioned by Gdthe, 
that when some Servians who had visited 
Vienna were requested to write down the 
songs they had sung, they expressed the 
greatest surprise that such simple poetry 
and music as theirs should possess any 
interest for intelligent and cultivated minds. 
They apprehended, they said, that the art¬ 
less compositions of their country would 
' be the subject of scorn or ridicule to those 
j whose poetry was so polished and so su- 
i blime. And this feeling must have been 
! mirristered to by the employment, even in 
Servia, of a language no longer spoken; for 
the productions of literature, though it is 
certain the natural affections, the every-day 
thoughts and associations could not find 
fit expression in the old church dialect:— 

“ The talk 

Man hold- with week-day man in the hourly walk 

Of the mind’s business, is the undoubted stalk 

True song ’ doth grow cn.” 

“ The collection of popular songs, 
Narodne srpske pjesme, from which most of 
those which occupy this volume are taken, 
was made by Vuk, and committed to paper 
either from early recollections, or from the 
repetition of Servian minstrels. These, he 
nforms us, and his statement is corrobo¬ 
rated fly every intelligent traveller, form a 


very small portion of the treasure of song 
which exists unrecorded among the pea¬ 
santry. How so much of beautiful anony¬ 
mous poetry should have been created in 
so perfect a form, is a subject well worthy 
of inquiry. Among a people who look 
to music and song as a source of enjoy¬ 
ment, the habit of improvisation grows up 
imperceptibly, and engages all the fertilities 
of imagination in its exercise. The thought 
which first finds vent in a poetical form, 
if worth preservation, is polished and per¬ 
fected as it passes from lip to lip, till it 
receives the stamp of popular approval, 
and becomes as it were a national posses¬ 
sion. There is no text-book, no authentic 
record, to which it can be referred, whose 
authority should interfere with its improve¬ 
ment. The poetry of a people is a common 
inheritance, which one generation transfers 
sanctioned and amended to another. Poli¬ 
tical adversity, too, strengthens the attach¬ 
ment of a nation to the records of its ancient 
prosperous days. The harps may be hung 
on the willows for a while, during the 
storm and the struggle, but when the tu¬ 
mult is over, they will be strung again to 
repeat the old songs, and recall the time 
gone by. 

“ The historical ballads, which are in 
lines composed of five trochaics, are always 
sung with the accompaniment of the Gusle. 
At the end of every verse, the singer drops 
his voice, and mutters a short cadence. The : 
emphatic passages are chanted in a louder ! 
tone. 1 I cannot describe,’ says Wessely, 

‘ the pathos with which these songs are 
sometimes sung. 1 have witnessed crowds 
surrounding a blind old singer, and every 
cheek was wet with tears—it was not the 
music, it was the woids which affected 
them.’ As this simple instrument, the j 
Gusle, is never used but to accompany the 
poetry of the Servians, and as it is difficult 
to find a Servian who does not play upon 
it, the universality of their popular ballads 
may be well imagined.” 

While Mr. Bowring pays cheerful ho¬ 
mage to a rhyme translation of a Servian 
ballad, in the Quarterly Review, No. LXIX. 
p. 71, he adds, that it is greatly embel¬ 
lished, and offers a version, in blank verso, 
more faithful to the original, and therefore 
more interesting to the critical inquirer. 
The following specimen of Mr. Bowring’s 
translation may be -ompared with the cor¬ 
responding passage in he Review. 

She was lovely—nothing e’er w r as lovelier ; 

She was tall and slender as th« pine tree; 

White her cheeks, but tinged witn rosy olushea, 

As if morning’s beam had shoe# 


267 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Till that bean had reach'd its high meridian ; 
And her eyes, they were two precious jewels ; 

And her eyebrows, leeches from the ocean ; 

And her eyelids, they were wings of swallows ; 
Silken tufts the maide.’s flaxen ringlets ; 

And her sweet mouth was a sugar casket; 

And her teeth were pearls array’d in order ; 

White her bosom, like two snowy dovelets ; 

And her voice was like the dovelet’s cooing ; 

And her smile3 were like the glowing sunshine. 

On the eyebrows of the bride, described 
*s “ leeches from the ocean,” it is observ¬ 
able that, with the word leech in Servian 
poetry, there is no disagreeable association. 
“ It is the name usually employed to de¬ 
scribe the beauty of the eyebrows, as swal¬ 
lows’ wings are the simile used for eye¬ 
lashes.” A lover inquires 

* H»st thou wandered near the ocean ? 

Has thou seen the pijavitzat * 

Like it are the maiden’s eyebrows.” 

There is a stronger illustration of the 
simile in 

The Brotherless Sisters. 

Two solitary sisters, who 
A brother’s fondness never knew. 

Agreed, poor girls, with one another, 

That they would make themselves a brother 
They cut them silk, as snow-drops white ; 

And silk, as richest rubies bright; 

They carved his body from a bough 
Of box-tree from the mountain’s brow ; 

Two jewels dark for eyes they gave ; 

For eyebrows, from the ocean’s wave 
They took two leeches ; and for teeth 
Fix’d pearls above, and pearls beneath ; 

For food they gave him honey sweet, 

And said, “ Now live, and speak, and eat.” 

The tenderness of Servian poetry is 
rettily exemplified in another of Air. 
owring’s translations. 

Farewell. 

Against white Buda’s walls, a vine 
Doth its white branches fondly twine: 

O no ! it was no vine-tree there • 

It was a fond, a faithful pair. 

Bound each to each in earliest vow— 

And, O 1 they must be severed now ! 

And these their farewell words :—“ We part— 
Break from my bosom—break—my heart 1 
Go to a garden—go, and see. 

Some rote-branch blushing on the tree; 

And from that branch a rose-flower tear, 

Then place it on thy bosom bare ; 

And as its leavelets fade and pine, 

So fades my sinking heart in thine< ” 


• The leech. 


And thus the other spoke : “ My love ! 

A few short paces backward move. 

And to the veTdant forest go. 

There’s a fresh water-fount below ; 

And in the fount a marble stone. 

Which a gold cup reposes on ; 

And in the cup a ball of snow— 

Love ! take that ball of snow to rest 
Upon thine heart within thy breast. 

And as it melts unnoticed there. 

So melts my heart in thine, my dear!” 

One other poem may suffice for a speci¬ 
men of the delicacy of feeling in a Servian 
bosom, influenced by the master-pa&sion. 

The Young Shepherds. 

The sheep, beneath old Buda’s wall, 

Their wonted quiet rest enjoy ; 

But ah ! rude stony fragments fall. 

And many a silk-wool’d sheep destroy ; 

Two youthful shepherds perish there, 

The golden George, and Mark the fair. 

For Mark, O many a friend grew sad. 

And father, mother wept for him : 

George—father, friend, nor mother had, 

For him no tender eye grew dim ; 

Save one—a maiden far away, 

She wept—and thus I heard her say: 

“My golden George—and shall a song, 

A song of grief he sung for thee— 

’Twould go from lip to lip—ere long 
By careless lips profaned to be ; 

Unhallow’d thoughts might soon defame 
The purity of woman’s name. 

“ Or shall I take thy picture fair, 

And fix that picture in my sleeve ? 

Ah ! time will soon the vestment tear. 

And not a shade, nor fragment leave: 

I’ll not give him l love so well 
To what is so corruptible. 

“ I’ll write thy name within a book ; 

That book will pass from hand to hand. 

And many an eager eye will look. 

But ah t how few will understand !— 

And who their holiest thoughts can shroud 
From the cold insults of the crowd ?” 


GRETNA GREEN. 

For the Table Book. 

This celebrated scene of matrimonia 
mockery is situated in Dumfrieshire, near 
the mouth of the river Esk, nine miles 
north-west from Carlisle. 

Air. Pennant, in his journey to Scot¬ 
land, speaks in the following terms ol 
Gretna, or, as he calls it, Gretna Green. 
By some persons it is written Graitney 


268 







TTTE TABLE BOOK 


Green, according to the pronunciation of 
the person from whom they hear it:— 

“ At a short distance from the bridge, 
stop at the little village of Gretna- the 
resort of all amorous couples, whose union 
the prudence of parents or guardians pro¬ 
hibits. Here the young pair may be in¬ 
stantly united by a fisherman, a joiner, or 
4 blacksmith, who marry from two guineas 
a job, to a dram of whiskey. But the 
price is generally adjusted by the informa¬ 
tion of the postilions from Carlisle, who 
are in pay of one or other of the above 
worthies; but even the drivers, in case of 
necessity, have been known to undertake 
the sacerdotal office. This place is distin¬ 
guished from afar by a small plantation of 
firs, the Cyprian grove of the place—a sort 
of landmark for fugitive lovers. As I had 
a great desire to see the high-priest, by 
stratagem I succeeded. He appeared in 
the form of a fisherman, a stout fellow in a 
blue coat, rolling round his solemn chaps a 
quid of tobacco of no common size. One 
of our party was supposed to come to ex¬ 
plore the coast; we questioned him about 
the price, which, after eying us attentively, 
he left to our honour. The church of Scot¬ 
land does what it can to prevent these 
clandestine matches, but in vain ; for these 
infamous couplers despise the fulmination 
of the kirk, and excommunication is the 
only penalty it can inflict.’' 

The “ Statistical Account of Scotland ” 
gives the subsequent particulars :—“ The 
persons who follow this illicit practice are 
mere impostors—priests of their own crea¬ 
tion, who have no right whatever either to 
marry, or exercise any part of the clerical 
function. There are at present more than 
one of this description in this place ; but 
the greatest part of the trade is monopo¬ 
lized by a man who was originally a 
tobacconist, and not a blacksmith, as is 
generally believed. He is a fellow without 
education, without principle, without mo¬ 
rals, and without manners. His life is a 
continued scene of drunkenness : his irre¬ 
gular conduct has rendered him an object 
of detestation to all the sober and virtu¬ 
ous part of the neighbourhood. Such is 
the man (and the description is not exag¬ 
gerated) who has had the honour to join 
in the sacred bonds of wedlock many 
people of great rank and fortune from all 
parts of England. It is forty years and 
upwards since marriages of this kind began 
’o be celebrated here. At the lowest com¬ 
putation, about sixty are supposed to be 
solemnized annually in this place.” 

- "-t ■ » rr 


Copy Certificate of a Gretna Green 
Marriage. 

t( Gretnay Green Febry 17 1784 
“ This is to Sertfay to ah persons tnai 
may be Cunserned that Wiliiain Geades 
from the Cuntey of Bamph in thee parish 
of Crurndell and Nelley Patterson from the 
Sitey of Ednbrough Both Comes before me 
and Declares them Selvese to be Both 
Single persons and New Mareid by thee 
way of thee Church of Englond And Now 
maried by thee way of thee Church of 
Scotland as Day and Deat abuv menchned 
by me 

David M‘Farson 
his 

William X geades 
Mark 

Witness Nelly Patorson 

Danell Morad 

By the canons and statutes of the church 
of Scotland, all marriages performed under 
the circumstances usually attending them 
at Gretna Green, are clearly illegal; for 
although it may be performed by a layman, 
or a person out of orders, yet, as in Eng¬ 
land, bans or license are necessary, and 
those who marry parties clandestinely are 
subject to heavy fine and severe imprison¬ 
ment. Therefore, though Gretna Gre^n be 
just out of the limits of the English Mar¬ 
riage Act, that is not sufficient, unless the 
forms of the Scottish church are complied 
with. 

H. M. Lander. 


SCOTCH ADAM AND EVE. 

The first record for marriage entered 
into the session-book of the West Parish of 
Greenock, commences with Adam, and Eve, 
being the Christian names of the first 
couple who were married after the book 
was prepared. The worthy Greenockians 
can boast therefore of an ancient origin, 
but traces of Paradise or the Garden ot 
Eden in their bleak regions defy research. 


BOA CONSTRICTOR. 

Jerome speaks of “ a dragon of wonder¬ 
ful magnitude, which the Dalmatians in 
their native language call boas, because 
they are so large that they can swallow 
oxen.” Hence it should seem, that the boa- 
snake may have given birth to the fiction 
of dragons.* 


* Fosbroke’s British Monachism. 


261 ) 















THE TABLE BOOK. 

©aria. ^ aiD * 


PIOUS DIRECTION POST. 

Under this title, in a west-country paper 
of the present year, (1327) there is the fol- 
owing statement:— 

On the highway near Bicton, in Devon¬ 
shire, the seat of the right hon. lord Rolle, 
in the centre of four cross roads, is a 
Jirecting post with the following inscrip¬ 
tions, by an attention to which the traveller 
learns the condition of the roads over which 
he has to pass, and at the same time is 
furnished with food for meditation :— 

To fVoodbury, Topsham , Exeter. —Her 
ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her 
paths, are peace. 

To Brixton, Otteny , Honiton. —O hold 
up our goings in thy paths that our foot¬ 
steps slip not. 

To Otterton , Sidmouth , Culliton, A. D. 
1743.—O that our ways were made to 
direct that we might keep thy statutes. 

To Budleigh. —Make us to go in the 
paths of thy commandments, for therein is 
our desire. 


MARSEILLES. 

The history of Marseilles is full of in¬ 
terest. Its origin borders on romance. Six 
hundred years before the Christian era, a 
band of piratical adventurers from Ionia, 
in Asia Minor, by dint of superior skill in 
navigation, pushed their discoveries to the 
mouth of the Rhone. Charmed with the 
white cliffs, green vales, blue waters, and 
bright skies, which they here found, they 
returned to their native country, and per¬ 
suaded a colony to follow them to the bar¬ 
barous shores of Gaul, bearing with them 
their religion, language, manners, and cus¬ 
toms. On the very day of their arrival, so 
says tradition, the daughter of the native 
chief was to choose a husband, and her 
affections were placed upon one of the 
leaders of the polished emigrants. The 
friendship of the aborigines was conciliated 
by marriage, and their rude manners were 
softened by the refinement of their new 
allies in war, their new associates in peace. 
In arts and arms the emigrants soon ac¬ 
quired the ascendancy, and the most musi¬ 
cal of all the Greek dialects became the 
prevailing language of the colony.'* 


CHANCERY. 

Unhappy Chreraes, neighbour to a peer, 

Kept half his lordship’s sheep, and half his deer; 
Each day his gates thrown down, his fences broke, 
And injur’d still the more, the more he spoke; 

At last resolved his potent foe to awe. 

And guard his right by statute and by law— 

A suit in Chancery the wretch begun ; 

Nine happy terms through bill and answer run. 
Obtain’d his cause and costs, and was undone. 


A DECLARATION IN LAW. 

Fee simple and a simple fee. 

And all the fees in tail. 

Are nothing when compared to thee. 
Thou best of fees—fe-male. 


LAW AND PHYSIC. 

It has been ascertained from the alma¬ 
nacs of the different departments and of Paris, 
that there are in France no less than seven¬ 
teen hundred thousand eight hundred and 
forty-three medical men. There are, accord¬ 
ing to another calculation, fourteen hundred 
thousand six hundred and fifty-one patients. 
Turning to another class of public men, | 
we find that there are nineteen hundred j 
thousand four hundred and three pleaders, 
and upon the rolls there are only nine hun 
dred and ninety-eight thousand causes; so 
that unless the nine hundred and two thou¬ 
sand four hundred and three superfluous 
lawyers see fit to fall sick of a lack of fees 
and employment, there must remain three 
hundred thousand one hundred and ninety- 
two doctors, with nothing to do but sit with 
their arms across. * 


“ THE NAUGHTY PLACE.” 

A Scotch pastor recognised one of his 
female parishioners sitting by the side of 
the road, a little fuddled. “ Will you just 
help me up with my bundle, gude mon V 
said she, as he stopped.—“ Fie, fie, Janet,” 
cried the pastor, “ to see the like o’ you in 
sic a plight: do you know where all 
drunkards go?”—“ Ay, sure,” said Janet, 
“ they just go whar a drap o’ gude drink is 
to be got.” 


« American paper. 


* Fur*t. 




























iWap*Sap at Xpitit m Norfolk, 


For the Table Book. 

Where May-day is still observed, many 
forms of commemoration remain, the rude 
and imperfect outlines of former splendour, 
blended with local peculiarities. The fes¬ 
tival appears to have originated about a. m. 
3760, and before Christ 242 years, in con¬ 
sequence of a celebrated courtezan, named 
Flora , having bequeathed her fortune to the 
people of Rome, that they should at this 
time, yearly, celebrate her memory, in sing¬ 
ing, dancing, drinking, and other excesses; 
from whence these revels were called Flo- 
ralia, or May-games.* After some years, 
the senate of Rome exalted Flora amongst 
their thirty thousand deities, as the goddess 
of flowers, and commanded her to be wor¬ 
shipped that she might protect their flowers, 

* Hospinian de Orip. Festorum— Polydore Virgil— 
tnd Godwin Antiq. 


fruits, and herbs,* During the Catholic 
age, a great portion of extraneous ceremony 
was infused into the celebration, but that 
the excesses and lawless misrule attributed 
to this Floralian festival, by the fanatic 
enthusiasts of the Cromwellian age, ever 
existed, is indeed greatly to be doubted. It 
was celebrated as a national festival, an 
universal expression of joy and adoration, 
at the commencement of a season, when 
nature developes her beauties, dispenses her 
bounties, and wafts her “ spicy gales,” rich 
with voluptuous fragrance, to exhilarate 
man, and enliven the scenes around him. 

In no place where the custom of cele¬ 
brating May-day still continues does it pre¬ 
sent so close a resemblance to its Roma*? 
origin as at Lynn. This perhaps may be 
attributed to the circumstance of a colony 
of Romans having settled there, about th*s 

* Axxg. de Civit. Dei—Rosiuus de Antiquit. Rom.- 
acd Hall’s Funebria Flora*. 


271 


T 
































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


time of the introduction of Christianity 
into Britain, and projected the improve¬ 
ment and drainage of the marsh land and 
fens, to whom Lynn owes its origin, as the 
mother town of the district.* That they 
brought with them their domestic habits 
and customs we know ; and hence the fes¬ 
tival of May-day partakes of the character 
of the Roman celebrations. 

Early on the auspicious morn, a spirit of 
emulation is generally excited among the 
juveniles of Lynn, in striving who shall be 
first to arise and welcome “ sweet May- 
day,” by opening the door to admit the 
genial presence of the tutelary goddess, 

- borne on Auroral zephyrs 

And deck’d in spangled, pearly, dew-drop gems. 

The task of gathering flowers from the 
fields and gardens for the intended garland 
succeeds, and the gatherers frequently 
fasten the doors of drowsy acquaintances, 
by driving a large nail through the handle 
of the snack into the door-post, though, 
with the disappearance of thumb-snacks, 
that peculiarity of usage is of course disap¬ 
pearing too. 

The Lynn garland is made of two hoops 
of the same size, fixed transversely, and 
attached to a pole or staff, with the end 
through the centre, and parallel to the 
hoops, Bunches of flowers, interspersed 
with evergreens, are tied round the hoops, 
from the interior of which festoons of blown- 
birds’ eggs are usually suspended, and long 
strips of various-coloured ribbons are also 
pendant from the top. A doll, full dressed, 
of proportionate size, is seated in the 
centre, thus exhibiting an humble, but not 
inappropriate representation of Flora, sur¬ 
rounded by the fragrant emblems of her 
consecrated offerings. Thus completed, 
the garlands are carried forth in all direc¬ 
tions about the town, each with an attend¬ 
ant group of musicians, (i. e. horn-blowers, f) 


* The Romans having undertaken to drain the fens, 
(nd rescue inar.-h lands, by strong embankments, from 
the ravages of the ocean, founded Lynn, (it is sup¬ 
posed,) in the reign of the emperor Claudius , under the 
direction of Catus Dccianus, the Roman procurator of 
the Iceni , vvho was the principal snperintendant of the 
canals, embankments, and other works of improve¬ 
ment then carried on in the fens. He is also thought 
to have brought over to his assistance, in this stupen¬ 
dous labour, a colony of Belgians, or Batavians, from 
whose dialect, the Belgio Celtique, the etymology of 
Lynn is considered to be derived. (Richard’s Hist, of 
Lynn, vol. i. p. 22l.) 

t By sound of trumpet all the courtezans in Rome 
were called to the Fluralian sports, where they danced, 
it is said, (though greatly to be doubted,) in a state of 
nudity, about the streets, with the trumpets blown be¬ 
fore them. Hence Juvenal, (Sat. 60,) speaking of a 
lewd woman, calls her a Floralian courtezan. (God¬ 
win Antio.—Polvdore Virgil—Farnab. in Martial, 
Bpig. lio x—Hail's Funebna Florae.) 


collecting eleemosynary tributes from men 
acquaintances. The horns, used only on 
this occasion, are those of bulls and cows, 
and the sounds produced by them when 
blown in concert, (if the noise from two to 
twenty, or periiaos more, may be so termed,) 
is not unlike the .vwing of a herd of the liv¬ 
ing animals. Forgetful of their youthful 
days, numberless anathemas are ejaculated 
by the elder inhabitants, at the tremendous 
hurricane of monotonous sounds throughout 
the day. Though deafening in their tones, 
there appears something so classically 
antique in the use of these horns, that the 
imagination cannot forbear depicturing the 
horn-blowers as the votaries of lo and 
Serapis* (the Egyptian Isis and Osiris,) 
in the character of the Lynn juveniles, 
sounding their Io Paeans to the honour of 
Flora. 

Having been carried about the town, the 
garland, faded and drooping, is dismounted 
from the staff, and suspended across a 
court or lane, where the amusement of ! 
throwing balls over it, from one to another, j 
generally terminates the day. The only 
public garland, amongst the few now ex¬ 
hibited, and also the largest, is one belong¬ 
ing to the young inmates of St. James's 
workhouse, which is carried by one of the 
ancient inhabitants of the asylum, as ap¬ 
pears in the sketch, attended by a numer¬ 
ous train of noisy horn-blowing pauper 
children, in the parish livery. Stopping at 
the door of every respectable house, they 
collect a considerable sum, which is dropped 
through the top of a locked tin canister, 
borne by one of the boys. 

Previous to the Reformation, and while 
the festival of May-day continued under 
municipal patronage, it was doubtless 
splendidly celebrated at Lynn, with other 
ceremonies now forgotten ; but having, by 
the order of council in 1644,f become 
illegal, it was severed from the corporation 
favour, and in a great measure annihilated. 
After the Restoration, however, it resumed 
a portion of public patronage, and in 1682 
two new May-poles were erected ; one in 
the Tuesday market-place, and the other at 
St. Anne’s Fort. The festival never entirely 
recovered the blow it received under the 
Commonwealth ; the May-poles have long 
since disappeared, and probably the rem- 


• Io, in heathen mythology, was the daughter of 
Inachus, transformed t>y Jupiter into a white heifer 
and worshipped under the name of Isis by the Egyp- 
tians. Serapis was the son of Jupiter and Niobe; he 
first taught the Egyptians to sow corn and plant vines, 
and, after his death, was worshipped as an ox. undei 
the name of Osiris. 

+ Every-Day Book, vol. l. p. 556. 


272 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


nants, the garlands themselves, will soon 
fade away; for the celebration is entirely 
confined to the younger branches of the 
inhabitants. The refinement, or, more 
strictly speaking, the degeneracy of the age, 
has so entirely changed the national cha¬ 
racter, that while we ridicule and condemn 
the simple, and seemingly absurd, habits of 
our ancestors, we omit to venerate the qua¬ 
lities of their hearts ; qualities which, un¬ 
mixed with the alloy of innovating debase¬ 
ment, are so truly characteristic, that 

-“ with all their faults, I venerate them still, 

-and, while yet a nook is left. 

Where ancient English customs may be found, 

Shall be constrain’d to love them.” 

That the celebration of May-day, as a 
national festival, should have been abolish- 
j ed, is not surprising, when we consider the 
l formidable attacks directed against it by 
I the spirit of fanaticism, both from the 
: pulpit and the press ; a curious specimen 
] of which is here inserted from “ Funebria 
Florae, the Downfall of May-games,” a 
scarce tract, published in 1661 “by Thomas 
Hall, B. D.,and pastoi of King’s Norton.”* 
It is, as the author observes, “ a kind of 
dialogue, and dialogues have ever been 
accounted the most lively and delightful, 
the most facile and fruitfullest way of 
teaching. Allusions and similes sink deep, 
and make a better impression upon the 
spirit; a pleasant allusion may do that 
which a solid argument sometimes cannot 
do; as, in some cases, iron may do that 
which gold cannot.”—From this curious 
tract is derived the following, with some 
slight omissions— 

“ Indictment of Flora.” 

« Flora , hold up thy hand, thou art here 
indicted by the name of Flora, of the city 
of Rome, in the county of Babylon, for 
that thou, contrary to the peace of our 
sovereign lord, his crown and dignity, hast 
brought in a pack of practical fanatics, viz. 
—ignorants, atheists, papists, drunkards, 
swearers, swashbucklers, maid-marian’s, 
morrice-dancers, maskers, mummers, May- 
pole stealers, health-drinkers, together with 
a rascallion rout of fiddlers, fools, fighters, 
gamesters, lewd-women, light-women, con¬ 
temners of magistracy, affronters of minis¬ 
try, rebellious to masters, disobedient to 
parents, misspenders of time, and abusers 
of the creature, fkc. 


* A copy of Hall’s FuncbFa Flora wa> sold January 
20. 1819, in the Bindley Collection, for £6. 12s. 6 d. 


“ Judge. What sayest thou, guilty or not 
guilty ? 

“ Prisoner. Not guilty, my lord. 

“ Judge. By whom wilt thou be tried ? 

“ Prisoner. By the pope’s holiness, my 
lord. 

“ Judge. He is thy patron and protector, 
and so unfit to be a judge in this case. 

“ Prisoner. Then I appeal to the prelates 
and lord bishops, my lord. 

“ Judge. This is but a tiffany put off, for 
though some of that rank did let loose the 
reins to such profaneness, in causing the 
book of sports, for the profanation of God’s 
holy day, to be read in churches, yet ’tis 
well known that the gravest and most pious 
of that order have abhorred such profane¬ 
ness and misrule. 

“ Prisoner. Then I appeal to the rout 
and rabble of the world. 

“ Judge. These are thy followers and 
thy favourites, and unfit to be judges in 
their own case. 

“ Prisoner. My lord, if there be in* 
remedy, I am content to be tried by a jury 

“ Judge. Thou hast well said, thou shah 
have a full, a fair, and a free hearing.— 
Crier, call the jury. 

“ Crier. O yes, O yes; all manner of 
persons that can give evidence against the 
prisoner at the bar let them come into 
court, and they shall be freely heard. 

“ Judge. Call in the Holy Scriptures. 

“ Crier. Make room for the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures to come in. 

“ Judge. What can you say against the 
prisoner at the bar? 

“ Holy Scriptures. Very much, my lord. 
I have often told them, that the night of 
ignorance is now past, and the light of the 
gospel is come, and therefore they must 
walk as children of the light, denying all 
ungodliness and worldly lusts. I have 
often told them, that they must shun all the 
appearance of evil, and have no fellowship 
with the unfruitful works of darkness, nor 
conform themselves like to the wicked of 
this world. 1 have often told them, that 
our God is a jealous God, and one that 
will not endure to have his glory given to 
idols. 

“ Judge. This is full and to the purpose 
indeed ; but is there no more evidence to 
come in ? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is Pliny, an 
ancient writer, famous for his Natural His¬ 
tory. 

“ Judge. What can you say against the 
prisoner at the bar ? 

“ Pliny. My lord, I have long since told 
them, that these were not Christian, bu< 


273 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


pagan feasts ; they were heathens, (and as 
such knew not God,) who first instituted 
these Floralia and May-games. I have 
told them that they were instituted accord¬ 
ing to the advice of the Sibyl’s books, in 
the 516th year after the foundation of the 
city of Rome, to prevent the blasting and 
barrenness of the trees and the fruits of the 
earth. (Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xviii. c. 29.) 

“ Judge. Sir, you have given us good 
light in this dark case; for we see that the 
rise of these feasts was from Pagans, and 
that they were ordained by the advice of 
Sibyl’s books, and not of God’s book ; and 
for a superstitious and idolatrous end, that 
thereby Flora , not God, might be pleased, 
and so bless their fruits and flowers. This 
is clear, but have you no more evidence? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is Coe Hus 
Lactantius Firmianus , who lived about 
three hundred years after Christ, who will 
plainly tell you the rise of these profane 
sports. 

“ Judge. I have heard of this celestial, 
sweet, and firm defender of the faith, and 
that he was a second Cicero for eloquence 
in his time. Sir, what can you say against 
the prisoner at the bar ? 

“ Lactantius. My lord, I have long since 
declared my judgment against this Flora, 
in my first book of false religions, &c 

“ Judge. This is plain and full, I now 
see that Lactantius is Firmianus , not only 
sweet, but firm and constant, &c. Have 
you no more evidence? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is the Sy- 
nodus Francica, which was called, Anno 
Dom. 742. 

“ Judge. What can you say against the 
prisoner at the bar? 

“ Synodus. My lord, I have long since 
decreed, that the people of God shall have 
no pagan feasts or interludes, but that they 
reject and abominate all the uncleannesses 
of Gentilism, and that they forbear all sacri¬ 
legious fires, which they call bonfires, and 
all other observations of the Pagans what¬ 
soever. 

“ Judge. This is clear against all heathen¬ 
ish feasts and customs, of which this is 
one. But have you no evidence nearer 
home ? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is one that 
will conquer them all, and with the sword 
of justice suddenly suppress them. 

“ Judge. Who is that I pray you ? Let me 
see such a man. 

“ Crier. My lord, it is Charles the 
Second , king of Great Britain, France, and 
J Ireland, defender of the faith. 

“ Judge. Truly he deserves that title, if 


he shall now appear in defence of the truth, 
against that profane rout which lately! 
threatened the extirpation both of sound 
doctrine and good life. I hear that the 
king is a sober and temperate person, and 
one that hates debauchery ; I pray you let 
us hear what he saith. 

“ Crier. My lord, the king came into 
London May 29th, and on the 30th he 
published a Proclamation against Profane¬ 
ness, to the great rejoicing of all good 
people of the land. When all was running 
into profaneness and confusion, we, poor 
ministers, had nothing left but our prayers 
and tears; then, even then, it pleased the 
Most High to put it into the heart of our 
sovereign lord the king, eminently to ap¬ 
pear in the cause of that God who hath so 
eminently appeared for him, and hath 
brought him through so many dangers and 
difficulties to the throne, and made so 
many mountains a plain before him, to 
testify against the debauchery and gross 
profaneness, which, like a torrent, had sud¬ 
denly overspread the land. (Proclamation 
against Profaneness, &c. &c.) 

“ Judge. Now blessed be the Lord, the 
King of kings, who hath put such a thing 
as this into the heart of the king, and 
blessed be his counsel, the good Lord re¬ 
compense it sevenfold into his bosom, and 
let all the sons of Belial fly before him; as 
the dust before the wind, let the angel of 
the Lord scatter them. 

“ Prisoner. My lord, I and my retinue 
are very much deceived in this Charles the 
Second; we all conceited that he was for 
us. My drunkards cried, “ A health to the 
kingthe swearers swore, “ A health to 
the kingthe papist, the atheist, the 
roarer, and the ranter, all concluded that 
now their day was come; but alas! how 
are we deceived ! 

“ Judge. I wish that you, and all such as 
you are, may for ever be deceived in this 
kind, and that your eyes may rot in your 
heads before you ever see idolatry, super¬ 
stition, and profaneness countenanced in 
the land.—Have you no more evidence to 
produce against these profane practices ? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is an Or¬ 
dinance of Parliament against them. 

“ Prisoner. My lord, I except against 
this witness above all the rest; for it was 
not made by a full and free parliament of 
lords and commons, but by some rump 
and relic of a parliament, and so is invalid. 

“ Judge. You are quite deceived, for this 
ordinance was made by lords and commons 
when the house was full and free; and 
those the best that England ever had, for 


274 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


piety towards God and loyalty to their 
sovereign. Let us hear what they say. 

“ Ordinance of Parliament. My lord, I 
nave plainly told them, that since the pro- 
fanation ot the Lord’s day hath been here¬ 
tofore greatly occasioned by May-poles, the 
.iOrds and commons do therefore ordain that 
they shall be taken down and removed, and 
that no May-pole shall be hereafter erected 
or suffered to remain within this kingdom, 
under the penalty of five shillings for every 
week, till such May-pole is taken down* * * * § 

“ Judge. This is to the purpose. This 
may clearly convince any sober man of the 
sinfulness of such practices, and make them 
abhor them; for what is forbidden by the 
laws of men, especially when those laws 
are consonant to the laws of God, may not 
be practised by any person; but these pro¬ 
fane sports being forbidden by the laws of 
men, are herein consonant to the laws of 
God, which condemn such sinful pastimes. 
Have you no more evidence besides this 
ordinance to batter these Babylonish towers? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is the Solemn 
League and Covenant , taken in a solemn 
manner by king, lords, and commons, the 
assembly of divines, the renowned city of 
London, the kingdom of Scotland, and by 
many thousands of ministers and people 
throughout this nation. 

“ Prisoner. My lord, these things are 
out of date, and do not bind now our trou¬ 
bles are over. 

“ Judge. The sixth branch of the cove¬ 
nant will tell you, that we are bound all 
the days of our lives to observe these things 
zealously and constantly against all opposi¬ 
tion; and I suppose every good man thinks 
himself bound to preserve the purity of 
religion, to extirpate popery, heresy, super¬ 
stition, and profaneness, not only in times 
of trouble, but as duties to be practised in 
our places and callings all our days. Now 
if May-games and misrules do savour of 
superstition and profaneness, (as ’tis appa¬ 
rent they do,)—if they be contrary to sound 
doctrine and the power of godliness, (as to 
all unprejudiced men they are,)—then, by 
this solemn league and sacred covenant, we 
are bound to root them up. This is suffi¬ 
cient, if there were no more; but because 
men are loath to leave what they dearly 
love, let us see whether you have any fur¬ 
ther evidence ? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is an excel¬ 
lent Order from the Council of State , made 
this present May, (1661,) wherein they take 


• Ordinance of Parliament, 1644 :—oec Ejery-Day 
Book. vol. i. p. 556. 


notice of a spirit of profaneness and im¬ 
piety that hath overspread the land; there¬ 
fore they order, that the justices of the 
peace and commissioners for the militia do 
use their utmost endeavours to prevent all 
licentiousness and disorder, and all profana¬ 
tion of the sabbath; that they suppress all 
ale-houses, and all ungodly meetings; that 
they own and protect aH good men in theii 
pious and sober walking. The council doth 
likewise command them to have a specia. 
care to prevent profaneness and disorders 
of people about May-poles and meetings or 
that nature, and their rude and disorderly 
behaviours towards people, in molesting 
them, to get monies to spend vainly at such 
meetings. 

“ Judge. This is full and to the point 
indeed, blessed be God, and blessed be 
their counsel. But have you yet no more 
evidence? 

“ Crier. Yes, my lord, here is Mr. Elton, 
a man eminent for piety, and of known 
integrity in his time; he hath long since 
told us, that such filthy company, where 
there is such filthy speeches and lascivious 
behaviour, with mixed dancing at their 
merry meetings, &c.; and therefore to be 
abhorred by all sober Christians.* 

“ To him assents that great divine, Dr. 
Ames, who tells us, that those who will 
shun incontinency and live chastely, must 
shun such profane meetings; and take heed 
of mixed dancing, stage-plays, and such 
incentives.f 

“ Prisoner. My lord, these were old 
puritans and precisians, who were more 
nice than wise. 

“ Crier. 1 will produce men of another 
strain; here are bishops against you. Bishop 
Babington hath long since told us, that 
these sinful pastimes are the devil’s festi¬ 
val, 8cc. being forbidden by scripture, which 
commands us to shun all appearance oi 
evil.]; 

“ Here is also bishop Andrews, who tells 
us that we must not only refrain from evil, 
but also from the show of evil; and must 
do things honest not only before God, but 
also before men ; to this end we must shun 
wanton dancing, stage-plays, &c. because 
our eyes thereby behold much wickedness 
and a man cannot go on these hot coals 
and not be burnt, nor touch such pitch and 
not be defiled, nor see such wanton actions 
and not be moved § 


* Elton’s Exposition of the Second Commandment. 

+ Ames, Cas. Cons. 1. v. c. 39. 

| Babington on the Seventh Commandment. 

§ Bishop Andrews’s Exposition of the Seventh Com 
mandment. 


275 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


“Judge. This is pious, and to the pur¬ 
pose; here is evidence sufficient; I shall 
now proceed to sentence. 

“ Crier. My lord, I desire your patience 
to hear one witness more, and then I have 
done. 

“ Judge. Who is that which comes so 
»ate into court ! 

“ Crier. My lord, ’tis the acute and 
accomplished Ovid. 

“ Prisoner. My lord, he is a heathen 
poet, who lived about twenty years before 
Christ. 

“ Judge. His testimony will be the 
stronger aaainst your heathenish vanities. 
Publius Ovidius Naso, what can you say 
against mistress Flora ? 

“ Ovid. My lord, I have long since told 
the world, that the senatorian fathers at 
Rome did order the celebration of these 
Floralian sports to be yearly observed about 
the beginning of May, in honour of Flora, 
that our fruits and flowers might the better 
prosper. At this feast there was drinking, 
dancing, and all manner, &c.* 

“ Prisoner. Sir, you wrong the poet, and 
may for ought 1 know wrong me, by wrap¬ 
ping up his ingenious narrative in so little 
room— 

“ Judge. I love those whose writings are 
like jewels, w hich contain much worth in a 
little compass. 

, “ Crier. And it please you, my lord, we 

will now call over the jury, that the prisoner 
may see we have done her no w'rong. 

“ Judge. Do so. 

“ Crier. Answer to your names— Holy 
Scriptures, one — Pliny, two — Lactantius, 
three — Synodus Francica, four — Charles 
the Second, five — Ordinance of Parlia¬ 
ment, six— Solemn League and Covenant , 
seven — Order of the Council of State, 
eight — Messrs. Elton a d Ames, nine— 
Bishop Babington, ten — Bishop Andrews, 
eleven — Ovid, twelve. —These, with all 
the godly in the land, do call for justice 
against this turbulent malefactor. 

“ Judge. Flora, thou hast here been in¬ 
dicted for bringing in abundance of misrule 
and disorder into church and state ; thou 
hast been found guilty, and art condemned 
bofh by God and man,—by scriptures, 
fathers, councils,—by learned and pious 
livines,—and therefore I adjudge thee to 

Perpetual Banishment, 

! that thou no more distuib this church and 

1 state, lest justice do arrest thee.”— 

K. 


* Ovid, Fastorvm, lib. ▼. 


ACCOUNT OF A MAT-DAY 
COLLATION 

Given by Whitelocke , in the English 
Manner, (during his Embassy from 
Oliver Cromwell ,) to Christina, Queen 
of Siveden, and some of her favourite 
Ladies and Courtiers. 

This being May-day, Whitelocke, ac¬ 
cording to the invitation he had made to 
the queen, put her in mind of it, that as 
she was his mistress, and this May-day, he 
was by the custom of England to wait 
upon her to take the air, and to treat her 
with some little collation, as her servant. 

The queen said, the weather was very 
cold, yet she was very willing to bear him 
company after the Fmglish mode. 

With the queen were Woolfeldt, Tott ; > 
and five of her ladies. Whitelocke brought 
them to his collation, which he had com¬ 
manded his servants to prepare in the best 
manner they could, and altogether after the 
English fashion. 

At the table with the queen sat La Belle 
Countesse, the Countesse Gabriel Oxen- 
stierne, Woolfeldt, Tott, and Whitelocke 
the other ladies sat in another room. Their 
meat was such fowl as could be gotten, 
dressed after the Fmglish fashion, and with 
English sauces, creams, puddings, custards, 
tarts, tanseys, English apples, bon chretien 
pears, cheese, butter, neats’ tongues, potted 
venison, and sweetmeats, brought out of 
England, as his sack and claret also was ; 
his beer was also brewed, and his bread 
made by his own servants, in his own 
house, after the English manner ; and the 
queen and her company seemed highly 
pleased with this treatment: some of her 
company said, she did eat and drink more 
at it than she used to do in three or four 
days at her own table. 

The entertainment was as full and noble 
as the place would afford, and as White¬ 
locke could make it, and so well ordered 
and contrived, that the queen said, she had 
never seen any like it: she was pleased so 
far to play the good housewife, as to in¬ 
quire how the butter could be so fresh and 
sweet, and yet brought out of England ? 
Whitelocke, from his cooks, satisfied her 
majesty’s inquiry ; that they put the salt 
butter into milk, where it lay all night, and 
the next day it would eat fresh and sweet 
as this did, and any butter new made, and 
commended her majesty’s good house¬ 
wifery ; who, to express her contentment 
to this collation, was full of pleasantness 
and gayety of spirits, both in supper-time, 
and afterwards: among other frolics, she 


276 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


commanded Whitelocke to teach her ladies 
the English salutation; which, after some 
pretty defences, their lips obeyed, and 
Whitelocke most readily. 

She highly commended Whitelocke’s mu¬ 
sic of the trumpets, which sounded all 
supper-time, and her discourse was all of 
mirth and drollery, wherein Whitelocke 
endeavoured to answer her, and the rest of 
the company did their parts. 

I It was late before she returned to the 
castle, whither Whitelocke waited on her; 
and she discoursed a little with him about 
his business, and the time of his audience, 
and gave him many thanks for his noble 
treatment of her and her company. 

Two days after this entertainment, Mons. 
Woolfeldt, being invited by Whitelocke, 
told him that the queen was extremely 
1 pleased with his treatment of her. White- 
iocke excused the meanness of it for her 
majesty. Woolfeldt replied, that both the 
queen and all the company esteemed it as 
the hamLomest and noblest that they ever 
saw; and the queen after that, would 
drink no other wine but Whitelocke’s, and 
kindly accepted the neats’ tongues, potted 
venison, and other cakes, which, upon her 
commendation of them, Whitelocke sent 
unto her majesty.* 


MAY-DAY CHEESES. 

To the Editor. 

Dear Sir, —On the first of May, at the 
village of Randwick, near Stroud, there 
'has been, from time immemorial, the fol¬ 
lowing custom :—Three large cheeses,(Glou¬ 
cester of course,) decked with the gayest 
flowers of this lovely season, are placed on 
litters, equally adorned with flowers, and 
boughs of trees waving at the corners. 
They are thus borne through the village, 
accompanied by a joyous throng, shouting 
and huzzaaing with all their might and 
main, and usually accompanied by a little 
band of music. They proceed in this 
manner to the church-yard, where the 
cheeses being taken from the litters, and 
divested of their floral ornaments, are rolled 
three times round the church. They are 
then carried back in the same state, and in 
the midst of the village are cut up and dis¬ 
tributed piecemeal to the inhabitants. 

I am, dear, sir, &c. 

April, 1827. C. Tomlinson 


« Gentleman’s Magazine. 1S22. 


faster. 

E ASTER-BOX. 

A custom was instituted in the city o. 
Thoulouse by Charlemagne, that at Easter 
any Christian might give a box on the ear 
to a Jew, wherever he chanced to meet 
him, as a mark of contempt for the nation, 
which had, at that season, crucified the 
Saviour of mankind. This usage, scanda¬ 
lous in itself, was sometimes, through zeal, 
practised with great violence. It is stated 
that the eye of a poor Jew was forced out, 
on that side of the head whereon the blow 
was given. In the course of centuiies 
this cruel custom was commuted for a tax, 
and the money appiopriated to the use of 
the chuich of St. Saturnin.* Accounts of 
the prevalence of this custom in our own 
country are related in the Every-Day 
Book , vol. i. 


DOCTOR GIBBS, alias “ IIUCK’N !” 

For the Table Book. 

Dr. Gibbs, commonly called “ Iluck’n !” 
was an extraordinary individual, who fol¬ 
lowed the profession of an itinerary vete¬ 
rinary surgeon in the west of England. 
Iiis ways were different from his neigh¬ 
bours, and his appearance was so singular, 
that a stranger might have taken him for a 
tramping tinker. Like Morland, he had an 
unfortunate predilection for “ signs,” under . 
whose influence he was generally to be found. 
He would “ keep it up to the last,” with 
his last shilling ; and, like the wit in doctor 
Kitchiner’s converzaziones, he would “ come 
at seven and go it at eleven.” To love for , 
his profession, he added a love for old 
pastimes, customs, and revelries. He was 
a man, in the fullest extent of the word, a 
lover of his country—zealous in his friend¬ 
ships, he exercised the virtues of humanity, 
by aiding and even feeding those who were 
in severe distress. He spent much, for his 
means were considerable—they were de¬ 
rived from his great practice. His know¬ 
ledge of his art was profound; a horse’s 
life was as safe in his hands, as the writefs 
would be in sir Astley Cooper’s. 

In his person, “ Huck’n !” was muscular, 
and he stood above the middle size; his 
habits gave him an unwieldy motion; his 
complexion was sandy ; his aspect muddled ; 
large eyebrows pent-housed his small glassy 
blue eyes; a wig of many curls, perking 
over his bald forehead, was closed by a 
bush of his own hair, of another colour 
behind ; his whiskers were carroty, and 

5 Miss Plumptre. 


277 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


usually had an unsnorn Deard. It was 
when he entered a stable, or cow-pen, in 
ms leather apron half-crossed, w.ih his 
drug-pouch at his side, that he appeared in a 
;kilful light. His thick holly walking-stick 
with a thong run through the top, was 
ried in the service, as its worn appearance 
estified, and many an animal’s mouth 
ould witness. He rarely pulled the 
benching horn, or fleam from his pocket 
! o operate, but he rolled his tongue over 
his beloved “ pigtail,” juicily deposited in 
he nook of a precarious tooth, and said,— 

“ Huck’n !” Hence his nomme de guerre 
—and hence the proverb that outlives him 
—“ he that can chew like Huck'n ! may 
cure like Huck'n /” The meaning of this 
emphatic monosyllable remains a secret. 
Some of the superstitious conjectured, that 
he used it in stables and outhouses as a 
‘harm to scare the witches from riding the 
cattle. This liberty is verily believed by 
many to exist to this day ; hence a horse¬ 
shoe is nailed to the sill of the stable-door, 
that the midnight hags of “ air and broom ” 
may not cross the iron bar-rier.* 

It is thirty years since “ Huck’n” 
flourished. If he had a home, it was at 
Hullavington, near Malmsbury, where as 
a pharmacist, farrier, and phlebotomist of 
high character and respectability, to his 
patients—who are known to evince more 
patience than most of the human species— 
he was very attentive. He would cheer¬ 
fully forego his cheerful glass, his boon 
companions, his amusing anecdotes, neces¬ 
sary food, and nocturnal rest, to administer 
to the comfort of a poor “ dumb crealure,” 
and remain day and night till life departed, 
or ease returned. Were he alive he would 
tell us, that in our intercourse with the 
brute creation, we should exercise humane 
feelings, and bestir ourselves to assuage the 
acute pain, betokened by agonizing looks 
and groans, in suffering animals. 

“ Huck’n !” was an improvident man : 
under more classical auspices, he might 
have stood first in his profession; but he 
preferred being “ unadorned—adorned the 
most.” He lived to assist the helpless, and 
died in peac« Let persons of higher pre- 
tendons do more—“ Huck’n ?"f 

Diarchy 1827. J. R. P. 

-* Vermin and destructive birds are nailed, or rather 
erocified, on the parK oarns of noblemen by their game- 
keepers, to hold intruders in terrorern, and give ocular 
proofs of skill and vigilance. 

t The Saxon word “ Halidom ” signifies “ Holv 
Judgmentwhence in old tunes, “ By my Halidomf" 
was a solemn oath among country people.—“ By Gon- 
lies!”—“ By Gosh !” and a hundred other exclama- 
Sons, may have originated in the avoiding an oath, or 
the performing a pledge — but what is “ Huck'n f” 



anno rial Bearing 

OF THE LORD OF THE MANOR OF 

£>tofee 3L|>ne, ©rforiisbtre. 

The above print, obligingly presented, is 
submitted to the reader, with the following 
in explanation — 

To the Editor. 

Sir, —As I have taken in your Every- 
Day Book, and continue with the Tabid 
Book, I send you the subjoined account, 
which, perhaps, may be worth your con¬ 
sideration, and the engraved wood-block 
for your use. 

I remain your well-wisher, 

X. 

An Account of the Manor of Stoke 
Lyne in Oxfordshire, late the Pro¬ 
perty of the Earl and Countess of 
Shipbrook. 

The lord of the manor has a right, by 
ancient custom, to bear a hawk about his 
arms agreeable to the print: it arose from 
the following circumstance. When Charles 
the First held his parliament at Oxford, the 
then lord of Stoke Lyne was particularly 
useful to the king in his unfortunate situa¬ 
tion, and rendered him service. To re¬ 
ward him he offered him knighthood, which | 
he declined, and merely requested the 
king’s permission to bear behind his coat 
of arms a hawk, which his majesty in¬ 
stantly granted. The present lord of the 
manor is Mr. Cole of Twickenham, inhe¬ 
riting the estate by descent from the late 
earl and countess, and whose family are 
registered in the parish church as early as 
March 22, 1584. There is also a monu¬ 
ment of them in the church of Petersham 
1624 ; and another branch of the same 
family were created baronets, March 4, 
1641, supposed to be the oldest family iu 
the county of Middlesex. 


278 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 



iWap-lBap jBantt tit 1698. 


This engraving of the milkmaids’garland, 
and the costume of themselves and their 
fiddler, at the close of the century before 
last, is from a print in “ M^moires, &c. 
par un Voyageuren Angleterre,” an octavo 
volume, printed “ a la Haye 1698,” wherein 
it is introduced by the author, Heniy 
Misson, to illustrate a passage descriptive 
of the amusements of London at that time. 
His account of the usage is to the follow¬ 
ing effect:— 

On the first of May, and the five or six 
days following, all the young and pretty 
peasant girls, who are accustomed to beai 
about milk for sale in the city, dress them¬ 
selves very orderly, and carry about them 
a number of vases and silver vessels, of 
which they make a pyramid, adorned with 
ribbons and flowers. This pyramid they 
bear on their heads instead of the ordinary 
milk-pail, and accompanied by certain of 
their comrades and the music of a fiddle, 
they go dancing from door to door sur¬ 
rounded by young men and children, who 


follow them in crowds ; and every v/hero 
they are made some little present. 

ISABELLA COLOUR. 

The archduke Albert married the infanta 
Isabella, daughter of Philip II. king of 
Spain, with whom he had the Low Coun¬ 
tries in dowry. In the year 1602, he laid 
siege to Ostend, then in the possession of 
the heretics, and his pious princess, who 
attended him in that expedition, made a 
vow that till the city was taken she would 
never change her clothes. Contrary to 
expectation, it was three years before the 
place was reduced; in which time her 
highness’s linen had acquired a hue, which 
from the superstition of the princess and 
the times was much admired, and adopted 
by the court fashionables under the name 
of the “ Isabella-colourit is a whitish 
yellow, or soiled buff—better imagined 
than described.* 

• Sir J. Hawkins. 


279 












































THE TABLE BOOK. 


(garrtrfe paps# 

No. XV. 

[From the “City Night-Cap,” a Tragi¬ 
comedy, by Robert Davenport, 1651.] 

Lorenzo Medico suborns three Slaves to 
swear falsely to an adultery between his vir¬ 
tuous fVife Abstemia, and his Friend Phi- 
lippo. They give their testimony before the 
Duke of Verona, and the Senators. 

Phil. — how sooa 

Two souls, more precious than a pair of worlds, 

Are levell’d below death ! 

Abst. Oh hark 1 did you not hear it ? 

Sen. What, Lady ? 

Abst. This hour a pair of glorious towers is fallen 
Two goodly buildings beaten with a breath 
Beneath the grave: you all have seen this day 
A pair of souls both cast and kiss’d away. 

Sen. What censure gives your Grace? 

Duke. In that I am kinsman 
To the accuser, that I might not appear 
Partial in judgment, let it seem no wonder, 

If unto your Gravities I leave 

The following sentence : but as Loren*o stands 

A kinsman to Verona, so forget not, 

Abstemia still is sister unto Venice. 

Phil. Misery of goodness 1 
Abst. Oh Lorenzo Medico, 

Abstemia’s Lover once, when he did vow, 

And when I did believe; then when Abstemia 
Denied so many princes for Lorenzo, 

Then when you swore :—Oh maids, how men can weep, 
Print protestations on their breasts, and sigh. 

And look so truly, and then weep again. 

And then protest again, and again dissemble 1 — 

When once enjoy’d, like strange sights, we grow stale; 
And find our comforts, like their wonder, fail. 

Phil. Oh Lorenzo! 

Look upon tears, each one of which well-valued 
Is worth the pity of a king ; but thou 
Art harder far than rocks, and canst not prize 
The precious waters of truth’s injured eyes. 

Lot- Please your Grace, proceed to censure. 

Duke. Thus ’tis decreed, as these Lords have set 
down. 

Against all contradiction ; SSynpr Philippo, 

In that you have thus grossly. Sir, dishonour’d 
Kven our blood itself in this nude injury 
Lights on out kinsman, bis prerogative 
Implies death on your trespass ; but, (your merit 
Of more antiquity than is your trespass), 

That death is blotted out; perpetual banishment, 

On pain of death if you return, for eve* 

Prom Verona and her signories. 

Phil Verona is kind. 

Sen. Unto you. Madam, 

Tft\s censure is allotted: your high olood 


Takes off the danger of the law ; nay trom 
Even banishment itself: this Lord, your husband. 
Sues only for a legal fair divorce. 

Which we think good to grant, the church allowing 

And in that the injury 

Chiefly reflects on him, he hath free licence 

To marry when and whom he pleases. 

Abst. I thank ye. 

That you are favorable unto my Love, 

Whom yet I love and weep for. 

Phil. Farewell, Lorenzo, 

This breast did never yet harbour a thought 
Of tbee, but man was in it, honest man : 

There’s all the words that thou art worth. Of youi 
Grace 

I humbly thus take leave. Farewell, my Lords;— 

An l lastly farewell Thou, fairest of many, 

Yet by far more unfortunate !—look up. 

And see a crown held for thee ; win it, and die 
Love’s martyr, the sad map of injury.— 

And so remember, Sir, your injured Lady 
Has a brother yet in Venice. 


Philippo , at an after-trial, challenges 
Lorenzo. 

Phil. — in the integrity. 

And glory of the cause, I throw the pawn 
Of my afflicted honour; and on lhat 
I openly affirm your absent Lady 
Chastity’s well knit abstract; snow in the fall. 

Purely refined by the bleak northern blast, 

Not freer from a soil; the thoughts of infants 
But little nearer heaven : and if these prince# 

Please to permit, before their guilty thoughts 
Injure another hour upon the Lady, 

My right-drawn sword shall prove it.— 


Abstemia, decoyed to a Brothel in Milan, 
is attempted by the Duke's Son. 

Prince. Do you know me? 

Abst. Yes, Sir, report hath given intelligence, 

You are the Prince, the Duke’s son. 

Prince. Both in one. 

Abst. Report, sure. 

Spoke but her native language. You are none 
Of either. 

Prince. How ! 

Abst. Were you the Prince, you would not aare he 
slaved 

To your blood’s passion. I do crave your pardon 
For my rough language. Truth hath a forehead free 
And in the tower of her integrity 
Sits an unvanquish’a virgin. Can you imagine, 

’Twill appear possible you are the Prince ? 

Why, when you set your foot first in this house, 

You crush’d obedient duty unto death ; 

And even then fell from you your respect- 
Honour is like a goodly old house, which 


280 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


If we repatr not still with virtue s hand. 

Like a citadel being madly raised on sand, 

It falls, is swallow’d, and not found. 

Prince. If thou rail upon the place, prithee how 
earnest thou hither ? 

Abst. By treacherous intelligence; honest men so. 
In the way ignorant, through thieves’ purlieus go.— 
Are you Son to such a Father I 
Send him to his grave then, 

Like a white almond tree, full of glad days 
With joy that he begot so good a Son. 

O Sir, methinks I see sweet Majesty 

Sit with a mourning sad face full of sorrows. 

To see you in this place. This is a cave 
Of scorpions and of dragons. Oh turn back ; 

Toads here engender : ’tis the steam of death ; 

The very air poisons a good man’s breath. 

Prince. Let me borrow goodness from thy lips. Fare¬ 
well ! 

Here’s a new wonder; I’ve met heav’n in hell. 

Undue praise declined. 

you are far too prodigal in praise. 


And crown me with the garlands of your merit; 
As we meet barks on rivers,—the strong gale 
Being best friends to us,—our own swift motion 
Makes us believe that t’other nimbler rows; 

£ „-ift virtue thinks small goodness fastest goes. 


[From the “ Conspiracy,” a Tragedy by 
Henry Killigrew, 1638. Author’s age 
17.] 

The Rightful Heir to the Crown kejd 
from his inheritance .• an Angel sings to 
him sleeping. 

Song. 

While Morpheus thus does gently lay 
His powerful charge upon each part, 

Making thy spirits ev’n obey 
The silver charms of his dull art; 

I, thy Good Angel, from thy side,— 

As smoke doth from the altar rise, 

Making no noise as it doth glide,— 

Will leave thee in this soft surprise ; 

And from the clouds will fetch thee down 
A holy vision, to express 
Thy right unto an earthly crown ; 

No power can make this kingdom less. 

But gently, gently, lest I bring 
A start in sleep by sudden flight, 

Playing aloof, and hovering. 

Till I am lost unto the sight. 

This is a motion still and soft; 

So free from noise and cry, 

That Jove himself, who hears a thought, 

K iows not when we oass by. 

C. L. 


THE GOOD CLERK. 

He writeth a fair and swift band, and is 
completely versed in the four first rules of 
Arithmetic, in the Rule of Three, (which is 
sometimes called the Golden Rule,) and in 
Practice. We mention these things, that 
we may leave no room for cavillers to say, 
that any thing essential hath been omitted 
in our definition ; else, to speak the truth, 
these are but ordinary accomplishments, 
and such as every understrapper at a desk 
is commonly furnished with. The charac¬ 
ter we treat of soareth higher. 

He is clean and neat in his person; not 
from a vain-glorious desire of setting him 
self forth to advantage in the eyes of the 
other sex, (with which vanity too many of 
our young sparks now-a-days are infected,) 
but to do credit (as we say) to the office. 
For this reason he evermore taketh care 
that his desk or his books receive no soil; 
the which things he is commonly as soli¬ 
citous to have fair and unblemished, as the 
owner of a fine horse is to have him appear 
in good keep. 

He riseth early in the morning; not 
because early rising conduceth to health, 
(though he doth not altogether despise that 
consideration,) but chiefly to the intent that 
he may be first at the desk. There is his 
post—there he delighteth to be; unless 
when his meals, or necessity, calleth him 
away ; which time he always esteemeth as 
lost, and maketh as short as possible. 

He is temperate in eating and drinking, 
that he may preserve a clear head and 
steady hand for his master’s service. He 
is also partly induced to this observation 
of the rules of temperance by his respect 
for religion, and the laws of his country ; 
which things (it may once for all be noted) 
do add special assistances to his actions, 
but do not and cannot furnish the main 
spring or motive thereto. His first ambi¬ 
tion (as appeareth all along) is to be a good 
clerk, his next a good Christian, a good 
patriot, &c. 

Correspondent to this, he keepeth him¬ 
self honest, not for fear of the laws, but 
because he hath observed how unseemly an 
article it maketh in the day-book or ledger, 
when a sum is set down lost or missing ; it 
being his pride to make these books to 
agree and to tally, the one side with the 
other, with a sort of architectural symmetry 
and correspondence. 

He marrieth, or marrieth not, as best 
suiteth with his employer’s views. Some 
merchants do the lather desire to hav* 
married men in their counting-houses 


281 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


because they think the married state a pledge 
for their servants’ integrity, and an incite¬ 
ment to them to be industrious; and it was 
an observation of a late lord mayor of 
London, that the sons of clerks do gene¬ 
rally prove clerks themselves, and that 
i merchants encouraging persons in their em- 
| ploy to marry, and to have families, was 
, the best method of securing a breed of 
i sober, industrious young men attached to 
the mercantile interest. Be this as it may, 
such a character as we have been describ¬ 
ing, will wait till the pleasure of his em¬ 
ployer is known on this point; and regu¬ 
lated his desires by the custom of the 
house or firm to which he belonged. 

He avoided profane oaths and jesting, 
as so much time lost from his employ ; 
what spare time he hath for conversation, 
which in a counting-house such as we have 
been supposing can be but small, he 
spendeth in putting seasonable questions 
to such of his fellows, (and sometimes re¬ 
spectfully to the master himself,) who can 
give him information respecting the price 
and quality of goods, the state of exchange, 
or the latest improvements in book-keep¬ 
ing ; thus making the motion of his lips, 
as well as of his fingers, subservient to his 
master’s interest. Not that he refused a 
brisk saying, or a cheerful sally of wit, 
when it comes enforced, is free of offence, 
and hath a convenient brevity. For this 
reason he hath commonly some such phrase 
as this in his mouth :— 

It’s a slovenly look 
To blot your book. 

Or, 

Red ink for ornament, black for use. 

The best of things are open to abuse. 

So upon the eve of any great holiday, of 
which he keepeth one or two at least every 
year, he will merrily say in the hearing cf a 
confidential friend, but to none other:— 

All work and no play 
Makes Jack a dull boy. 

Or, 

A bow always bent must crack at last. 

But then this must always be understood 
to be spoken confidentially, and, as we say, 
under the rose. 

Lastly, his dress is plain, without singu¬ 
larity ; with no other ornament than the 
quill, which is the badge of his function, 
stuck under the dexter ear, and this rather 
for convenience of having it at hand, when 
he hath been called away from his desk, 
and expected to resume his seat there 


again shortly, than from any delight which 
he taketh in foppery or ostentation. Tho 
colour of his clothes is generally noted to 
be black rather than brown, brown rather 
than blue or green. His whole deportment 
is staid, modest, and civil. His motto is 
regularity.- 

This character was sketched, in an inter¬ 
val of business, to divert some of the melam 
choly hours of a counting-house. It is 
so little a creature of fancy, that it is scarce 
any thing more than a recollection of some 
of those frugal and economical maxims 
which, about the beginning of the last cen¬ 
tury, (England’s meanest period,) were en¬ 
deavoured to be inculcated and instilled 
into the breasts of the London apprentices,* 
by a class of instructors who might not 
inaptly be termed the masters of mean 
morals. The astonishing narrowness and 
illiberality of the lessons contained in some 
of those books is inconceivable by those 
whose studies have not led them that way, 
and would almost induce one to subscribe 
to the hard censure which Drayton has 
passed upon the mercantile spirit: — 

The gripple merchant, bom to be the curse 

Of this brave isle, t 


Befoeana. 

No. I. 

THE TRADESMAN. 

1 have now lying before me that curious 
book, by Daniel Defoe, “ The complete 
English Tradesman.” The pompous de¬ 
tail, the studied analysis of every little mean 
art, every sneaking address, every trick 
and subterfuge (short of larceny) that is 
necessary to the tradesman’s occupation, 
with the hundreds of anecdotes, dialogues 
(in Defoe’s liveliest manner) interspersed, 
all tending to the same amiable purpose, 
namely, the sacrificing of every honest 
emotion of the soul to what he calls the 
main chance—if you read it in an ironica. 
sense, and as a piece of covered satire , 
make it one of the most amusing books 
which Defoe ever wrote, as much so as 
any of his best novels. It is difficult to 
say what his intention was in writing it. It 
is almost impossible to suppose him in 
earnest. Yet such is the bent of the book 


* This term designated a larger class of young men 
than that to which it is now confined; it took in the 
articled clerks of merchants and bankers, the Goorge 
Barnwells of the day. 
t The Reflector. 


282 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


to narrow and to degrade the heart, that if 
such maxims were as catching and infec¬ 
tious as those of a licentious cast, which 
happily is not the case, had I been living 
at that time, I certainly should have re¬ 
commended to the grand jury of Middle¬ 
sex, who presented the Fable of the Bees, to 
have presented this book of Defoe’s in pre¬ 
ference, as of a far more vile and debasing 
tendency. I will give one specimen of his 
advice to the young tradesman, on the 
government of his temper. “ The retail 
tradesman in especial, and even every 
tradesman in his station, must furnish him¬ 
self with a competent stock of patience ; I 
mean that sort of patience which is needful 
to bear with all sorts of impertinence, and 
the most provoking curiosity that it is im¬ 
possible to imagine the buyers, even the 
worst of them, are or can be guilty of. A 
tradesman behind his counter must have no 
flesh and blood about him, no passiojis, no 
resentment; he must never be angry, no 
not so much as seem to be so, if a customer 
tumbles him five hundred pounds worth of 
goods, and scarce bids money for any 
thing; nay, though they really come to his 
shop with no intent to buy, as many do, 
only to see what is to be sold, and though 
he knows they cannot be better pleased 
than they are, at some other shop where 
they intend to buy, ’tis all one, the trades¬ 
man must take it, he must place it to the 
account of his calling, that } tis his business 
to be ill used and resent nothing; and so 
must answer as obligingly to those that 
give him an hour or two’s trouble and buy 
; nothing, as he does to those who in half the 
time lay out ten or twenty pounds. The 
case is plain, and if some do give him 
trouble and do not buy, others make amends 
and do buy ; and as for the trouble, ’tis the 
business of the shop.’’ Here follows a 
most admirable story of a mercer, who, by 
his indefatigable meanness, and more than 
Socratic patience under affronts, overcame 
and reconciled a lady, who upon the re¬ 
port of another lady that he had behaved 
saucily to some third lady, had determined 
to shun his shop, but by the over-persua¬ 
sions of a fourth lady was induced to go to 
t; which she does, declaring beforehand 
that she will buy nothing, but give him all 
the trouble she can. Her attack and his 
defence, her insolence and his persevering 
patience, are described in colours worthy of 
a Mandeville ; but it is too long to recite. 
“ The short inference from this long dis¬ 
course,” says he, “ is this, that here you see, 
and I could give you many examples like this, 
how and in what manner a shopkeeper is 


to behave himself In the way of his busi¬ 
ness ; what impertinences, what taunts, 
flouts, and ridiculous things, he must bear 
in his trade, and must not show the least 
return, or the least signal of disgust: he 
must have no passions, no fire in his tem¬ 
per ; he must be all soft and smooth ; nay, 
if his real temper be naturally fiery and 
hot, he must show none of it in his shop; 
he must be a perfect, complete hypocrite if 
he will be a complete tradesman * It is 
true, natural tempers are not to be always 
counterfeited ; the man cannot easily be a 
lamb in his shop, and a lion in himself; 
but, let it be easy or hard, it must be done, 
and is done: there are men who have, by 
custom and usage, brought themselves to 
it, that nothing could be meeker and 
milder than they, when behind the counter, 
and yet nothing be more furious and raging 
in every other part of life; nay, the pro¬ 
vocations they have met with in their shops 
have so irritated their rage, that they would 
go up stairs from their shop, and fall into 
frenzies, and a kind of madness, and beat 
their heads against the wall, and perhaps 
mischief themselves, if not prevented, till 
the violence of it had gotten vent, and the 
passions abate and cool. I heard once of 
a shopkeeper that behaved himself thus to 
such an extreme, that when he was pro¬ 
voked by the impertinence of the customers, 
beyond what his temper could bear, he 
would go up stairs and beat his wife, kick 
his children about like dogs, and be as 
furious for two or three minutes, as a man 
chained down in Bedlam ; and again, when 
that heat was over, would sit down and cry 
faster than the children he had abused ; 
and after the fit, he would go down into 
the shop again, and be as humble, cour 
teous, and as calm as any man whatever; 
so absolute a government of his passions 
had he in the shop, and so little out of it: 
in the shop, a soulless animal that would 
resent nothing; and in the family a mad¬ 
man : in the shop, meek like a lamb ; but 
in the family, outrageous like a Lybian 
lion. The sum of the matter is, it is neces¬ 
sary for a tradesman to subject himself by 
all the ways possible to his business; his 
customers are to be his idols : so far as he 
may worship idols by allowance , he is to bow 
down to them and worship them ; at least, 
he is not in any way to displease them, or 
show any disgust or distaste, whatsoever 
they may say or do; the bottom of all is, 


* As no qualification accompanies this maxim, it j 
must be understood as the genuine sentiment of ths 
author. 


283 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


that rie \s intending to get money by them, 
Mid it is not for him that gets money to 
offer the least inconvenience to them by 
whom he gets it; he is to consider that, as 
Solomon says, the borrower is servant to the 
lender, so the seller is servant to the buyer.” 
What he says on the head of pleasures and 
recreations is not less amusing :—“ The 
tradesman’s pleasure should be in his busi¬ 
ness, his companions should be his books, 
(he means his ledger, waste-book, &c.;) and 
if he has a family, he makes his excursions 
up stairs and no further :—none of my 
cautions aim at restraining a tradesman 
from diverting himself, as we call it, with 
his fireside, or keeping company with his 
wife and children.”* 


MANNERS OF A SPRUCE LONDON 
MERCER, AND HIS FEMALE CUS¬ 
TOMER, A HUNDRED YEARS 
AGO. 

Those who have never minded the con¬ 
versation of a spruce Mercer, and a young 
Lady his Customer that comes to his shop, 
have neglected a scene of life that is very 
entertaining.—His business is to sell as 
much silk as he can, at a price by which he 
shall get what he proposes to be reasonable, 
according to the customary profits of the 
trade. As to the lady, what she would be 
at is to please her fancy, and buy cheaper 
by a groat or sixpence per yard than the 
things she wants are usually sold for. From 
the impression the gallantry of our sex has 
made upon her, she imagines (if she be not 
very deformed), that she has a fine mien 
and easy behaviour, and a peculiar sweet¬ 
ness of voice; that she is handsome, and 
if not beautiful, at least more agreeable 
than most young women she knows. As 
she has no pretensions to purchase the same 
things with less money than other people, 
but what are built on her good qualities, so 
she sets herself off to the best advantage 
her wit and discretion will let her. The 
thoughts of love are here out of the case; 
so on the one hand she has no room for 
playing the tyrant, and giving herself angry 
and peevish airs; and on the other, more 
liberty of speaking kindly, and being affa¬ 
ble, than she can have almost on any other 
occasion. She knows that abundance of 
well-bred people come to his shop, and 
endeavours to render herself as amiable, as 
virtue and the rules of decency admit of. 


• The Reflector. 


Coming with such a resolution ot behaviour, 
she cannot meet with anything to ruffle her 
temper. — Before her coach is yet quite 
stopt, she is approached by a gentleman¬ 
like man, that has every thing clean and 
fashionable about him, who in low obei¬ 
sance pays her homage, and as soon as her 
pleasure is known that she has a mind to 
come in, hands her into the shop, where 
immediately he slips from her, and through 
a by-way, that remains visible for only half 
a moment, with great address intrenches 
himself behind the counter: here facing 
her, with a profound reverence and modish 
phrase he begs the favour of knowing her 
commands. Let her say and dislike what, 
she pleases, she can never be directly con¬ 
tradicted : she deals with a man, in whom 
consummate patience is one of the myste- I 
ries of his trade ; and whatever trouble she i 
creates, she is sure to hear nothing but the ' 
most obliging language, and has always ; 
before her a cheerful countenance, where 
joy and respect seem to be blended with 
good humour, and all together make up an j 
artificial serenity, more engaging than un¬ 
taught nature is able to produce.—When 
two persons are so well met, the conversa¬ 
tion must be very agreeable, as v/ell as 
extremely mannerly, though they talk about 
trifles. Whilst she remains irresolute what j 
to take, he seems to be the same in advising j 
her, and is very cautious how to direct her 
choice; but when once she has made it, 
and is fixed, he immediately becomes posi¬ 
tive that it is the best of the sort, extols her 
fancy, and the more he looks upon it, the 
more he wonders he should not have dis¬ 
covered the preeminence of it over any 
thing he has in his shop. By precept, ex¬ 
ample, and great observation, he has learned 
unobserved to slide into the inmost recesses 
of the soul, sound the capacity of his cus¬ 
tomers, and find out their blind side un¬ 
known to them : by all which he is in¬ 
structed in fifty other stratagems to make 
her overvalue her own judgment, as well as 
the commodity she would purchase. The 
greatest advantage he has over her, lies in 
the most material part of the commerce 
between them, the debate about the price, 
which he knows to a farthing, and she is 
wholly ignorant of: therefore lie no where 
more egregiously imposes upon her under¬ 
standing ; and though here he has the 
liberty of telling what lies he pleases, as to 
the prime cost and the money he has re¬ 
fused, yet he trusts not to them only ; but, 
attacking her vanity, makes her believe the 
most incredible things m me worm, con¬ 
cerning his own weakness and her superioi 


284 























TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


abilities. He had taken a resolution, he 
says, never to pait with that piece under 
such a price, but she has the power of talk¬ 
ing him out of his goods beyond anybody 
he ever sold to : he protests that he loses 
by his silk, but seeing that she has a fancy 
for it, and is resolved to give no more, 
rather than disoblige a lady he has such 
an uncommon value for, he will let hei have 
it, and only begs that another time she will 
not stand so hard with him. In the mean 
time the buyer, who knows that she is no 
fool and has a voluble tongue, is easily 
persuaded that she has a very winning way 
of talking, and thinking it sufficient for the 
sake of good breeding to disown her merit, 
and in some witty repartee retort the com¬ 
pliment, he makes her swallow very con¬ 
tentedly the substance of every thing he 
tells her. The upshot is, that with the 
satisfaction of having saved ninepence per 
yard, she has bought her silk exactly at the 
same price as anybody else might have 
done, and often gives sixpence more than, 
lather than not have sold it, he would have 
taken.— 


We have copied the above from Mande- 
ville’s “ Fable of the Bees,’’ Edition 1725. 
How far, and in what way, the practice 
between the same parties differs at this 
day, we respectfully leave to our fair shop¬ 
ping friends, of this present year 1827, to 
determine. 

L. 


CURING OF HERRINGS. 

From the Works of Thomas Nash , 1599. 

“ It is to bee read, or to bee heard of, 
howe in the punie shipe or nonage of Cer- 
dicke sandes, when the best houses and 
walles there were of mudde, or canvaze, or 
poldavies entiltments, a fisherman of Yar¬ 
mouth, having drawne so many herrings 
hee wist not what to do with all, hung the 
residue, that hee could not sel nor spend, 
in the sooty roofe of his shad a drying ; or 
say thus, his shad was a cabinet in decimo 
sexto , builded on foure crutches, and he 
had no roome in it, but that garret in ex- 
celsis , to lodge them, where if they were drie 
let them be drie, for in the sea they had drunk 
too much, and now hee would force them doo 
penance for it. The weather was colde, 
and good fires hee kept, (as fishermen, 
what hardnesse soever they endure at sea, 
will make ail smoke, but they will make 


amends for it when they come to land ;) 
and what with his tiering and smoking, or 
smokie tiering, in that his narrow lobby, 
his herrings, which were as white as whale- ■■ 
bone when he hung them up, nowe lookt 
as red as a lobster. It was four or five 
dayes before either hee or his wife espied 
it; and when they espied it, they fell 
downe on their knees and blessed them¬ 
selves, and cride, ‘ A miracle, a miracle !* 
and with the proclaiming it among their 
neighbours they could not be content, but 
to the court the fisherman would, and pre¬ 
sent it to the King, then lying at Burrough 
Castle two miles off.” 

The same facetious author, in enume¬ 
rating the excellences of herrings, says, 

“ A red herring is wholesome in a frosty 
morning : it is most precious fish-mer¬ 
chandise, because it can be carried through 
all Europe. No where are they so well 
cured as at Yarmouth. The poorer sort 
make it three parts of their sustenance. It 
is every man’s money, from the king to the 
peasant. The round or cob, dried and 
beaten to powder, is a cure for the stone. 
Rub a quart-pot, or any measure, round 
about the mouth with a red herring, the 
beer shall nevei foam or froath in it. A 
red herring drawn on the ground will lead 
hounds a false scent. A broiled herring is 
good for the rheumatism. The fishery is a 
great nursery for seamen, and brings more 
ships to Yarmouth than assembled at Troy 
to fetch back Helen.” 

At the end of what Nash calls “The 
Play in Praise of Red Herrings,” he boasts 
of being the first author who had written 
in praise of fish or fishermen : of the latter 
he wittily and sarcastically says, “ For 
your seeing wonders in the deep, you may 
be the sons and heirs of the prophet Jonas; 
you are all cavaliers and gentlemen, since 
the king of fishes chose you for his sub¬ 
jects; for your selling smoke, you may be 
courtiers ; for your keeping fasting days, 
friar-observants ; and, lastly, look in what 
town there is the sign of the three mari¬ 
ners, the huff-capped drink in that house 
you shall be sure of always.” 

Should any one desire to be informed to 
what farther medicinal and culinary pur¬ 
poses red tierring may be applied with 
advantage, Dodd’s Natural History of the 
Herring may be consulted. If what is 
there collected were true, there would be 
little occasion for the faculty , and cookery 
would no longer be a science. 

Nonvich. G. B. 


265 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


TO JOVE THE BENEFICENT. 
For the Table Book. 

Oh thou, that holdest in thy spacious hands 
The destinies of men ! whose eye surveys 
Their various actions 1 thou, whose temple stands 
Above all temples ! thou, whom all men praise ! 

Of good the author 1 thou, whose wisdom sways 
The universe ! all bounteous ! grant to me 
Tranquillity, and health, and length of days; 

Good will t’wards all, and reverence unto thee ; 
Allowance for man’s failings, of my own 

The knowledge ; and the power to conquer all 
Those evil things to which we are too ^jone— 

Malice, hate, envy—all that ill we call. 

To me a blameless life. Great Spirit! grant. 

Nor burden’d with much care, nor narrow’d by much 
want. 

S. R. J. 


Warta. 

WILSON AND SHUTER. 

When Wilson the comedian made his 
d^but, it was in the character formerly sup¬ 
ported by Shuter; but upon his appear¬ 
ance on the stage, the audience called out 
for their former favourite, by crying, “ Off, 
off— Shuter, Shuter!" Whereon Wilson, 
turning round, and with a face as stupid as 
art could make it, and suiting his action to 
his words, replied, “ Shoot her, shoot her 
(pointing at the same time to the female 
performer on the stage with him,) “ I’m sure 
she does her part very well.” This well- 
timed sally of seeming stupidity turned the 
scale in his favour, and called down re¬ 
peated applause, which continued during 
the whole of the performance.* 


KITTY WHITE’S PARENTHESIS. 

Kitty White, a pupil to old Rich, the 
comedian, was instructed by O’Brien, of 
Drury-lane, how to perform Sylvia , in 
“ The Recruiting Officer.” The lady re¬ 
citing a passage improperly, he told her it 
was a parenthesis , and therefore required a 
different tone of voice, and greater volu¬ 
bility. “A parenthesis /” said Miss White, 
“ What’s that ?” Her mother, who was 
present, blushing for her daughter’s igno¬ 
rance, immediately exclaimed, “ Oh, what 
an infernal limb of an actress will you 
tnake! not to know the meaning of ’ pren¬ 
tice , and that it is the plural number of 
prentices /” 

* Monthly Mirror 


LADY WALLIS AND Mr. HARRIS. 

Mr. Harris, patentee of Covent-garde.i 
theatre, having received a very civil mes¬ 
sage from lady Wallis, offering him her 
comedy for nothing , Mr. H. observed 
upon his perusal, that her ladyship knew 
the exact value of it.* 


SMOKY CHIMNIES. 

A large bladder filled with air, suspend¬ 
ed about half way up the chimney by a 
piece of string attached to a stick, and 
placed across a hoop, which may be easily 
fastened by nails, will, it is said, prevent - 
the disagreeable effects of a smoky chim¬ 
ney. 


OLD ENGLISH PROVERB. 

“ An ounce of mother wit is worth a 
pound of learning ,” seems well exemplified 
in the following dialogue, translated from 
the German : 

Hans, the son of the clergyman, said to 
the farmer’s son Frederick, as they were 
walking together on a fine summer’s even¬ 
ing, “ How large is the moon which we 
now see in the heavens ?” 

Frederick. As large as a baking-dish. 

Hans. Ha! ha ! ha ! As large as a b k- 
ing-dish? No, Frederick, it is full as large 
as a whole country. 

Frederick. What do you tell me ? as 
large as a whole country ? How do you 
know it is so large? 

Hans. My tutor told me so. 

While they were talking, Augustus, 
another boy, came by; and Hans ran 
laughing up to him, and said, « Only hear, 
Augustus! Frederick says the moon is no 
bigger than a baking-dish.” 

“No?” replied Augustus, “The moon 
must me at least as big as our barn. When 
my father has taken me with him into the 
city, I have observed, that the globe on the 
top of the dome of the cathedral seems like 
a very little ball; and yet it will contain 
three sacks of corn; and the moon must b* 
a great deal higher than the dome.” 

Now which of these three little philoso¬ 
phers was the most intelligent ?—I must 
give it in favour of the last; though Hans 
was most in the right through the instruc¬ 
tion of his master. But it is much more I 
honourable to come even at all near the 
truth, by one’s own reasoning, than to give 
implicit faith to the hypothesis of another 


* Monthly Mirror. 















































THE TABLE BOOK. 



£>eal anil Slutogtapl) of Ujt to rt fct'sfc ^m(ral. 



CfjailrS Ho it) 1)0 to a tii of dMngfjam, 1585. 


287 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


OFFICE OF LORD HIGH ADMIRAL. 

An engraving of the great seal of Charles 
Lord Howard of Effingham, as high admiral 
of England, with another, his lordship’s 
autograph, are presented to the readers of 
the Table Book from the originals, before 
the Editor, affixed to a commission in the 
first year of that nobleman’s high office, 
granting to sir Edward Hoby, knight, the 
vice-admiralty of the hundred of Milton, in 
the county of Kent.* * 

It will be remembered, that the lord 
Howard of Effingham, afterwards created 
earl of Nottingham, was the distinguished 
admiral of the English fleet, which, in 
conjunction with the winds of heaven, 
dispersed and destroyed the formidable 
Spanish armada for the invasion of Eng¬ 
land in 1588, during the reign of queen 
Elizabeth. These engraved representations 
therefore are r.c mean illustrations to a 
short account of the office of lord high 
admiral, which, after having been in com¬ 
mission upwards of a century, is revived in 
the person of the heir apparent to the 
throne. 


It is commonly said, that we have ob¬ 
tained the term admiral from the French. 
The first admiral of France, or that ever 
had been there by title of office, was 
Enguerrand de Bail'.eul, lord of Coucy, who 
was so created by Philip the Hardy in 1284, 
and under that title appointed to command 
a fleet for the conquest of Catalonia and 
other Spanish provinces from Peter of 
Arragon. 

The French are presumed to have gained 
the term in the crusades a little before this 
period, under St. Lewis, who instituted the 
order of “ the ship,” an honour of knight¬ 
hood, to encourage and reward enterprise 
against the Turks. The collar of this order, 
at the lower end whereof hung a ship, was 
interlaced on double chains of gold, with 
double scallop-shells of gold, and double 
crescents of silver interwoven, “ which 
figured the sandy shore and port of Aigues- 
Mortes, and, with the ship, made manifest 
declaration that this enterprise was to fight 
with infidel nations, which followed the 
false law of Mahomet who bare the cres¬ 
cent.”-}- The chief naval commander of the 
Saracens is said to have been called the 
admirante, and from him the French are 
conjectured to have gained their amiral: if 


* For the loan of this document, the editor is in¬ 
debted to his valuable and valued correspondent J. J. K. 

* r aviue, b. in. c 4. 


they did, it was the only advantage securecl 
to France by the expedition of St. ; 
Lewis.* 

Still, however, whether the French amira, 
comes from the Saracen admirante is doubt¬ 
ful ; and though the title occurs in French 
history, before we discover admiral in our 
own, it is also doubtful whether we derive 
it from our neighbours. The Saxons had 
an officer, whom from his duties they called 
“ Aen-Mere-all , that is All upon the sea :”f 
this title therefore of our ancient ancestors 
may reasonably be presumed to have been 
the etymon of our admiral. 


William de Leybourne was the first 
Englishman that had the style of admiral. 
At the assembly at Bruges in 1297, (25 
Edward I.) he was styled Admirallus Maris 
Regis , and soon after the office became 
tripartite. We subsequently meet with the 1 
titles of admiralty of the north and of the 
west, and in 1387 (10 Richard II.) we find 
Richard, son of Allan, earl of Arundel and 
Surry, denominated Admirallus Anglia: 
this is the earliest mention of that style.J 
Charles, lord Howard of Effingham, the 
illustrious high admiral of Elizabeth,held the 
office eighteen years under his heroic mis¬ 
tress, and was continued in it fourteen years 
longer by her successor James I. In 1619 
he was succeeded in it by George, marquis 
(afterwards the first duke) of Buckingham, 
who held the dignity till 1636, (temp. Car. 
I.) when it was in commission for a week, 
and then conferred on Algernon, earl of 
Northumberland, and afterwards, by the 
parliament, on Robert, earl of Warwick. He 
surrendered his commission in 1645, under 
an ordinance that members should have no 
employment, and the office was executed 
by a committee of both houses, of whom 
the earl was one. In 1649, the commis¬ 
sioners of the admiralty under the Common¬ 
wealth were allowed three shillings each per 
diem. 


* “ This good prince being dead of a dysentry at 
the camp of Carthage in Africa, the fifth day of August 
One thousand two hundred threescore and ten, his body 
was boiled in wine and water, until that the flesh was 
neatly divided from the bones. His flesh and entrails 
were given to the king of Sicily, monsieur Charles of 
France, brother to the king, who caused them to be in¬ 
terred in the monastery of Mont Reall, of the order of 
St. Benedict, near to the city of Palermo in Sicily. 
But the bones, wrapped up worthily in seare-cloth and 
silks, excellently embalmed with most precious per¬ 
fumes, were carried to St. Denis in France : and with 
them those of his son, monsieur John of France, count 
of Nevers, dying in the camp and of the same disease.” 
Favine. 

t Maitland, Cok. Just. p. i. 

J Godoljphin’s Admiralty Jurisdiction, 1746 


288 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


At the restoration of Charles II. in 1660, 
his brother James, duke of York, was ap¬ 
pointed lord high admiral; but on the pass¬ 
ing of the test act in 1673, being a Roman 
Catholic, he resigned, and the office was put 
in commission, with prince Rupert as first 
iord, till 1679. It remained in commission 
till the end of that reign. 

James II. (the duke of York just men¬ 
tioned) on his accession declared himself, 

; in council, lord high admiral, and lord 
! general of the navy, and during his short 
reign managed the admiralty affairs by Mr. 
Secretary Pepys. 

Throughout the reign of William III., the 
admiralty was continued in commission. 

I Queen Anne, in 1702, appointed her 
consort, prince George of Denmark, lord 
high admiral of England; he executed 
the office under that style, with a council, 
till 1707, when, on account of the union, he 
was styled lord high admiral of Great 
Britain, and so continued with a council as 
before. He died October 28, 1708, and 
the queen acted by Mr. Secretary Burchel, 
till the 29th of November, when her ma¬ 
jesty appointed Thomas, earl of Pembroke, 
lord high admiral of Great Britain, with a 
fee of 300 marks per annum. In November, 
1709, the admiralty was again put in com¬ 
mission, and has been so continued from 
that time till April 1827, when the duke of 
Clarence was appointed lord high admiral 
of Great Britain. 

" 

The lord high admiral has the manage¬ 
ment and controul of all maritime affairs, 
and the government of the royal navy. He 
commissions all naval officers, from an ad¬ 
miral to a lieutenant; he takes cognizance 
and decides on deaths, murders, maims, 
and all crimes and offences committed on 
or beyond sea, in all parts of the world, 
on the coasts, in all ports or havens, and 
on all rivers to the first bridge from the sea. 
He appoints deputies for the coasts, coro¬ 
ners for the view of dead bodies found at 
sea, or on the waters within his jurisdiction, 
and judges for his court of admiralty. To 
nim belongs all fines and forfeitures arising 
from the exercise of his office, the goods 
of pirates, &c. maritime deodands, wrecks, 
salvage, sea-prize, waifs and strays, por- 
! poises, and other great sea-fishes, called 
royal fishes, whale and sturgeon only ex¬ 
cepted * He is conservator of rivers and 
i public streams, and of all ships and 
fisheries, with power to reform unlawful 
nets and engines; and he arrests and seizes 


ships, impresses mariners, pilots, masters, 
gunners, bombardiers, and any other per- 
sons wheresoever they may be met with, as 
often as the naval service may require. 1 * 
Formerly, in common with other admirals, i 
he wore a whistle suspended by a gold 
chain, with which he cheered his men to 
action, but which has now descended to 
the boatswain.f 


The powers of the commission from the 
lord Howard of Effingham, high admiral ol 
England, to sir Edward Hoby, may further 
illustrate the nature and extent of this high 
office. The deed itself is in Latin, fairly 
engrossed on parchment, with a large and 
fine illumination, entirely filling the side 
and bottom margins, representing a branch 
of white roses tinged with red, entwined 
with a branch of honeysuckle, the leaves 
and flowers in fair and proper colours. 

This commission empowers “sir Edward 
Hobbie, knight,” to take cognizance of, and 
proceed in all civil and maritime causes,' 
contracts, crimes, offences, and other 
matters, appertaining to the jurisdiction of 
the English admiralty of the queen in the 
hundred of Milton in the county of Kent, 1 
and the maritime parts thereof, and thereto 
adjacent, and to hear and determine the 
same : And to inquire by the oath of good 
and loyal men of the said hundred of all 
traitors, pirates, homicides, and felons, and 
of all suicides, and questionable deaths and 
casualties within such admiralty jurisdiction, 
and of their estates, and concerning whatever 
appertains to the office of the lord high 
admiral in the said hundred. And of and 
concerning the anchorage and shores and the 
royal fishes, viz. sturgeons, whales, shell¬ 
fish, (cetis,) porpoises, dolphins, rigge and 
grampuses, and generally of all other fishes 
whatsoever, great and small, belonging to 
the queen in her office of chief admiralty of 
England : And to obtain and receive all 
pecuniary penalties in respect of crimes 
and offences belonging to such jurisdiction 
within the said hundred, and to decide on 
all such matters: And to proceed against 
all offenders according to the statutes of the 
queen and her kingdom, and according to 
the admiralty power of mulcting, correct¬ 
ing, punishing, castigating, reforming, and 
imprisoning within the said hundred or its 
jurisdiction : And to inquire concerning 
nets of too small mesh, and other contriv¬ 
ances, or illicit instruments, for the taking of 
fish : And concerning the bodies of persons 


* Cowel &c. 

+ Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities. 


289 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


wrecked and drowned in the waters of the 
; hundred : And concerning the keeping and 
preservation of the statutes of the queen 
and her kingdom in the maritime paits of 
the said hundred: And concerning the 
wreck of the sea : And to exercise the office 
of coroner, according to the statutes in the 
third and fourth years of Edward the First: 
And to proceed according to the statutes con¬ 
cerning the damage of goods upon the sea in 
the 27th year of Edward III. : u And you the 
aforesaid sir Hobbie, our vice-admiral,, com¬ 
missary, and deputy in the office ot vice¬ 
admiralty, in and over the aforesaid hundred 
of Milton, we appoint, recommending to 
you and your locum tenens firmness in the 
execution of your duty, and requiring you 
yearly in Easter and Michaelmas term to 
account to the Court of Admiralty your 
proceedings in the premises.’ 
u Given at Greenwich under our great seal 
the twelfth day of the month of July in 
the year of our Lord from the incarnation 
one thousand live hundred and eighty-five, 
and in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of 
our most serene lady Elizabeth by the grace 
of God queen of England, France, and 
Ireland, defender of the faith, &c.’ 

The “ great seal” above mentioned is 
the great seal of the admiralty, engraved on 
a preceding page, and as there represented, 
of the exact size of the seal appended to the 
commission. 


Milton Hundred, Kent. 

Through a different source than that, 
whence the commission just set forth came 
to hand, the Editor has now before him 
varioas original papers formerly belonging 
to sir Edward Hoby, concerning his private 
and public concerns. The two following 
relate to the hundred of Milton. 

I. 

Articles of the Queene’s Majestie 
Lands belonging to the Mannor 
of Milton with ther yearly values 
as they wilbe letten, and of the 
other benefitts belonging to the 
same mannor, which are now 
letten by her Majestie in farme. 

Acres. Value. 

Earable Lands 276 - 13s. Ad. 184 li. 
Meadowe Lands 39 - 20s. - 39//. 

Mershe Lands - 12 - 20s. - 12 li. 

Pasture Lands - 80 - 15s. - 60 li. 

(Shent ?) Lands - 34 - 6s. 8 d. 11 li. 6.\ 8 d. 

Tflwne meade - 25 - 5s. - 6li.5s. 


466 331//. 0 8 d. 


Rents of Assise - - - 1151/. Is. 10cf 

The My 11.12//. 

Faires and Marketts - - 10//. 

Relieves and Alienac’ons - 4/Z. 

Fines and Amercements - 6/Z. 13s. 4r/ 

Wastes Strayes Fellons j 13/f 8d 

Goods and Wrack of Sea J 

161/Z. Is. 10 d. 


492 li. 2s. 6d. 


Articles of the Queene’s Majestie 
Lands and other benefitts be¬ 
longing to the Hundred of Mar- 
den now less letten in farme. 

Acres. Value- 

Queene’s Lands - 9 - 8s. - 3/Z.l 2 j. 

Kents of Assise - 14 li. 9s. 5d. 

Wastes Straies and Fellons goods 3/Z. 6s. 8 d. 

21//. 8s. 1 d. 


S'm Tot. of the proffitle 1 M3(; 10j7U 
of bothe the mannors ) 

It is oversom’ed viij p. ann. 

II. 

Sir Edward Hoby for a Lease of the 
custodie o/Milton and Marden. 

The Queene’s Ma’tie by warrant of the 
late Lord Treasourer the sixt daye of July, 
in the xiijth Yeare of her Raigne, did 
graunt Custodia of the Mannor of Milton, 
and the Hundred of Milton, and Marden, 
&c. vnto Thomas Randolphe for Threescore 
years, yieldinge 120//. yearly rent and vjs. 
viijd increase of the rent. Prouiso semper 
q’d si aliquis alius plus dare voluerit de 
incr’o per Annum pro Custod. predict 
sine fraude vel malo ingenio Quod tunc 
idem Thomas Randolphe tantum pro eadem 
soluere teneatur si Custod. voluerit her’e 
sup’dict. 

The Lease is by meane conveyance 
colorably sett over vnto one Thomas Bod- 
lev, but the interest is in one Richard Pot- 
man, Attorney towards the Lawe. 

Sr Edward Hoby knight the xxvjth oi 
Maye xlmo Regine nunc, before the nowe 
Lord Treasourer and the Barons of the 
Exchequer did personally cum, and in 
wrytinge under his hande, Offer, sine fraude 
vel malo ingenio, to increase the Queene’s 
rent lOOli. vearly, which sayd Offer was 
accepted and attested, with Mr. Baron 
Clarke’s hande redy to be inrolled. 

Whereupon the sayd Sr Edward Hoby 
doth humbly praye that Yor Lo’pp wilbe 


290 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


pleased to gyve wanant for the inrowlinge 
thereof accordingely, and that a scire facias 
maye presently be awarded agaynst the 
Leasee, to shewe cause whye the former 
Pattent shoulde not be repealed, and the 
custody aforesayd graunted to the sayd 
Sr Edward Hoby. 

Note. 

The lyke tender was heretofore made 
xxxijdo Regine Elizabeth by Richard Var¬ 
ney Esquyer, agaynst Gregory Wolmer 
Esquyer, for the Mannor of Torrington 
Magna : beinge in extent to her Ma’tie 
for the dett of Phillipp Basset, and leased 
with the like Prouiso, and thereby ob- 
teyned a newe Lease from her Ma’tie. 


The preceding documents are so far 
interesting, as they connect sir Edward 
Hoby with the hundred of Milton and 
Maiden, beyond his public office of vice 
admiral of the former place, and show the 
underletting of the crown lands in the 
reign of Elizabeth, with something of the 
means employed at that time to obtain 
grants. 


(gamcfe paps. 

No. XVI. 

[From “ Tottenham Court,’’ a Comedy, by 
Thomas Nabbs, 1638.] 

Lovers Pursued. 

Worthgood , Bellamie , as travelling to¬ 
gether before daylight. 

Worth. Come, my Delight; let not such painted 
griefs 

Press down thy soul: the darkness but presents 
Shadows of fear; which should secure us best 
From danger of pursuit. 

Bell. Would it were day! 

My apprehension is so full of horror; 

I think each sound, the air’s light motion 
Makes in these thickets, is my Uncle’s voice, 
Threat’ning our ruins. 

Worth. Let his rage persist 
| To enterprise a vengeance, we’ll prevent it. 

Wrapt in the arms of Night, that favours Lovers, 

We hitherto have ’scaped his eager search ; 

And are arrived near London. Sure I hear 
The Bridge’s cataracts, and such-like murmurs 
As night and sleep yield from a populous number. 
Bell. But when will it be day ? the light hath com¬ 
fort : 

Our first of useful senses being lost, 

The rest are less delighted. 

Worth. Th’ early Cock 

Hath sung his summons to the day’s approach : 

Twill instantly appear Why startled, BeLsnae* 


Bell. Did no amazing sounds arrive thy ear i 
Pray, listen. 

Worth. Come, come; ’tis thy fear suggests 
Illusive fancies. Under Love’s protection 
We may presume of safety. 

( Within .) Follow, follow, follow. 

Bell. Aye me, ’tis sure my Uncle; dear Lovt 
Worthgood ? 

Worth. Astonishment hath seiz’d my faculties. 

My Love, my Bellamie, ha I 

Bell. Dost thou forsake me, Worthgood? 

( Exit , as losing him.} 

Worth. Where’s my Love ? 

Dart from thy silver crescent one fair beam 
Through this black air, thou Governess of Night, 

To shew me whither she is led by fear. 

Thou envious Darkness, to assist us here, 

And then prove fatal! 

{Within.} Follow, follow, follow. 

Worth. Silence your noise, ye clamorous ministers 
Of this injustice. Bellamie is lost; 

She’s lost to me. Not her fierce Uncle’s rage. 

Who whets your eager aptness to pursue me 
With threats or promises ; nor his painted terrors 
Of laws’ severity ; could ever work 
Upon the temper of my resolute soul 
To soften it to fear, till she was lost. 

Not all the illusive horrors, which the night 
Presents unto th’ imagination, 

T’ affright a guilty conscience, could possess me, 
While I possess’d my Love. The dismal shrieks 
Of fatal owls, and groans of dying mandrakes. 

Whilst her soft palm warm’d mine, were music to me.— 
Their light appears.—No safety does consist 
In passion or complaints. Night, let thine arms 
Again assist me; and, if no kind minister 
Of better fate guide me to Bellamie, 

Be thou eternal. 

{Within.} Follow , follow,follow. 


Bellamie, alone, in Marybone Park. 

Bell. The day begins to break ; and trembling Lignt 
As if affrighted with this night’s disaster, 

Steals thro the farthest air, and by degrees 
Salutes my weary longings.—O, my Worthgood, 

Thy presence would have checkt these passions ; 

And shot delight thro’ all the mists of sadness. 

To guide my fear safe thro’ the paths of danger < 

Now fears assault me.—’Tis a woman’s voice. 

She sings; and in her music’s chearfulness 
Seems to express the freedom of a heart. 

Not chain’d to any passions. 

Sotig, within. 

What a dainty life the Milkmaid ieaaa 
When over the flowery meads 
She dabbles in the dew. 

And sings to her cow ; 

And feels not the pain 
Of Love or Disdain. 

lSbe sleeps in the night, tho’ she toils in the 4“ 
merrily passeth her time avvav. 


291 















THE TABLE BOOK 


Bell. Oh, might I change my misery 
For such a shape of quiet! 


[From the “ Duchess of Suffolk,” an His¬ 
torical Play, by T. Hey wood, 1631.] 

A Tragic Pursuit. 

The Duchess, with her little child, pre¬ 
paring to escape by night from the relentless 
persecution of the Romanists. 

Duch. (to the Nurse ') Give me my child, and mantle; 
—now Heaven’s pleasure: 

Fai ewellcome life or death, I’ll hug my treasure. 
Nay, chide not, pretty babe ; our enemies come : 

Thy crying will pronounce thy mother’s doom. 

Be thou but still; 

This gate may shade us from their envious will. 

C Exit.) 

{A noise of Pursuers. She re-enters.) 

Duch. Oh fear, what art thou ? lend me wings to 
fly ; 

Direct me in this plunge of misery. 

Nature has taught the Child obedience; 

Thou hast been humble to thy mother’s wish. 

O let me kiss these duteous lips of thine. 

That would not kill thy mother with a cry. 

Now forward, whither heav’n directs; for I 
Can guide no better than thine infancy. 

Here are two Pilgrims bound for Lyon Quay,* 

And neither knows one footstep of the way. 

(Noise again heard.) 

Duch. Return you ? then *tis time to shift me hence. 

(Exit, and presently Re-enters.) 

Duch. Thus far, but heav’n knows where, we have 
escaped 

The eager pursuit of our enemies. 

Having for guidance my attentive fear. 

Still I look back, still start my tired feet. 

Which never till now measured London street: 

My Honours scorn’d that custom ; they would ride; 
Now forced to walk, more weary pain to bide. 

Thou shalt not do so, child; I’ll carry thee 
In Sorrow’s arms to welcome misery. 

Custom must steel thy youth with pinching want, 

That thy great birth in age may bear with scant 
Sleep peaceably, sweet duck, and make no noise : 
Methinks each step is death’s arresting voice. 

We shall meet nurse anon ; a dug will come, 

To please my quiet infant: when, nurse, when ? 


The Duchess , persecuted from place to 
place, with Berty, her Husband, takes com¬ 
fort from her Baby's smiles. 

Duch. Yet we have scaped the danger of our foes; 
And 1, that whilom was exceeding weak 


Ars 


From which place she hopes to embark fox Flan- 


Through my hard travail in this miant’s birth, 

Am now grown strong upon necessity. 

How forwards are we towards Windham Castle ? 
Berty. Just half our way: but we have lost oui 
friends, 

Thro’ the hot pursuit of our enemies. 

Duch. We are not utterlv devoid of fnends; 

Behold, the young Lord Willoughby smiles on us: 

And ’tis great help to have a Lord our friend. 

C. L. 


Cicatrical Customs* 

PLAY-BILLS. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Conjecturing that some slight no¬ 
tices of the early use of play-bills by our 
comedians might be interesting to your 
readers, allow me respectfully to request 
the insertion of the following:— 

So early as 1587, there is an entry in the 
Stationers’ books of a license granted to 
John Charlewood, in the month of October, 
“ by the whole consent of the assistants, 
for the onlye ymprinting of all maner of 
bills for players. Provided that if any 
trouble arise herebye, then Charlewoode to 
bear the charges.” Ames, in his Typogr. 
Antic/., p. 342, referring to a somewhat 
later date, states, that James Roberts, who 
printed in quarto several of the dramas 
written by the immortal Shakspeare, also 
“ printed bills for the playersthe license 
of the Stationers’ Company had then pro¬ 
bably devolved to him. The announce¬ 
ments of the evening’s or rather afternoon’s 
entertainment was not circulated by the 
medium of a diurnal newspaper, as at pre¬ 
sent, but broadsides were pasted up at the 
corners of the streets to attract the passer¬ 
by. The puritanical author of a “ Treatise 
against Idleness, Vaine-playes, and Inter¬ 
ludes,” printed in black letter, without date, 
but possibly anterior to 1587, proffers an 

admirable illustration of the practice._ 

“ They use,” says he, in his tirade against 
the players, “to set up their bills "upon 
postes some certain dayes before, to ad¬ 
monish the people to make resort to their 
theatres, that they may thereby be the 
better furnished, and the people prepared 
to fill their purses with their treasures.” 
The whimsical John Taylor, the water-poet 
under the head of Wit. Mirth, also 
alludes to the custom. - - * Master* Nat. 
Field, the player, riding up Fleet-street at 
a great pace, a gentleman called him, and 
asked what play was played that day. He 
being angry to be stay’d on so frivolous s 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


! demand, answered, that he might see what 
j play was plaied on every poste. I cry your 
mercy, said the gentleman, I took you for a 
poste, you rode so fast.” 

It may naturally be inferred, that the 
emoluments of itinerant players could not 
afford the convenience of a printed bill, 
and hence from necessity arose the practice 
of announcing the play by beat of drum. 
Will. Slye, who attended Kempe in the 
provincial enactment of his “ Nine Men of 
Gotham,” is figured with a drum. Parolles, 
in Shakspeare’s “ All’s Well that ends 
Well,” alludes to this occupation of some 
i of Will. Slye’s fellows, “ Faith, sir, he has 
| led the drum before the English come- 
! dians.” 

The long detailed titles of some of the 
early quarto plays induce a supposition, 
that the play-bills which introduced them 
to public notice were similarly extended. 
The “ pleasant conceited Comedy,” and 
“ the Bloody Tragedy,” were equally cal¬ 
culated to attract idling gazers on the book- 
1 stalls, or the “ walks at St. Paul’s,” and 
| to draw gaping crowds about some voci¬ 
ferous Autolycus, who was probably an 
underling belonging to the company, or a 
servant to one of the players; for, as they 
ranked as gentlemen, each forsooth had his 
man. A carping satirical writer, who wrote 
anonymously “ Notes from Blackfriers,” 
1617, presents some traces of a play-bill 
crier of that period. 

-“ Prithee, what’s the play ? 

The first I visited this twelvemonth day. 

They say—‘ A new invented boy of purle, 

That jeoparded his neck to steale a girl 
Of twelve; and lying fast impounded for’t, 

Has hither sent his bearde to act his part. 

Against all those in open malice bent, 

That would not freely to the theft consent: 

Faines all to’s wish, and in the epilogue 
Goes out applauded for a famous—rogue.’ 

—Now hang me if I did not look at first, 

For some such stuff, by the fond-people’s thrust.” 

In 1642, the players, who till the sub¬ 
version of the kingly prerogative in the 
preceding year, basked in the sunshine of 
court favour, and publicly acknowledged 
the patronage of royalty, provoked, by 
t.heir loyalty, the vengeance of the stern un¬ 
yielding men in power. The lords and 
commons, assembled on the second day of 
September in the former year, suppressed 
ftlcige plays, during these calamitous times, 
by the following 

Ordinance. 

“ Whereas the distressed estate of Ire¬ 
land, steeped in her own blood, and the 


distracted estate of England, threatened 
with a cloud of blood, by a Civill Wr rre , 
call for all possible meanes to appease and 
avert the wrath of God, appearing in these 
judgments ; amongst which, fasting and 
prayer having been often tried to be very 
effectuall, have bin lately, and are still en- 
joyned: And whereas public sports doe 
not well agree with public calamities, nor 
publike Stage Playes with the seasons of 
humiliation, this being an exercise of sad 
and pious solemnity, and the other specta¬ 
cles of pleasure, too commonly expressing 
lascivious mirth and levitie : It is therefore 
thought fit, and ordeined by the Lords and 
Commons in this Parliament assembled, 
that while these sad causes, and set times 
of humiliation doe continue, publike Stage 
Playes shall cease, and bee forborne. In¬ 
stead of which, are recommended to the 
people of this land, the profitable and sea¬ 
sonable considerations of repentance, re¬ 
conciliation, and peace with God, which 
probably may produce outward peace and 
prosperity, and bring againe times of joy 
and gladnesse to these nations.” 

The tenour of this ordinance was strictly 
enforced ; many young and vigorous actors 
joined the king’s army, in which for the 
most part they obtained commissions, and 
others retired on the scanty pittances they 
had earned, till on the restoration, the 
theatre burst forth with new effulgence. 
The play-bill that announced the opening 
of the new theatre, in Drury-lane, April 8, 
1663, has been already printed in the 
Every-Day Book. The actors’ names 
were then, for the first time, affixed to 
the characters they represented; and,. to 
evince their loyalty, “ Vivat Rex et Re¬ 
gina,” was appended at the foot of the 
bills, as it continues to this day. 

In the reign of the licentious Charles II., 
wherein monopolies of all kinds were 
granted to court favourites, licenses were 
obtained for the sole printing of play-bills. 
There is evidence in Bagford’s Collections, 
Ilarl. MSS. No. 5910, vol. ii., that in 
August, 1663, Roger L’Estrange, as sur¬ 
veyor of the imprimery and printing presses, 
had the “ sole license and grant of print¬ 
ing and publishing all ballads, plays, &c 
not previously printed, play-bills, &c.” 
These privileges he sold to operative print¬ 
ers. When that license ceased, I have yet 
to learn. 

The play-bills at Bartholomew-fair were 
in form the same as those used at the regu¬ 
lar theatres; but, as they were given among 
the populace, they were only half the size 
One that Dogget published recently, in m) 


293 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


possession, had W. R. m the upper corners, 
as those printed in the reign of Charles II., 
had C. R., the royal arms being in the 
centre. 

The luxurious mode of printing in 
alternate black and red lines, was adopted 
in Cibber’s time; the bills of Covent-garden 
theatre were generally printed in that man¬ 
ner. The bills of Drury-lane theatre, with¬ 
in the last ten years, have issued from a 
private press, set up in a room below the 
stage of that theatre. The bills for the 
royal box, on his majesty’s visit to either 
theatre, are printed on white satin. 

Connected with these notices of play¬ 
bills, are the means by which they were 
dispersed. A century ago, they were sold 
in the theatres by young women, called 
u orange-girls,’’ some of whom, Sally Harris 
and others, obtained considerable cele¬ 
brity ; these were succeeded by others, who 
neither coveted nor obtained notoriety. 
The “ orange-girls ” have gone out, and 
staid married women, who pay a weekly 
stipend to the box-lobby fruit-woman, now 
vend play-bills in the theatre, but derive 
most of their emolument from the sale of 
the “ book of the play,” or “ the songs ” 
of the evening. The old cry about the 
streets, “ Choice fruit, and a bill of the 
play—Drury-lane or Covent-garden,” is 
almost extinct; the barrow-women are 
obliged to obtain special permission to re¬ 
main opposite some friendly shopkeeper’s 
aoor; and the play-bills are chiefly hawked 
! by little beggarly boys. 

I am, sir, 8cc. 

Will o' the Wisp. 

March, 1827. 


THE LINNET FANCY. 

To the Editor of the Table Book. 

It is my fantasie to have these things, 

For they amuse me in my moody hours : 

Their voices waft my soul into the woods: 

Where bends th’ enamour’d willow o’er the stream, 

They make sweet melody. 

Of all the earthly things by which the 
brain of man is twisted and twirled, heated 
and cooled, fancy is the most powerful. 
Like a froward wife, she invariably leads 
nim by the nose, and almost every man is 
in some degree ruled by her. One fancies 
a horse, another an ass—one a dog, anothei 
a rabbit—one’s delight is in dress, an¬ 
other’s in negligence—one is a lover of 
flowers, another of insects—one’s mind 
runs or. a pigeon, another’s on a hawk— 


one fancies himself sick, the doctor fancies 
he can cure him: death—that stern reality— 
settles the matter, by fancying both. One, 
because he has a little of this life’s evif 
assail him, fancies himself miserable, an¬ 
other, as ragged as a colt, fancies himself 
happy. One, as ugly as sin, and as hide¬ 
ous as death, fancies himself handsome— 
another, a little higher than six-penn’orth 
of halfpence, fancies himself a second Saul. I 
In short, it would take a monthly part of! 
the Table Book to enumerate the different ; 
vagaries of fancy—so multifarious are her 
forms. Leaving this, proceed we to one 
of the fancies which amuse and divert the 
mind of man in his leisure and lonely 
hours—the “ Linnet Fancy.” 

“ Linnet fancy !” I think I hear some 
taker-up of the Table Book say, “ What’s 
in a linnet?—rubbish— 

A bird that, when caught. 

May be had for a groat.” 

Music ! I answer—melody, unrivalled 
melody—equal to Philomel’s, that ever she- 
bird of the poets.—I wish they would call 
things by their proper names; for, after all, 
it is a cock—hens never make harmonious 
sounds. The fancy is possessed but by a 
few, and those, generally, of the “ lower 
orders ”—the weavers and cobblers of 
Whitechapel and Spitalfields, for instance. 
A good bird has been known to fetch ten 
sovereigns. I have frequently seen three 
and four given for one. 

Whence the song of the linnet was ob¬ 
tained I cannot tell; but,from what I have 
heard the tit-lark and sky-lark do, I incline 
to believe that a good deal of theirs is in 
the song of the linnet. This song consists 
of a number of jerks, as they are called, 
some of which a bird will dwell on, and 
time with the most beautiful exactness: 
this is termed a “ weighed bird.” Others 
rattle through it in a hurried manner, and 
take to what is termed battling; these 
are birds often “sung” against others. It 
is with them as in a party where many are 
inclined to sing, the loudest and quickest 
tires them out; or, as the phrase is, “ knocks 
them down.” These jerks are as under. 
Old fanciers remember more, and regret 
the spoliation and loss of the good old 
strain. I have he«<-d some of them say, ' 
that even larks are not so good as they 
were forty years ago. The reader must not 
suppose that the jerks are warbled in the ! 
apple-pie order in which he sees them , 
here: the birds put them forth as they 
please : good birds always finish them. 













Stmlion 33t't3j Catdbrr, 1827. 


Jerks. 

Tuck—Tuck—Fear. 

Tuck, Tuck, Fear—Ic, Tc, Ic. 

Tuck, Tuck, Fear—Ic quake-e-weet. 
I*his is a finished jerk. 

Tuck, Tuck, Joey. 

Tuck, Tuck, Tuck, Tuck, Joey—Tolloc 
cha, Ic quake-e-weet. 

Tuck, Tuck, Wizzey. 

Tuck, Tuck, Wizzey—Tyr, Tyr, Tyr, 
Cher—Wye wye Cher. 

Tolloc, Ejup, R—Weet, weet, weet. 

Tolloc, Ejup, R—Weet, cheer. 

Tolloc, Ejup, R—Weet, weet, weet— 
cheer. 

Tolloc, Tolloc, cha—Ic, Ic, lc, Ic quake 
—Ic, Ic. 


Tolloc, Tolloc, cha—Ic, Ic, Ic, Ic, quake 
—Ic, Ic, Tyr, Fear. 

Tolloc, Tolloc, R—Weet, weet, weet, 
cheer—Tolloc, cha—Ejup. 

Tolloc, Tolloc, R—Ejup. 

Tolloc, Tolloc, R—Cha, cea—Pipe, Pipe, 
Pipe. 

Tolloc, Tolloc, R—Ejup—Pipe, Pipe, 
Hpe * 

Lug, Lug, G—Cher, Cher, Cher. 

Lug, Lug—Orchee, weet. 

Lug, Lug, G—Pipe, Pipe, Pipe. 

Lug, Lug, G—Ic, Ic, Ic, Ic, quake, fc 
Pipe Chow. 

Lug, Lug, E chow—Lug, Ic, Ic, quake e 
weet. 

Lug, Lug, or—cha cea. 

Ic Ic R—Ejup—Pipe chow. 


•29 5 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Lug, Lug, E chow, Lug, Ic, Ic, quake-e- 
weet. 

Ic, lc, R—Ejup, Pipe. 

Ic, Ic, R—Ejup, Pipe, chow. 

Ic Ic—R cher—Wye, wye, cher. 

Ic, Ic R, cher—Weet, cheer. 

Ic, lc—quake-e-weet. 

Ic, chow—E chow—Ejup, weet. 

Tyr, Tyr, Cher—Wye, wye, cher. 

Bell, Bell, Tyr. 

Ejup, Ejup, Pipe, Chow. 

Ejup, Ejup, Pi pe- 

Ejup, Ejup, Poy. 

Peu Poy—Peu Poy. This is when call¬ 
ing to each other. 

Cluck, Cluck, Cha. 

Cluck, Cluck, Cha, Wisk—R, Wisk. 

Ic, quake-e-weet—R Cher. 

Ic, Quake-e-Pipe—Tolloc Ic—Tolloc Ic 
Tolloc Ic—R Cher. 

Fear, Fear, weet—Ejup, Pipe, Chow. 

Pipe, Pipe, Pipe, Pipe—Ejup, Ejup, 
Ejup. 

Ejup R—Lug, Ic, Ic, quake-e-weet. 

Ic, Ic, R, Chow, Ic, Ic, R—Ic, Ic, 
quake, tyr, fear. 

Most of these my own birds do. Several 
strains have been known of the linnet, the 
best of which I believe was Wilder's. 

The method of raising is this. Get a 
good bird—as soon as nestlings can be had, 
purchase four, or even six; put them in a 
large cage, and feed them with boiled or 
scalded rape-seed, mixed with bread. This 
will do till about three weeks old ; then 
throw in dry seed, rape, flax, and canary, 
bruised ; they will pick it up, and so be 
weaned from the moist food. You may 
then cage them off in back-cages, and hang 
them under the old ones. 

If you do not want the trouble of feeding 
them, buy them at a shop about a month 
old, when they are able to crack the seed. 
Some persons prefer branchers to nestlings; 
these are birds caught about July. When 
they are just able to fly among the trees, 

' they are in some cases better than the 
others; and invariably so, if they take your 
old bird’s song, being stronger and steadier. 
Nestlings lose half their time in playing 
about the cage. 

As two heads are said to be better than 
one, so are two birds, therefore he who 
wants to raise a strain, should get two 
good ones, about the end of May— stop one 
of them This is done by putting your 
cage in a box, just big enough to hold it, 
having a door in front to pull up. Some 
have a glass in the door to enable them to 
vee the birds; others keep them in total 


darkness, only opening their prison to give 
them food and water. The common way 
is to put the cage in the box, and close the 
door, by a little at a time, daily, keeping it 
in a warm place. This is a brutal practice, 
which I have never subscribed to, nor 
ever shall; yet it does improve the bird, 
both in feather and song. By the time he 
has <l moulted off,” the other bird will 
“ come in ” stout, and your young ones 
will take from him ; thus you will obtain 
good birds. 

To render your birds tame, and free in 
song, move them about; tie them in hand¬ 
kerchiefs, and put them on the table, or 
any where that you safely can; only let 
their usual place of hanging be out of 
sight of each other. Their seeing one an¬ 
other makes them fretful. To prevent this, 
have tin covers over their water-pots. 

The man who keeps birds should pay 
attention to them : they cannot speak, but 
their motions will often tell him that some¬ 
thing is wrong; and it will then be his 
business to discover what. He who con¬ 
fines birds and neglects them, deserves to 
be confined himself; they merit all we can 
do for them, and are grateful. What a 
fluttering of wings—what a stretching of 
necks and legs—what tappings with the 
bill against the wires of their cages have I 
heard, when coming down to breakfast; 
what a burst of song—as much as to say, 
“ Here’s master!” 

Should any one be induced, from this 
perusal, to become a fancier, let him be 
careful with whom, and how he deals, or he 
will assuredly be taken in. In choosing a 
bird, let him see that it stands up on its 
perch boldly; let it be snake-headed, its 
feathers smooth and sleek, its temper good; 
this you may know by the state of its tail : 
a bad-tempered bird generally rubs his 
tail down to a mere bunch of rags. Hear 
the bird sing; and be sure to keep the 
seller at a distance from him ; a motion of 
his master’s hand, a turn of his head, may 
stop a bird when about to do something 
bad. Let him “ go through ” with his 
song uninterrupted; you will then discover 
his faults. 

In this dissertation (if it may be so 
called) I have merely given what has come 
under my own observation; others, who 
are partial to linnets, are invited to convey, 
through the same medium, their know¬ 
ledge, theoretical and practical, on the 
subject. 

i am, sir, &c. 

S. R. J 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Foundation of the 

LONDON UNIVERSITY - . 

On Monday, the 30th of April, 1827, 
his royal highness the duke of Sussex laid 
the foundation-stone of the London Univer¬ 
sity. The spot selected for the building is 
situated at the end of Gower-street, and 
comprehends a very extensive piece of 
ground. The adjacent streets were crowded 
with passengers and carriages moving to¬ 
wards the place. The day was one of the 
finest of this fine season. The visiters, who 
were admitted by cards, were conducted to 
an elevated platform, which was so much 
inclined, that the most distant spectator 
could readily see every particular of the 
ceremony. Immediately before this plat¬ 
form, and at about three yards distant fiom 
it, was another, upon which the foundation- 
stone was placed. The persons admitted 
were upwards of two thousand, the greatest 
proportion composed of well-dressed ladies. 

! Every house in the neighbourhood, which 
afforded the smallest opportunity of wit¬ 
nessing the operations, was crowded from 
the windows to the roof; and even many 
windows in Gower-street, from which no 
j view of the scene could be any way ob¬ 
tained, were filled with company. At a 
quarter past three o’clock, the duke of 
Sussex ai rived upon the ground, and was 
greeted by the acclamations of the people 
both inside and outside the paling. When 
he descended from his carriage, the band 
of the third regiment of foot-guards, which 
had been upon the ground some time before, 
playing occasional airs, struck up “ God 
save the king.” The royal duke, attended 
by the committee and stewards, went in 
procession to the platform, upon which the 
foundation-stone was deposited. The stone 
had been cut exactly in two, and in the 
bwer half was a rectangular hollow, to 
'eceive the medals and coins, and an in¬ 
scription engraved upon a copper-plate :— 

DEO OPT. MAX. 

SEMPITERNO ORRIS ARCHITECTO 
FAVENTE 

QVOD FELIX FAVSTVM QVE SIT 
OCTAVVM REGNI ANNVM INEVNTE 
GEORGIO QVARTO BRITANNIARVM 
REGE 

CELSISSIMVS PRINCEPS AVGVSTVS FREDE- 

RJCVS 

SUSSEXIAE DVX 

OMNIVM BONARVM ARTIVM PaTRONVS 
ANTIQVISSIMI ORDINIS ARCHITECTONIC I 
PRAESES APVD ANGLOS SVMMVS 
“RIMVM LONDINENSIS ACADEMIAE LAPIDEM 
INTER CIVIVM ET FRATRVM 


CIRCVMSTANTJVM PLAVSVS 
M AN V SVA LOCAVIT 
PRID. KAL. M A11. 

OPVS 

DIV MVLTVM QVE DESIDERATVM 
VRBI PATRIAE COMMODISSIMVM 

TANDEM ALIQVANDO INCHOATVM EST 
ANNO SALVTIS HVMANAE 
MDCCCXXVII 
ANNO LVCIS NOSTRAE 
MMMMMDCCCXXVII. 

NOMINA CLARISSIMORVM VIRORVM 
QVI SVNT E CONC1LIO 
HEN RICVS DVX N ORFOLCIA E 

IIENRICVS MARCHIO DE LANSDOWN 
DOMINVS IOANNES RVSSELL 
IOANNES VICECOMES DVDLEY ET WARD 
GEORGIVS BARO DE AVCKLAND 
HONORABILIS IAC. ABERCROMBIE 
IACOBVS MACINTOSH EQVES 
ALEX. BARING GEORGIVS BIRKBF.CK 

HEN. BROUGHAM THOMAS CAMPBELL 

I. L. GOLPaMID OLINTIIVS GREGORY 

GEORGIVS GROTE IOSEPHVS IIVME 

ZAC. MACAULAY IACOBVS MILL 

BENIAMINVS SHAW IOHANNES SMITH 

GVLIELMVS TOOKE HEN. WARBVRTGN 

HEN. WAY MOVTH IOANNES WISHAW 

THOMAS WILSON 

G V LI ELM VS WILKINS, A RCHITECTVS. 

After this inscription had been read, the 
upper part of the stone was raised by the 
help of pullies, and his royal highness 
having received the coins, medals, and in¬ 
scription, deposited them in the hollow 
formed for their reception. The two parts 
of the stone were then fastened together, 
and the whole was lifted from the ground. 
A bed of mortar was next laid upon the 
ground by the workmen, and his royal 
highness added more, which he took from 
a silver plate, and afterwards smoothed the 
whole with a golden trowel, upon which 
were inscribed the following words:— 
“ With this trowel was laid the first stone 
of the London University, by his royal 
highness Augustus duke of Sussex, on the 
30th of April, 1827. William Wilkins, 
architect; Messrs. Lee and Co. builders.’’ 
The stone was then gradually lowered 
amidst the cheers of the assembly, the band 
playing “ God save the king.” His royal 
highness, after having proved the stone 
with a perpendicular, struck it three times 
with a mallet, at the same time saying, 
“ May God bless this undertaking which 
we have so happily commenced, and make 
it prosper for the honour, happiness, and 
glory, not only of the metropolis, but o< 
the whole country ” 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


An oration was then delivered by the 
Rev. Dr. Maltby, in which he offered up a 
prayer to the Almighty in behalf of the 
proposed University. 

Dr. Lushington stated, that he had 
been chosen by the committee as the organ 
of their opinions. He remarked that the 
! London University must effect good. The 
clouds of ignorance had passed away, and 
the sun had broken forth and dispelled the 
darkness which had hitherto prevailed. No 
man dared now to assert that the blessings 
of education should not be extended to 
every, even the lowest, of his majesty’s 
subjects. He then expatiated on the ad¬ 
vantages which were likely to arise from 
the establishment of a London University, 
and especially on its admission of Dissen¬ 
ters, who were excluded from the two great 
Universities. He concluded by passing an 
eloquent compliment upon the public con¬ 
duct of the duke of Sussex, who, attached 
to no party, was a friend to liberality, and 
p/omoted by his encouragement any efforts 
of the subjects of this realm, whatever 
their political opinions, if their motives 
were proper and praiseworthy. 

The duke of Sussex acknowledged the 
compliments paid to him, and stated, that 
the proudest day of his life was that upon 
which he had laid the first stone of t'ne 
London University, surrounded as he was 
by gentlemen of as high rank, fortune, and 
character, as any in the kingdom. He was 
quite convinced that the undertaking must 
be productive of good. It would excite 
the old Universities to fresh exertions, and 
force them to reform abuses. His royal 
highness concluded, amidst the cheers of 
the assembly, by repeating that the present 
was the happiest day of his life. 

His royal highness and the committee 
then left the platform, and the spectators 
dispersed, highly gratified with the exhibi¬ 
tion of the day. 

In the evening, the friends and sub¬ 
scribers to the new University dined toge¬ 
ther, in the Freemasons’ Hall. On no 
previous occasion of a similar nature was 
that room so crowded; upwards of 420 
trsons sat down to table, with his royal 
ighness the duke of Sussex in the chair. 
The cloth having been removed, “ The 
King ” was drank with three times three. 

The next toast was “ The Duke of Cla- 
Tence, the Lord High Admiral of England,” 
and the rest of the royal family. As soon 
as the royal chairman, in proposing the 
above toast, stated the title of the new 
office held by his royal brother, the room 
rang with acclamations. 


The duke of Norfolk then proposed 
the health of his royal highness the duke of 
Sussex, who, he said, had added to the 
illustrious title which he inherited by birth 
that of the friend of the arts, and the 
patron of every liberal institution in the 
metropolis. (Cheers.) 

The toast was drunk with three times 
three. 

His Royal Highness said, that he re¬ 
ceived what his noble friend had been 
pleased to say of him, more as an admoni- j 
tion than as a compliment,because it brought 
to his recollection the principles on which 
his family was seated on the throne of this 
country. He was rejoiced at every circum¬ 
stance which occurred to refresh his me¬ 
mory on that subject, and never felt so 
happy as when he had an opportunity of 
proving by acts, rather than professions, 
how great was his attachment to the cau.i • 
of liberty and the diffusion of knowledge. 
(Cheers.) He repeated what he had stated 
in the morning, that the University of 
London had been undertaken with no feel¬ 
ings of jealousy or ill-will towards the two 
great English Universities already existing, 
but only to supply a deficiency, which was 
notoriously felt, and had been created by 
changes in circumstances and time since 
the foundation of those two great seminaries 
of learning. He concluded by once more re¬ 
peating, that he had never felt more proud in 
his life than when he was laying the foun¬ 
dation-stone of the new University in the 
presence of some of the most honest and 
enlightened men of whom this country 
could boast. (Applause.) He then pro¬ 
posed “ Prosperity to the University of 
London,” which was drunk with three 
times three, and loud applause. 

Mr. Brougham rose amidst the most 
vehement expressions of approbation. He 
rose, he said, in acquiescence to the com¬ 
mand imposed upon him by the council, 
to return thanks to the royal chairman for 
the kind and cordial manner in which he 
had been pleased to express himself to¬ 
wards the new University, and also to the 
company present for the very gratifying^ 
manner in which they had received the 
mention of the toast. The task had been 
imposed upon him, God knew, not from 
any supposed peculiar fitness on his part 
to execute it, but from a weli-grounde</ 
recollection that he was amongst the earliest 
and most zealous promoters of the good 
work they were met to celebrate. Two 
years had not elapsed since he had the hap¬ 
piness of attending a meeting, at which,' 
peradventure, a great proportion of those 














THE TABLE BOOIC. 


whom he was now addressing were pre¬ 
sent, for the purpose of promoting the 
foundation of the new University, held in 
the middle of the city of London, the cradle 
of all our great establishments, and of the 
civil and religious liberties of this land; 
the place where those liberties had first 
been nurtured; near the spot where they 
had been watered by the most precious 
blood of the noblest citizens; and he much 
deceived himself if the institution, the 
foundation of which they had met to cele¬ 
brate, was not destined, with the blessing 
of Divine Providence, to have an exten¬ 
sive influence in rendering the liberties to 
which he had before alluded, eternal in 
England, and to spread the light of know¬ 
ledge over the world. (Cheers.) On the 
day which he had referred to, the circum¬ 
stances under which he spoke were very 
different from those which now surrounded 
him The advocates of the University had 
then to endure the sneers of some, the more 
open taunts and jibes of others, accom¬ 
panied with the timidly expressed hopes of 
many friends, and the ardent good wishes 
and fond expectations of a large body of 
enlightened men, balanced however by the 
loudly expressed and deep execrations of 
the enemies of human improvement, light, 
and liberty, throughout the world. (Ap¬ 
plause.) Now, however, the early clouds 
and mists which had hung over the under¬ 
taking had disappeared, and the friends of 
the new University had succeeded in rais¬ 
ing the standard of the establishment in 
triumph over its defeated enemies—they 
had succeeded in laying the foundation of 
the University, amidst the plaudits of sur¬ 
rounding thousands, accompanied by the 
good wishes of their kind in every corner 
of the globe. (Cheers.) The council had 
come to a fixed resolution that in the selec¬ 
tion of teachers for the University, no such 
phrase as “ candidate” for votes should 
ever be used in their presence. The ap¬ 
pointments would be given to those who 
were found most worthy ; and if the merits, 
however little known, should be found to 
surpass those of others the most celebrated, 
only in the same proportion as the dust 
which turned the balance, the former would 
certainly be preferred. Instead of teaching 
only four or five, or at the utmost six 
months in the year, it was intended that 
the lectures at the n wv University should 
continue nine months in the year. After 
each lecture, the lecturer would devote an 
hour to examining, in turn, each of the 
pup.is, to ascertain whether he had under¬ 
stood the subject of his discourse. The 


lecturer would then apply another hour, 
three times in the week, if not six, (the 
subject was under consideration,) to the 
turther instruction of such of his pupils as 
displayed particular zeal in the search of 
knowledge. By such means, it was hoped 
that the pupils might not only be encou¬ 
raged to learn what was already known, : 
but to dash into untried paths, and become 
discoverers themselves. (Applause.) The 
honourable and learned gentleman then 
proceeded, in a strain of peculiar elo¬ 
quence, to defend himself from a charge 
which had been made against him, of 
being inimical to the two great English 
Universities, which he designated the two 
lights and glories of literature and science. 
Was it to be supposed that because he had 
had the misfortune not to be educated in 
the sacred haunts of the muses on the Cam 
or the Isis, that he would, like the animal, 
declare the fruit which was beyond his 
reach to be sour ? He hoped that those 
two celebrated seats of learning would 
continue to flourish as heretofore, and he 
would be the last person in the world to do 
any thing which could tend to impair their 
glory. The honourable and learned gen¬ 
tleman said, he would conclude by repeat¬ 
ing the lines from one of our sweetest 
minstrels, which he had before quoted 
in reference to the undertaking which 
they had assembled to support. He then 
quoted the passage prophetically—now it 
was applicable as a description of past 
events :— 

‘ As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form. 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm ; 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.” 

The Royal Chairman then proposed 
“ The Marquis of Lansdown, and the Uni¬ 
versity of Cambridge,” which was drank 
with great applause. 

The Marquis of Lansdown, on rising, 
was received with loud cheers. He felt 
himself highly honoured, he said, in having 
his name coupled with the University in 
which he had received his education. He 
felt the greatest veneration for that institu¬ 
tion, and he considered it by no means 
inconsistent with that feeling to express the 
most ardent wishes for the prosperity of the 
new University. (Applause.) He was per¬ 
suaded that the extension of science in one 
quarter could not be prejudicial to its cul¬ 
tivation in another. (Applause.) 

“ The Royal Society ” was next drank, 
then “ Prosperity to the City of London,” 


299 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


and Mr. Alderman Venables returned 
thanks. 

« Prosperity to the City of Westminster ” 
oeirtg drank, Mr. Iiobhouse returned 
thanks. 

“ The health of “ Lord Dudley ” was 
irank with much applause. 

Amongst the other toasts were “ Pros¬ 
perity to the Universities of Scotland and 
Ireland “Henry Brougham, Esq, and 
the Society for the Promot’on of Useful 
Knowledge“ The Duke of Norfolk 
“ The Mechanics’ Institution,” &c. 

The company did not separate till a late 
hour.* 


^>pr Ddaballe aitbt the 
iHonckr. 

A LEGENDE OFFE TINMOUTHE 
PRIORIE. 

(For the Table Book.) 

** © fjorr^Utre tittle toe ftpllc a mamre 
forte a ppcjgtS tietit.”—I nscription. 

Quahat want ye, quahat want ye thoue jollie fryare, 
Sayde Syr Delavalles Wardoure brave ; 

Quahat lack ye, quahat lack ye, thoue jollie fryare ; — 

-Saythe—Openne ye portalle, knave, 

Three wearye legues fro ye Pryorye 

Ive com synne ye sonne hathe smylde onne ye sea. 

Nowe naye, noAve naye, thoue halie fryare, 

I maie notte lett ye ynne; 

Syr Delavalles moode ys notte forre ye Roode, 

Ande hee cares nott toe shryve hys synne ; 

And schoulde hee retorne quithe hys hoonde and home, 
Hee will gare thye haliness rynne. 

Forre Chryste hys sak nowe saie nott naie, 

Botte openne ye portalle toe mee: 

Ande 1 wylle donne aryche benyzonne 
Forre thye gentlesse ande cortesye :— 
i Bye Masse ande bye Roode gyffe thys boone ys quith- 
stoode, 

Thoue shalte perryshe bye sorcerie. 

Y’enne quycklie ye portalle Avals opennd wyde, 

Syr Delavalles hal Avals made free, 

Ande ye table Avals spredde forre ye fryare quithe 
spede, 

Ande he fesstedde ryghte plentyfullie: 

Dydde a fryare wyghte everre lack off myghte 
Quhtnne nee token chepe hostelrye ? 


* The Times, 


Ande ye fryare hee ate, ande ye fryare hee dronke, 
Tylle ye cellarmonne wonderred fulle sore ; 

And hee Avysh’d hymm atte home att Saynte Oswynnee 
tombe,* 

Quithe hys relyckes ande myssall lore : 

Botte ye fryare hee ate offe ye vensoane mete, 

Ande ye fryare hee dronke ye more. 

NoAve thys daie wals a daie off wassell k'^pt, 

Syr Delavalles byrthe daie I weene. 

And monnie a knycghte ande ladye bryghte, 

Ynne Syr Delavalles castell Avals seene ; 

Botte sjnne ye sunne onne ye blue sea schonne. 

They’d huntedd ye woodes sae greene. 

And ryche and rare wals ye feste prepardde 
Forre ye knyeghtes ande ladyes gaie ; 

Ande ye fyeble ande ye floode baythe yyeldedd yet* 
broode 

Toe grace ye festalle daie ; 

And ye Avynnes fro Espagne Avyche longe hadde Jayne. 
And spyces fro farre Cathaye. 

Botte fyrst ande fayrest offe al ye feste. 

Bye Syr Delavalle pryzd moste dere, 

A fatte boare rostedde ynn seemlye gyze r 
Toe grace hys lordlye chere: 

Ye reke fro ye fyre sore hongerdde ye fryare, 

Ynne spyte of refectynge gere. 

Ande thuss thoughte ye fryare als he sate, 

Y’sse Boare ys ryghte saA r ourie ; 

I AA'ot tys noe synn ytts hede toe Avynne, 

Gyffe I mote ryghte cunnynglie; 

Ysse goddelesse knycghte ys ane churche hatyng* 
Avyghte, 

Toe fylche hymmene knaA'erie. 

Quithe yatt hee toke hys lethernne poke, 

Ande Avhettedde hys knyfe soe shene, 

Ande hee patyentlye sate atte ye kytchenne yate 
Tyll ne villeins quehere thyther seene ; 

Yenne quithe rneikle drede cutte offe ye boares hede. 
Als thoc ytte nevere hadde beene. 

Yenne ye fryare hee nymblie footedde ye swerde, 

Ande bente hym toe halie pyle; 

Forre ance quithynne yttes sacredde shrynne, 

Hee’d loucgche and joke atte hys guyle ; 

Botte hie thee faste quithe thye outmoste haste, 

Forre thye gate ys monnie a myle. 

NoAve Chryste ye save, quehene ye vylleins sawe. 

Ye boare quithouten ye hede, 

They wyst ande grie yatte Avytcherie 
Hadde donne ye featouse dede • 

Ynne sore dystraughte ye fryare they soucghte 
Toe helpe y’ern ynne yere nede. 

Theye soucghte and soucghte ande lang theye soucghte, 
Ne fryare ne hede cold fynde, 

Forre fryare ande hede farre oer ye mede, 

Were scuddynge ytte lyk ye Avynde : 

Botte haste, botte haste, thoue jollie fryare, 

Quehere boltt and barre Avylle bynde. 


• S* OsAA’yn’s tomb was at Tynemou'h Priory. 


300 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ye sunne wals hyghe yune hys journeye flyghte, 

Ando homewarde ye fysher bote rowedde* 

Quehenne ye deepe soundynge home shoudde SyrDela- 
j valles retorne, 

Quithe hys knychtes ande ladyes proude: 
j Ye bagoypes y’sonde ande ye jeste went rorde, 

Ande revelrye merrye ande loude. 


Ande ye sands dydde resounde toe ky 8 chevnlx 
bonndde,* 

Als hee rodde nere ye mergynnedde se.a. 

Botte whaes yatte hyghes fro ye Pryorie yatte, 

Quithe a crosse soe halie ande talle, 

Ande offe inonckes a crowde al yelpynge lowde. 


Botte meikle, botte meikle wals ye rage, 

Offe ye hoste and eompagnie, 

Quehenne ye tale wals tolde offe ye dede soe bolde, 
Quilke wals layde toe wytchene : 

Ande howe ynne destraucghte ye moncke they soocghte, 
Ye mcmeke offe ye Pryorie. 

Now rycght.lie y wyss Syr Delavalle knewe, 

Quehenne tould of ye fryare knave; 

Bye mye knycghthoode I vowe hee schalle derelye rue, 
Thys trycke hee thoucghte soe brave ; 

Ande awaie flewe ye knycghte, lyk ane egle’s flychte, 
Oere ye sandes of ye northerne wave. 


Jmde faste and faste Syr Delavalle rodde, 

Tylle ye rryorie yate wals ynne vyewe. 

Ande ye knycghte wals awar offe a fryare talle, 
Quithe ane loke bay the tiredde ande grtwe. 

Who quithe rapydde spanne oerre ye grene swerde 
ranne. 

Ye wrathe offe ye knycghte toe eschewe. 

Botte staie, botte staie, thou fryare knave, 

Botte staie ande shewe toe mee, 

Quatte thoue haste ynne yatte leatherne poke, 

Quilke thoue mayest carrie soe hie. 

Now Chryste ye save, sayde ye fryare knave, 
Fire-botte forre ye Pryorie. 

I 

Thoue lyest! thoue lyest! thoue knavyshe preste, 
Thoue lyest untoe mee. 

Ye knycghte hee toke ye leatherne poke, 

Ande hys boare’s hede dydde espie, 

And stylle ye reke fro ye scotchedae cheke, 

Dydde seeme rychte savourie. 


Goddeswotte ! botte hadde ye seene ye fryare, 

Quithe his skynne of lividde hue, 

Quehenne ye knycghte drewe outte yerekynge snoutte, 
Ande floryshedde hys huntynge thewe; 

Gramercye, gramercye, nowe godde Syr Knycghte, 
Als ye Vyrgynne wylle mercye schewe. 


Botte ye knycghte hee bangedde ye fryare aboutte, 
Ande bette hys backe fulle sore ; 

And hee bette hym als hee rolledde onne ye swerde, 
Tvlle ye fryare dydde loudlie roare : 

Ne mote hee spare ye fryare maire, 

Y’anne Mahounde onne easterene shore.f 


Nowe tak ye yatte ye dogge offe ane moncke, 

Nowe tak ye yatte fro mee ; 

Ande awaie rodde ye knycghte, ynne grete delycghte, 
Atte hys fete offe flagellrie ; 


* There is an old picturesque fishing town, called 
Callercoats, in the direct road between the seat of the 
Delavals and Tynemouth abbey. 

t The whipping described in this ballad was per¬ 
formed within about three quarters of a mile from the 
entrance of the Abbey, within hearing and sight of the 
astonished “ halie monckes.” 


Atte quahatte mote ye fryare befalle; 

Forre theye seene ye dede fra ye Pryorie hede, 

Ande herde hym piteousse calle. 

Ye fryare hee laye ynne sare distraueghte, 

Al wrythynge ynne grymme dismaie, 

Eche leeshedde wounde spredde blode onne ye grende, 
And tyngedde ye daisie gaie : 

Wae fa’ ye dede, ande yere laye ye hede, 

Bothe reekynge als Welle mote theye. 

Ne worde hee spak, ne cryne colde mak, 

Quehenne ye pryore cam breathlesse nyghe ; 

Botte ye teares y’ranne fro ye halie manne, 

Als hee heavedde monie a syghe: 

Y’nne ye pryore wals redde offe ye savourie hede, 
Y’atte nere ye moncke dydde ly. 

Y’eune theye bore ye moncke toe ye Pryorie yatte, 
Ynne dolorousse steppe ande slowe. 

They vengeannee vowdde, ynne curses loude, 

Onne ye horsmanne wyghte I trowe ; 

Ye welkynne range wi yere yammerynges lange, 

Als ye cam ye Pryorie toe. 

A leache offe skylle, quithe meikle care. 

Ande herbes ande conjurie, 

Soone gav ye moncke hys wontedde sponke, 

Forre hys quyppes ande knaverie; 

Quehenne hee tould how ye knycghte, Syr DelavaTi* 
hvghte, 

Hadde donne ye b&tterie. 

• 

Botte woe forre thys knycghte offe hyghe degre. 

And greete als welle hee maie, 

Forre ye fryare y’wot hee batteredde and bruysdde, 
Toke ylle, als ye church menne saye, 

Ande ys surelie dede quythonten remede, 

Quithynne yere ande eke a daie. 

Farewelle toe y’re landes, Syr Delavalle bolde, 
Farewelle toe y’re castelles three, 

Y’ere gonne fro thye heyre, tho greiveste thoue saire 
Y’ere gonne toe ye Pryorie: 

Ande thoue moste thole a wollenne stole, 

Ande lacke thye libertie— 

Three lange lange yeres ynne dolefulle gyze, 

Ynne Tynemouthe Abbie praie, 

And monie a masse toe hevenwerde passe, 

Forre ye fryare yatte thou dyddst slaye : 

Thoue mayest loke oere ye sea ande wyshe toe bee 
frte, 

Botte ye pryore offe Tynemouthe saythe naye. 


* The nearest road from Delaval Castle to Tyne 
mouth Abbey is a fine sandy beach, beaten hard bv thf 
'easeless dash of the German Ocean wave 


301 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Quehenne thoue haste spente three lange lange yeres 
Toe ye halie lontle thoue moste hie, 

Thye falchyonne wyelde onne ye battelled fyelde, 
Gaynste ye paynimme chevalrie ; 

Three crescentes bryghte moste thoue Wynne vnue 
fyghte. 

Ere thoue wynnste thye dere countrie. 

Ande onne ye spotte quehere ye ruthless dede 
Ystayndde ye medowe grene, 

A1 fayre toe see ynne masonrie, 

Als talk* als ane oakenne treene, 

Thoue moste sette a stonne quithe a legende thereonne, 
Yatte ye murtherre yere hadde beene. 

Ye masses maiste gryevedde Syr Delavalle sore, 

Botte praye he moste ande maye, 

Hee thrummelldde hys bede, ande bente hys hede, 
Thoroughe ye nyhte ande thoroughe ye daye, 

Tylle ye three yeres oerre, hee lepte toe ye shore, 

Ande cryedde toe ye battelle avvaye I 

Hee doffedde hys stole offe woolenne coorse, 

Ande donnde ynne knycghtlye pryd*, 

Hys blade ande cuirasse. ande sayde ne mo masse, 
Quehyle hee crossedde ye byllowye tyd: 

Ne candle, ne roode, botte ye fyghtynge moode, 

VVals ye moode offe ye borderre syde. 

Soone soone myddst ye foes offe ye halie londe, 

| Quehere ye launces thyckestte grevve, 

I Wals Syr Delavalle seene, quithe hys brande soe kene, 
Onne hys stede soe stronge ande trewe; 

Ye Pagannes they felle, ande passdde toe helle, 
j Ande hee monie a Saracenne slewe. 

Ande hee soone fra ye rankes offe Saladynne bore 
Three crescentes off sylverre sheene, 

Ne paganae knycghte mote quithestonde hys myghte. 
Who foughtenne forre wyffe and wene; 

Saincte George, cryedde ye knycghte, ande Englande’s 
myghte, 

Orre a bedde nethe ye hyllocke grene. 

Gsllantlye rodde Syr Delavalle onne 
Quehere lethal woundes were gyvenne, 

Ande ye onnesettes brave, lyk a swepynge wave, 
Rolldde ye warriors off Chryste toe hevene : 

Botte forre eohe halie knycghte y’ slayne ynne fyghte, 
A hondredde fals hertes were ryvenne. 

Nowe brave Syr Delavalles penaunce wals donne, 

Hee hamewerde soughtenne hys waie ; 

<ro ye battel playne acrosse ye mayne, 

Toe fayre Englonndes wellcom baie; 

Toe see hys lone bryde, toe ye northe hee hyedde, 
Quitlioutenne stoppe orr si aye. 

* * * • * 

Ance maire ys merrye ye borderre londe, 

Harke thoroughe ye myddnyghte gale, 

Yebagpypes agayne playe a wasselk strayne, 
ftonde ronde flees ye joyaunce tale : 
slonie a joke offe ye fryare3 poke 
Y» nassedde o<*rre hylle ande dale 


Ye Ladye Delavalle ance maire smylde, 

Ande sange tylle herre wene onne herre knee, 

Ande pryedde herre knycghte ynne fonde delygh.d 
Quihile hee helde herre lovynglye : 

Ne gryevedde hee maire offe hys dolorres sayre, 
Tho’ stryppedde offe londe ande ffee. 

Atte Werkeworthe castelle, quilke proudlie lookes 
Oerre ye s-tormie northernne mayne. 

Ye Percye gretedde ye borderre knycghte, 

Quithe hys merryeste mynstrelle strayne: 
Throngedde wals ye hal, quithe nobles alle. 

Toe wellcom ye knycghte agayne. 

Nowe at thys daye quihile yeres rclle onne 
Ande ye knycghte dothe cauldlie ly, 

Ye stonne doth stande onne ye syiente londe 
Toe tellen toe strangeres nyghe. 

Yatte ane horrydde dede forre a pygge hys hede 
Dydde y’ere toe hevenwerdde crye. 


ON THE ABOVE LEGEND. 

To the Editor. 

The legend of “ Syr Delavalle and the 
Moncke ” is “ owre true a tale. ” The 
stone syr Delavalle was compelled to erect 
in commemoration of this “ horryd dede ” 
is (or rather the shattered remains of its 
shaft are) still lying close to a neat farm¬ 
house, called Monkhouse, supposed to be 
built on the identical spot on which the 
“ fiagellrie ” was effected, and is often bent 
over by the devout lovers of monkish an¬ 
tiquity. 

The poem was found amongst the papers 
of an ingenious friend, who took pleasure 
in collecting such rhymes; but as he has 
been dead many years, I have no means of 
ascertaining at what period it was written, 
or whether it was the original channel 
through which the story has come down to 
posterity. I have some confused recollec¬ 
tion, that I heard it stated my friend got 
this, and several similar ballads, from a 
very old man who resided at a romantic 
village, at a short distance from Tynemouth 
Priory, called “ Holywell.” It is possible 
that there may be some account of its source 
among my lamented friend’s papers, but as 
they are very multitudinous and in a con¬ 
fused mass, I have never had courage to 
look regularly through them. There are I 
several other poems of the like description, 
the labour of copying which I may be in¬ 
duced to undergo should I find that this is 
within the range of the Table Book. 

At. PH A 

London. April 14, 1827. 


302 








This sketch, in tne pocket-Dooit of an 
artist, suddenly startled recollection to the 
April of my life—the season of sunshine 
hopes, and stormy fears—when each hour 
j was a birth-time of thought, and every 
new scene was the birth-place of a new 
feeling. The drawing carried me back 
to an October morning in 1797, when I 
eagerly set off on an errand to Boughton- 
hill, near Canterbury, for the sake of seeing 
the country on that side of Chatham for the 
first time. The day was cloudy, with gales 
of wind. I reached Chatham-hill, and 
stood close to this sign, looking over the 
flood of the Medway to the Nore, intently 
peering for a further sea-view. Flashes of 
fire suddenly gleamed in the dim distance, 
and I heard the report of cannon. Until 
then, such sounds from the bosom ot the 
watery element were unknown to me, and 
they came upon my ear with indescribable 
solemnity. We were at war with France; 
and supposing there was a battle between 
two fleets off the coast, my heart beat high ; 
my thoughts were anxious, and my eyes 
strained with the hope of catching some¬ 
thing of the scene I imagined. The firing 
was from the fleet at the Nore, in expecta¬ 
tion of a royal review. The king was then 
oroceeding from Greenwich to Sheerness, 


in the royal yacht, attended by the lords oi 
the admiralty, to go on board the Dutch 
ships captured by lord Duncan, at the 
battle of Camperdown.* On my return to 
Chatham, the sign of “ the Star ” was sur¬ 
rounded by sailors, who, with their ship¬ 
mates inside the house, were drinking grog 
out of pewter-pots and earthen basins, and 
vociferating “ Rule Britannia.” 

The following year, on the evening of a 
glorious summer’s day, I found refuge in 
this house from the greatest storm I had i 
then seen. It came with gusts of wind 
and peals of thunder from the sea. Stand¬ 
ing at the bow-window, I watched the 
lightning sheeting the horizon, making 
visible the buried objects in the black 
gloom, and forking fearfully down, while 
the rain fell in torrents, and the trees bent 
before the furious tempest like rushes. The 
elements quickly ceased their strife, the 
moon broke out, aud in a few minute 
there w T as 

The spacious firmament on high, 

And all the blue ethereal sky 

And spangled heavens, a shining frame. 


* Owing to adverse winds, his majesty could iw>4 
get farther than the Hope. 


©n Chatham gill. 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


303 


X 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The “ Star’’ in war time was the constant 
scene of naval and military orgies, and 
therefore rather repelled than courted other 
visitants. It is now a respectable inn and 
a stage for the refreshment of coach tra¬ 
vellers. During a hasty trip to Canterbury 
a short time ago, Mr. Samuel Williams 
stopped there long enough to select its 
sign, and the character of the view beyond 
it, as “ a bit” for his pencil, which I, in 
turn, seized on, and he has engraved it 
as a decoration for the Table Book. 

My readers were instructed at the outset 
of the work that, if they allowed me to 
please myself, we might all be pleased in turn. 
If I am sometimes not their most faith¬ 
ful, I am never otherwise than their most 
sincere servant; and therefore I add that 
I am not always gratified by what grati¬ 
fies generally, and I have, in this instance, 
presented a small matter of my particular 
liking. I would have done better if I 
could. There are times when my mind 
fails and breaks down suddenly—when I 
can no more think or write than a cripple 
can run : at other times it carries me off 
from what I ought to do, and sets me to 
something the very negative to what I wish. 
I then become, as it were, possessed ; an 
untamable spirit has its will of me in spite 
of myself:—what I have omitted, or done, 

in the present instance, illustrates the fact. 

* 


GREENGROCERS’ DEVICES. 

For the Table Book. 

Dear Sir,—In my wanderings through the 
metropolis at this season, I observe an 
agreeable and refreshing novelty, an inge¬ 
nious contrivance to make mustard and 
cress seeds grow in pleasant forms over 
vessels and basketwork, covered on their 
exterior with wet flannel, wherein the seeds 
are deposited, and take root and grow, to 
adorn the table or recess. The most curi¬ 
ous which struck me, consisted of a “ hedge¬ 
hog ”—a doll’s head looking out of its 
vernally-growing clothes—a “ Jack in the 
green ’ —a Dutch cheese in <4 a bower ”— 
“ Paul Pry ’’—and “ Pompey’s pillar.” 

If greengrocers proceed in these devices, 
their ingenuity may suggest a rivalry of 
signs of a more lasting nature, suitable to 
.he shop windows of other tradesmen. 

Yours, truly, 

April 30, 1827. J. R. 


(garnrfe plaps. 

No. XVII. 

[From the “ Parliament of Bees;” further 
Extracts.] 

Oberon. Flora, a Bee. 

Ober. A female Bee ! thy character ? 

Flo. Flora, Oberon’s Gardener, 

Huswive both of herbs and flowers, 

To strew thy shrine, and trim thy bowers, 

With violets, roses, eglantine, 

Daffadown, and blue columbine. 

Hath forth the bosom of the Spring 
Pluckt this nosegay, which I bring 
From Eleusis (mine own shrine,) 

To thee, a Monarch all divine ; 

And, as true impost of my grove. 

Present it to great Oberon’s love. 

Ober. Honey dews refresh thy meads. 

Cowslips spring with golden heads ; 

July-flowers and carnations wear 
Leaves double-streakt, with maiden hair ; 

May thy lilies taller grow. 

Thy violets fuller sweetness owe; 

And last of all, may Phoebus love 
To kiss thee : and frequent thy grove 
As thou in service true shalt be 
Unto our crown and royalty. 


Oberon holds a Court , in which he sen - 
tences the IVasp, the Drone, and the Hum¬ 
ble-bee, for divers offences against the 
Commonwealth of Bees. 

Oberon. Prorex, his Viceroy ; and other 
Bees. 

Pro. And whither must these flies be sent ? 

Ober. To Everlasting Banishment. 

Underneath two hanging rocks 
(Where babbling Echo sits and mocks 
Poor travellers) there lies a grove, 

With whom the Sun’s so out of love. 

He never smiles on’t: pale Despair 
Calls it his Monarchal Chair. 

Fruit half-ripe hang rivell’d and shrunk 
On broken arms, torn from the trunk t 
The moorish pools stand empty, left 
By water, stol’n by cunning theft 
To hollow banks, driven out by snakes. 

Adders, and newts, that man these lakes: 

The mossy leaves, half-swelter’d, serv’d 
As beds for vermin hunger sterv’d : 

The woods are yew-trees, bent and broke 
By whirlwinds ; here and there an oak. 

Half-cleft with thunder. To this grove 
We banish them. 

Culprits. Some mercy, Jove ! 

Ober. You should have cried so in your youth. 
When Chronos and his daughter Truth 
Sojourn’d among you ; when you spent 


304 








TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


Whole years in riotous merriment. 
Thrusting poor Bees out of their hives, 
Seizing both honey, wax, and lives. 

\ on should have call’d for mercy when 
You impaled common blossoms; when, 

! Instead of giving poor Bees food, 

You ate their flesh, and drank their blood. 
Fairies, thrust ’em to their fate. 


Oberon then confirms Prorex in his 
Government ; and breaks up Session. 


Obcr. 


now adieu! 


Prorex shall again renew 

His potent reign : the massy world, 

; Which in glittering orbs is hurl’d 
About the poles, be Lord of: we 
Only reserve our Royalty— 

Field Music.* Oberon must away ; 
For us our gentle Fairies stay: 

In the mountains and the rocks 
We’ll hunt the Grey, and little Fox 
Who destroy our lambs at feed, 

And spoil the nests where turtles feed. 


[From “ David and Bethsabe,” a Sacred 
Drama, by George Pee), 1599.J 

Nathan. David. 

Nath. Thus Nathan saith unto his Lord the Ring: 
There were two men both dwellers in one town ; 

! The one was mighty, and exceeding rich 
In oxen, sheep, and cattle of the field ; 

The other poor, having nor ox, nor calf. 

Nor other cattle, save one little lamb. 

Which he had bought, and nourish’d by h's hand. 

And it grew up, and fed with him and his. 

And ate and drank as he and his were wont. 

And in his bosom slept, and was to live 
j As was liis daughter or his dearest child.— 

I There came a stranger to this wealthy man, 

' And he refused and spared to take his own, 

! Or of his store to dress or make his meat, 

But took the poor man’s sheep, partly poor man’s 
store; 

And drest it for this stranger in his house. 

What, tell me, shall be done to him for this ? 

Dav. Now, as the Lord doth live, this wicked man 
Is judged, and shall become the child of death ; 
Fourfold to the poor man he shall restore. 

That without mercy took his lamb away. 

Nath. Thou art the man, and thou hast judof.d 

THYSELF.- 

David, thus saith the Lord thy God by me : 

I thee anointed King in Israel, 

And saved thee from the tyranny of Saul; 

Thy master’s house I gave thee to possess, 

His wives unto thy bosom I did give, 


The hum of Bees. 


And Juda and Jerusalem withal; 

And might, thou know’st, if this had been too smau, 
Have given thee more. 

Wherefore then hast thou gone so far astray, 

And hast done evil, and sinned in my sight ? 

Urias thou hast killed with the sword, 

Yea with the sword of the uncircumcised 
Thou hast him slain ; wherefore from this day forth 
The sword shall never go from thee and thine . 
hor thou hast ta’en this Hithite’s wife to thee, 
Wherefore behold I will, saith Jacob’s God, 

In thine own house stir evil up to thee, 

^ ea I before thy face will take thy wives. 

And give them to thy neighbour to possess. 

This shall be done to David in the day. 

That Israel openly may see thy shame. 

Dav. Nathan, I have against the Lord, I have 
Sinned, oh sinned grievously, and lo! 

From heaven’s throne doth David throw 7 himself. 

And groan and grovel to the gates of hell. 

Nath. David, stand up; thus saith the Lord by me, 
David the King shall live, for he hath seen 
The true repentant sorrow of thy heart; 

But for thou hast in this misdeed of thine 

Stirr’d up the enemies of Israel 

To triumph and blaspheme the Lord of Hosts, 

And say, “ He set a wicked man to reign 
Over his loved people and his tribes ;” 

The Child shall surely die, that erst was bom, 

His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn. 

Dav. How just is Jacob’s God in all his works I 
But must it die, that David loveth so ? 

O that the mighty one of Israel 

Nill change his doom, and says the Babe must die 

Mourn, Israel, and weep in Sion gates ; 

Wither, ye cedar trees of Lebanon ; 

Ye sprouting almonds with your flowing tops, 

Droop, drown, and drench in Hebron’s fearful streams: 
The Babe must die, that was to David born, 

His Mother’s sin, his Kingly Father’s scorn. 

c. L. 


©issertations on ©oomsiap. 

For the Table Book. 

§ I. Name. 

Doomsday Book, one of the most ancien 
records of England, is the register from 
which judgment was to be given upon the 
value, tenure, and services of lands therein 
described. 

Other names by which it appears tc 
have been known were Rotulus Wintonis, 
Scriptura Thesauri Regis, Liber de Win- 
tonia, and Liber Regis. Sir Henry Spel- 
man adds, Liber Judieiarius, Censualis 
Anoliae, Angliae Notitia et Lustralio, and 
Rotulus Regis. 


305 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


§ II. Date. 

The exact time of the Conqueror’s un- 
aertaking the Survey, is differently stated 
by historians. The Red Book of the Ex¬ 
chequer seems to have been erroneously 
quoted, as fixing the time of entrance upon 
it in 1080 ; it being merely stated in that 
record, that the work was undertaken at a 
time subsequent to the total reduction of 
the island to William’s authority. It is 
evident that it was finished in 1086. 
Matthew Paris, Robert of Gloucester, the 
Annals of Waverley, and the Chronicle of 
Bermondsey, give the year 1083, as the 
date of the record ; Henry of Huntingdon, 
in 1084; the Saxon Chronicle in 1085; 
Bromton, Simeon of Durham, Florence of 
Worcester, the Chronicle of Mailros, Roger 
Hovedon, Wilkes, and Hanningford, in 
1086; and the Ypodigma Neustriae and 
Diceto in 1087. 

The person and property of Odo, bishop 
of Bayeux, are said to have been seized 
by the Conqueror in 1082. 

§ III. Origin and Object. 

Ingulphus affirms, that the Survey was 
made in imitation of the policy of Alfred, 
who, at the time he divided the kingdom 
into counties, hundreds, and tithings, had 
an Inquisition taken and digested into a 
Register, which was called, from the place 
in which it was reposited, the Roll of Win¬ 
chester. The formation of such a Survey, 
however, in the time of Alfred, may be 
fairly doubted, as we have only a solitary 
authority for its existence. The separation 
of counties also is known to have been a 
division long anterior to the time of Alfred. 
Bishop Kennet tells us, that Alfred’s Regis¬ 
ter had the name of Domeboc, from which 
the name of Doomsday Booh was only a 
corruption. 

Dom-boc is noticed in the laws of Ed¬ 
ward the elder, and more particularly 
in those of ^Ethelstan, as the code of Saxon 
laws. 

§ IV. Mode of Execution. 

For the adjusting of this Survey, certain 
commissioners, called the king’s justicia¬ 
ries, were appointed inquisitors : it appears, 
upon the oaths of the sheriffs, the lords 
of each manor the presbyters of every 
church, the reeves of every hundred, the 
bailiffs, and six villans of every village, 
were to inquire into tne name of the place, 
who held it in the time of Edward (the 
Confessor,) who was the present possessor, 
how many hides in the manor, how many 
: carrucates in demesne, how many homa¬ 


gers, how many villans, how many cotarn, 
how many servi, what freemen, how many 
tenants in socage, what quantity of wood, 
how many meadows and pasture, what 
mills and fish-ponds, how much added or 
taken away, what the gross value in king 
Edward’s time, what the present value, and 
how much each free-man or soch-man 
had or has. All this was to be triply esti¬ 
mated ; first, as the estate was in the time 
of the Confessor; then, as it was bestowed 
by king William; and, thirdly, as its value 
stood at the formation of the Survey. The 
jurors were , moreover , to state whether 
any advance could be made in the value. 
The writer of the Saxon Chronicle, with j 
some degree of asperity, informs us, that 
not a hyde or yardland, not an ox, cow, or 
hog, were omitted in the census. 

PRINCIPAL MATTERS NOTICED IN 
THIS RECORD. 

§ I. Persons. 

(1.) After the bishops and abbats, the ! 
highest persons in rank were the Norman 
barons. 

(2.) Taini, tegni, teigni, teini, or teinni, 
are next to be mentioned, because those 
of the highest class were in fact nobility, 
or barons of the Saxon times. Archbishops, 
bishops, and abbats, as well as the great 
barons, are also called thanes. 

(3.) Vavassores, in dignity, were next to 
the barons, and higher thanes. Selden says, 
they either held of a mesne lord, and not 
immediately of the king, or at least of the 
king as of an honour or manor and not 
in chief. The grantees, says sir Henry 
Spelman, that received their estates from 
the barons or capitanei, and not from the 
king, were called valvasores, (a degree 
above knights.') 

(4.) The aloarii , alodarii, or alodiarii, 
tenants in allodium, (a free estate “ pos- 
sessio libera.”) The dinges mentioned, 
tom i. fol. 298, are supposed to have been 
persons of the same description. 

(5.) Militcs. The term miles appears 
not to have acquired a precise meaning at 
the time of the Survey, sometimes im¬ 
plying a soldier, or mere military servant, 
and sometimes a person of higher distinc¬ 
tion. 

(6.) Liberi Homines appears to have been 
a term of considerable latitude ; signifying 
not merely the freeman, or freeholders of a 
manor, but occasionally including all the 
ranks of society already mentioned, and 
indeed all persons holding in military 
tenure. “ The ordinary freemen, befim 


306 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


the conquest,” says Kelham, “ and at the 
time of compiling Doomsday, were under 
jthe protection of great men; but what 
their quality was, further than that their 
persons and blood were free, that is, that 
they were not nativi, or bondmen, it will 
give a knowing man trouble to discover to 
us.” These freemen are called in the 
Survey liberi homines comendati. They ap¬ 
pear to have placed themselves, by volun¬ 
tary homage, under this protection : their 
lord or patron undertook to secure their 
estates and persons, and for this protection 
and security they paid to him an annual 
stipend, or performed some annual service. 
Some appear to have sought a patron or 
protector, for the sake of obtaining their 
freedom only ; such the liberi homines co- 
mendatione tantnm may be interpreted. 
According to the laws of the Conqueror, a 
quiet residence of a year and a day, upon 
the king’s demesne lands, would enfran¬ 
chise a villan who had fled from his lord. 
j“ Item si servi permanserint sine ealumnia 
per annum et diem in civitatibus nostris vel 
burgis in muro vallatis, vel in castris nos¬ 
tris, a die ilia liberi afficiuntur et liberi a 
iugo servitutis suce sunt in perpetnum. The 
commendati dimidii were persons who de¬ 
pended upon two protectors, and paid half 
to one and half to the other. Sub commen¬ 
dati were under the command of those 
who were themselves depending upon some 
superior lord. Sub commendati dimidii 
were those who were under the commendati 
dimidii, and had two patrons or protectors, 
and the same as they had. Liberi homines 
integri were those who were under the full 
protection of one lord, in contradistinction 
to the liberi homines dimidii. Commendatio 
sometimes signified the annual rent paid 
for the protection. Liberi homines ad nul- 
lam firmam pertinentes were those who 
held their lands independent of any lord. 
Of others it is said, “ qui remanent in manu 
regis.” In a few entries of the Survey, we 
have liberep femincc, and one or two of 
l iberce femince commendatce. 

(7.) Sochmanni , or socmens, were those 
nferior landowners who had lands in the 
oc or franchise of a great baron; privileged 
Allans, who, though their tenures were 
absolutely copyhold, yet had an interest 
| equal to a freehold. 

(8.) Of this description of tenantry also 
I were the rachenistres, or radchenistres, who 
appear likewise to have been called rad- 
manni , or radmans. It appears that some 
of the radchenistres, like the sochmen, 
were less free than others. Dr. Nash con¬ 
jectured that the radmanni and radchenistres 


were probably a kind of freemen who 
served on horseback. Rad-cniht is usually 
interpreted by our glossarists equestris 
homo sive miles, and Rabhejre equestris 
ex ercitus. 

(9.) Villani. The clearest notion of the 
tenure of villani is probably to be obtained 
fiom sir W. Blackstone’s Commentaries. 
“ With regard to folk-land,” says he, “ or 
estates held in villenage, this was a species 
of tenure neither strictly Feodal, Norman, 
nor Saxon, but mixed or compounded of 
them all; and which also, on account of 
the heriots that usually attend it, may seem 
to have somewhat Danish in its composi¬ 
tion. Under the Saxon government, there 
were, as sir William Temple speaks, a sort 
of people in a condition of downright ser¬ 
vitude, used and employed in the most 
servile works, and belonging, both they 
and their children, and their effects, to the 
lord of the soil, like the rest of the cattle 
or stock upon it. These seem to have been 
those who held what was called the folk- 
land, from which they were removable at 
the lord’s pleasure. On the arrival of the 
Normans here, it seems not improbable 
that they, who w r ere strangers to any other 
than a feodal state, might give some sparks 
of enfranchisement to such wretched per¬ 
sons as fell to their share, by admitting 
them, as well as others, to the oath of 
fealty, which conferred a right of protec¬ 
tion, and raised the tenant to a kind of 
estate superior to downright slavery, but 
inferior to every other condition. This they 
called villenage, and the tenants villeins; 
either from the word vilis, or else, as sir 
Edward Coke tells us, a villa; because 
they lived chiefly in villages, and were em¬ 
ployed in rustic works of the most sordid 
kind. They could not leave their lord 
without his permission; but if they ran 
away, or were purloined from him, might 
be claimed and recovered by action, like 
beasts or other chatels. The villeins could 
acquire no property either in lands or 
goods; but if he purchased either, the lord 
might enter upon them, oust the villein, 
and seize them to his own use, unless he 
contrived to dispose of them before the lord 
had seized them ; for the lord had then 
lost his opportunity. The law however 
protected the persons of villeins, as king’s 
subjects, against atrocious injuries of the 
lord.” 

(10.) Bordarii of the Survey appear at 
various times to have recei ved a great variety 
of interpretations. Lord Coke calls them 
“ boors, holding a little house, with some 
land of husbandry, bigger than a cottage.” 


307 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Some have considered them as cottagers, 
taking their name from living on the bor¬ 
ders of a village or manor; but this is suffi¬ 
ciently refuted by Doomsday itself, where 
we find them not only mentioned generally 
among the agricultural occupiers of land, 
but in one instance as “ circa aulam ma- 
nentes,” dwelling near the manor-house ; 
and even residing in some of the larger 
towns. Bojib. bishop Kennett notices, 
was a cottage. The cos-cets, corcez, cozets, 
or cozez, were apparently the same as the 
cottarii and cotmanni; cottagers who paid 
a certain rent for very small parcels of land. 

(11.) j Bures, buri, or burs, are noticed 
in the first volume of Doomsday itself, as 
synonymous with coliberti. The name of 
coliberti was unquestionably derived from 
the Roman civil law. They are described 
by lord Coke as tenants in free socage by 
free rent. Cowel says, they were certainly 
a middle sort of tenants, between servile 
and free, or such as held their freedom of 
tenure under condition of such works and 
services, and were therefore the same 
landholders whom we meet with (in after¬ 
times) under the name of conditionales. 

Such are the different descriptions of 
tenantry, and their rights more particularly 
noticed in Doomesday. 

(12.) Servi. It is observed by bishop 
Kennett, and by Morant after him, in his 
History of Essex, that the servi and villani 
are, all along in Doomsday, divided from 
each other; but that no author has fixed 
the exact distinction between them. The 
servi, bishop Kennett adds, might be the 
pure villanes, and villanes in gross, who, 
without any determined tenure of land, 
were, at the arbitrary pleasure of the lord, 
appointed to servile works, and received 
their wages and maintenance at the discre¬ 
tion of the lord. The other were of a 
superior degree, and were called villani, 
because they were villae or glebse adscripti, 
i. e. held some cottage and lands, for 
which they were burthened with such 
stated servile works as their lords had an¬ 
nexed to them. The Saxon name for ser- 
vus was €jn«. The ancillae of the Survey 
were females, under circumstances nearly 
similar to the servi. These were disposed 
of in the same way, at the pleasure of the 
lord. The laws, however, protected their 
chastity; they could not be violated with 
impunity, even by their owners. 

(13.) Censarii, censores, or censorii, 
were also among the occupiers of land. 
They appear to have been free persons, 
isecum reddentes. 

(14.) Porcarii. Although in one or two 


instances in Doomsday Survey mere swine¬ 
herds seem to have been intended by Por¬ 
carii, yet in the generality of entries in 
which they are mentioned, they appear in 
the rank of free occupiers, who rented the 
privilege of feeding pigs in the woodlands, 
some for money, and some for payments in 
kind. 

(15.) The homines, who are so fre¬ 
quently mentioned, included all sorts of 
feudatory tenants. They claimed a privi- ; 
lege of having their causes and persons 
tried only in the court of their lord, to 
whom they owed the duty of submission, 
and professed dependance. 

(16.) Angli and Anglici occur frequently 
in the Survey among the under tenants, 
holding in different capacities. 

(17.) Among the offices attached to 
names, we find accipitrarii or ancipitrarii, 
arbalistarii or balistarii arcarii biga, came- 
rarii campo, constabularius, cubicularius, 
dapifer, dispensator, equarius, forestarii 
huscarli ingeniator, interpres, lagemanni, 
Latinarius, legatus liberatores marescal, 
or marescalcus medici, monitor, pincerna 
recter navis regis, scutularius, stalre, stir- 
man or stiremannus regis, thesaurarius and 
venatores of a higher description. 

(18.) Offices of an inferior description, 
and trades, are aurifabri, carpentarii, ce- 
metarii, cervisiarii, coci, coqui, or koci, 
fabri, ferrarii, figu'i fossarii, fossator, grane- 
tarius, hostarius, inguardi, joculator regis, 
joculatrix, lanatores, loricati, lorimarius, 
loripes, mercatores, missatici, monetarii,par- 
cher, parm’t piscatores, pistores, portarius 
potarii, or poters, prebendarii prefecti, pre- 
positi salinarii servientes, sutores, tonsor, 
and vigilantes homines. Among eccle¬ 
siastical offices, we have Capicerius, iEcel. 
Winton the sacrist, and Matricularias, 
iEcel. S. Johannis Cestrise. Buzecarts were 
mariners. Hospites, occupiers of houses. 

Among the assistants in husbandry, we 
find apium custos, avantes homines, ber- 
quarii bovarii caprarum mediator daia 
granatarius mellitarii, mercennarius, por¬ 
carii, and vacarius. S. R. F. 


I. ANCIENT TENURE. 

II. MODERN ANECDOTE. 

For the Table Book. 

Tenure of the ancient Manor of Bie- 
sington Priory, the Seat of Thomas 
Carr Rider, Esq. 

The manor of Bilsington inferior was 
held in grand sergeantry in the reign of 
Edward III. by the service of presenting 
three maple cups at the king’s coronation 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


and, at the time of the coronation of 
Charles II., by the additional service of 
carrying the last dish of the second course 
to the king’s table. The former service was 
performed by Thomas llider, who was 
knighted (Mos pro Lege) by his late 
majesty George III., when the king, on re¬ 
ceiving the maple cups from the lord of 
the manor, turned to the mayor of Oxford, 
who stood at his right hand, and, having 
received from him for his tenure of that 
city a gold cup and cover, gave him these 
three cups in return. 


Anecdote of the illustrious Wash¬ 
ington AND THE CELEBRATED ADMIRAL 
Vernon, Uncle to the late Earl of 
Shipbrook. 

When the admiral was attacking Porto 
Bello, with his six ships only, as is de¬ 
scribed on the medal struck on the occasion, 
he observed a fine young man in appear¬ 
ance, who, with the most intrepid courage, 
attended with the most perfect calmness, 
was always in that part of the ship which 
was most engaged. After the firing had 
ceased, he sent his captain to request he 
would attend upon him, which he imme¬ 
diately obeyed ; and the admiral entering 
into conversation, discovered by his an¬ 
swers and observations that he possessed 
more abilities than usually fall to the lot of 
mankind in general. Upon his asking his 
name, the young man told him it was 
George Washington ; and the admiral, on 
his return home, strongly recommended 
him to the attention of the admiralty. This 
great man, when he built his house in 
America, out of gratitude to his first bene¬ 
factor, named it “ Mount Vernon,” and at 
this moment it is called so. 


Zoologp. 

I. THE KING’S OSTRICH. 

II. THE HORSE ECLIPSE. 

Mr. Joshua Brookes, the eminent anato¬ 
mist, gave a lecture on Wednesday evening, 
the 2f>th of April, 1827, at the house of 
the Zoological Society, in Bruton-street, on 
the body of an ostrich which his majesty 
had presented to the society. The lecture 
was attended by lord Auckland, lord Stan¬ 
ley, Dr. Biikbeck, and several other noble¬ 
men and gentlemen distinguished for their 
devotion to the interests of science. The 
ostrich, which was a female, and had been 
presented to his majesty about two years 
before by colonel Denham, had been kept 
at Windsor, and had died about three weeks 
previous to the lecture, of obesity, a disease 


which frequently shortens the lives of wild 
animals of every species, when attempts 
are made to domesticate them. 

Mr. Brookes commenced by observing, 
that when he retired from the practice of 
anatomy, he did not expect to appear again 
before the public; but, as the noble direc¬ 
tors of the society had honoured him by 
considering that his services might be of 
some use in forwarding that most interest¬ 
ing science zoology, he had only to remark 
that he felt great pride in adding his mite of 
information to the mass with which the 
society was furnished from other sources 
The period had arrived, when the science of 
natural history bad fair to reach a height in 
this country, which would enable us to 
rival the establishments founded for its pro¬ 
motion abroad. The founder of the study 
of zoology in England was the great John 
Hunter; and he was followed by indivi¬ 
duals well known to the scientific world, 
in Edinburgh, Gottingen, and Amsterdam. 
In the latter city, the science of zoology 
was pursued with great success by professor 
Camper, who, when he was in London, in¬ 
vited him (Mr. Brookes) and a professional 
friend to breakfast, and treated them with 
bones, consisting of the teeth of rats, mice, 
and deer, served up in dishes made out of 
the rock of Gibraltar. The fact was, that 
the professor had, shortly before, explored 
this celebrated rock, in search of bones, for 
the purposes of comparative anatomy. 
The learned lecturer then entered into a 
very minute account of the various peculia¬ 
rities of the ostrich, and described with 
great clearness the organs by which this ex¬ 
traordinary bird was enabled to travel with 
its excessive speed. This peculiarity he 
ascribed to the power of the muscles, which 
pass from the pelvis to the foot, and 
cause the ostrich to stand in a vertical 
position, and not like other birds resembling 
it, on the toes. 

For proof of the intimate relation be¬ 
tween muscular power and extraordinary 
swiftness, Mr. Brookes mentioned that the 
chief professor of the Veterinary College 
had informed him, that upon dissecting the 
body of the celebrated racer Eclipse, one of 
the fleetest horses ever seen in this kingdom, 
it was found that he possessed muscles oi 
unparalleled size. The lecturer here pro¬ 
duced an anatomical plate of Eclipse, foi 
the purpose of displaying his extraordinar) 
muscular power, and observed, that if hi 
had not told his hearers that it represented 
a race-horse, from the size of the muscle? 
they might conclude, that he was showim 
them the plate of a cart-horse.* 

* The Tide#. 


309 


















This engraving is from a drawing, in a 
treatise “on the proportions of Eclipse: 
hy Mr. Charles Vial de Saint Bel, professor 
of the Veterinary College of London, &c.” 
4to. 1791. Mr. Saint Bel’s work was writ¬ 
ten with a view to ascertain the mechanical 
causes which conspire to augment the ve¬ 
locity of the gallop; and no single race¬ 
horse could have beeu selected as a speci¬ 
men of speed and strength equal to Eclipse. 
According to a calculation by the writer 
•ust mentioned, Eclipse, free of all weight, 
and galloping at liberty in his greatest 
speed, could cover an extent of twenty-five 
feet at each complete action on the gailop; 
and could repeat this action twice and one 
third in each second of time: consequently, 
by employing without reserve all his natural 
and mechanical faculties on a straight line, 
he could run nearly fo nr miles in the space 
of six minutes and two seconds. 

Eclipse was preeminent above all other 


horses, from having ran repeated races 
without ever having been beat. The me- 
ohanism of his frame was almost perfect ; 
and yet he was neither handsome, nor well 
proportioned. Compared with a table of 
the geometrical portions of the horse, in 
use at the veterinary schools of France, 
Eclipse measured in height one seventh 
more than he ought—his neck was one 
third too long—a perpendicular line falling 
from the stifle of a horse should touch the 
toe ; this line in Eclipse touched the ground, | 
at the distance of half a head before the! 
toe—the distance from the elbow to the bend 
of the knee should be the same as from 
the bend of the knee to the ground ; the ; 
former, in Eclipse, was two parts of a head 
longer than the latter. These were some of 
the remarkable differences between the 
presumed standard of proportions in a w r ell- 
formed horse, and the horse of the greatest 
celebrity ever bred in England. 


I'Hisl TABLE LUUix. 


310 





































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The excellence of Eciipse in speed, 
blood, pedigree, and progeny, will be trans¬ 
mitted, perhaps, to the end of time. He 
was bred by the former duke of Cumber- 
land, and, being foaled during the “ great 
eclipse,” was named “ Eclipse’’ by the 
duke in consequence. His royal highness, 
however, did not survive to witness the very 
great performances he himself had pre¬ 
dicted ; for, when a yearling, Eclipse was 
disposed of by auction, with the rest of the 
stud, and a remarkable circumstance at¬ 
tended his sale. Mr. Wildman, a sporting 
gentleman, arrived after the sale had com¬ 
menced, and a few lots had been knocked 
down. Producing his watch, he insisted 
that the sale had begun before the time ad¬ 
vertised. The auctioneer remonstrated; 
Mr. Wildman was not to be appeased, and 
demanded that the lots already sold should 
be put up again. The dispute causing a 
loss of time, as well as a scene of confusion, 
the purchasers said, if there was any lot 
already sold,which he had an inclination to, 
rather than retard progress, it was at his 
service. Eclipse was the only lot he had 
fixed upon, and the horse was transferred 
to him at the price of forty-six guineas. 
At four, or five years old, Captain O’Kelly 
purchased him of Mr. Wildman for seven¬ 
teen hundred guineas. He remained in 
Col. O’Kelly’s possession, winning king’s 
plates and every thing he ran for, until the 
death of his owner, who deemed him so 
valuable, as to insure the horse’s life for 
several thousand guineas. He bequeathed 
him to his brother, Philip O’Kelly, Esq. 
The colonel’s decease was in November, 
1787. Eclipse survived his old master 
little more than a year, and died on the 
27th of February, 178-9, in the twenty-sixth 
year of his age. His heart weighed 13lbs. 
The size of this organ was presumed to 
have greatly enabled him to do what he did 
in speed and strength. He won more 
matches than any horse of the race-breed 
was ever known to have done. He was at 
last so worn out, as to have been unable to 
stand, and about six months before his 
death was conveyed, in a machine con¬ 
structed on purpose, from Epsom to Canons, 
where he breathed his last. 

Colonel Dennis O’Kelly, the celebrated 
owner of Eclipse, amassed an immense 
fortune by gambling and the turf, and pur¬ 
chased the estate of Canons, near Edgware, 
which was formerly possessed by the duke 
of Chandos, and is still remembered as the 
site of the most magnificent mansion and 
establishment of modern times. The colo¬ 
nel’s training stables and paddocks, at 


another estate near Epsom, were supposed 
to be the best appointed in England. 

Besides O’Kelly’s attachment to Eclipse, 
he had an affection to a parrot, which is 
famed for having been the best bred bird 
that ever came to this country. He gave 
fifty guineas for it at Bristol, and paid the 
expenses of the woman who brought it up 
to town. It not only talked what is usually 
termed “ every thing,” but sang with great 
correctness a variety of tunes, and beat 
time as he sang; and if perchance he mis¬ 
took a note in the tune, he returned to the 
bar wherein the mistake arose, and cor¬ 
rected himself, still beating the time with 
the utmost exactness. He sang any tune 
desired, fully understanding the request 
made. The accounts of this bird are so ex¬ 
traordinary, that, to those who had not seen 
and heard the bird, they appeared fabulous. 


THE EVENING LARK. 

For the Table Book. 

I love thee better at this hour, when rest 
Is shadowing earth, than e’en the nightingale: 

The loudness of thy song that in the morn 
Rang over heaven, the day has softened down 
To pensive music. 

In the evening, the body relaxed by the 
toil of the day, disposes the mind to quiet¬ 
ness and contemplation. The eye, dimmed 
by close application to books or business, 
languishes for the greenness of the fields: 
the brain, cloud-ed by the smoke and va¬ 
pour of close rooms and crowded streets, 
droops for the fragrance of fresh breezes, 
and sweet smelling flowers. 

Summer eometh. 

The bee hummeth. 

The grass springeth, 

The bird singeth. 

The flower groweth, 

And man knoweth 
The time is come 
When he may rove 
Thro’ vale and grove, 

No longer dumb. 

There he may hear sweet voices. 

Borne softly on the gale ; 

There he may have rich choices 
Of songs that never fail; 

The lark, if he be cneerfui, 

Above his head shall tower; 

And the nightingale, if fearful. 

Shall soothe him from the bower 


311 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


'Jt red his eye with study, 

If paie with care his cheek, 

'lo make them bright and ruddy, 

The green hills let him seek. 

The quiet that it needeth 
His mind shall there obtain ; 

And relief from care, that feedeth 
Alike on heart and brain. 

Urged by this feeling, I rambled along 
the Old Kent Road, making my way 
through the Saturnalian groups, collected 
by that mob-emancipating-time Easter 
Monday; wearied with the dust, and the 
exclamations of the multitude, I turned 
down the lane leading to the fields, near 
the place wherein the fair of Peckham is 
held, and sought for quietness in their 
greenness—and found it not. Instead of 
verdure, there were rows of dwellings of 
i “ plain brown brick,” and a half-formed road, 
from whence the feet of man and horse im¬ 
pregnated the air with stifling atoms or 
vitrified dust. Proceeding over the llye, 

up the lane at the side of Forest-hill, I 
* t ' 
mund the solitude I needed. The sun was 

>ust setting; his parting glance came from 
between the branches of the trees, like the 
mild light of a lover’s eye, from her long 
dark lashes, when she receives the adieu of 
her beloved, and the promise of meeting 
on the morrow. The air was cool and fitful, 
playing with the leaves, as not caring to 
stir them; and as I strayed, the silence 
was broken by the voice of a bird—it was 
the tit-lark. I recognised his beautiful 
“ weet ” and “ fe-er,” as he dropped from 
the poplar among the soft grass; and I lin¬ 
gered near the wood, in the hope of hear¬ 
ing the nightingale—but he had not arrived, 
or was disposed to quiet. Evening closed 
over me : the hour came 

When darker shades around us thrown 
Give to thought a deeper tone. 

Retracing my steps, I reached that field 
which stretches from the back of the Rose¬ 
mary-branch to the canal; darkness was 
veiling the earth, the hum >1 the multitude 
was faintly audible ; above it, high in the 
cool and shadowy air, rose the voice of a 
sky-lark, who had soared to take a last look 
at the fading day, singing his vespers. 
It was a sweeter lay than his morning, or 
mid-day carol—more regular and less ar¬ 
dent—divested of the fervour and fire of 
his noontide song—its hurried loudness 
and shrill tones. The softness of the pre¬ 
sent melody suited the calm and gentle 
hour. I listened on, and imagined it was 
a bird I had heard in the autumn of last 
year: I recollected the lengthy and well- 


timed music—the “ cheer che-er,’ a weet, 
weet, che-er ”—“ we-et, weet, cheer”— 
<• che-er ”—“ weet, weet ”—“ cheer, weet, 
weet.” I still think it to have been the 
very bird of the former season. Since then 
he had seen 

The greenness of the spring, and all its flowers ; 

The ruddiness of summer and its fruits ; 

And cool and sleeping streams, and shading bowers 

The sombre brown of autumn, that best suits 
His leisure hours, whose melancholy mind 
Is calm’d with list’ning to the moaning wind. 

And watching sick leaves take their silent way, 

On viewless wings, to death and to decay. 

He had survived them, and had evaded the 
hawk in the cloud, and the snake in the 
grass. I felt an interest in this bird, for 
his lot had been like mine. The ills of 
life—as baleful to man, as the bird of prey 
and the invidious reptile to the weakest 
of the feathered race—had assailed me, and 
yet I had escaped. The notes in the air grew 
softer and fainter—I dimly perceived the 
flutter of descending wings—one short, 
shrill cry finished the song—darkness 
covered the earth—and I again sought 
human habitations, the abodes of carking 
cares, and heart-rending jealousies. 

S. It. J. 

April 16, 1827. 


THE VOICE OF SPRING. 

I come, I come ! ye have call’d me long; 

I come o’er the mountains with light and song! 

Ye may trace my steps o’er the wakening earth, 

By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth, 

By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass. 

By the green leaves opening as 1 pass. 

1 have breath’d on the south, and the chestnut flower.- 
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers. 

And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes. 

Are veil’d with wreaths on Italian plains. 

—But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom, 

To speak of the ruin of the tomb ! 

I have pass’d o’er the hills of the stormy north. 

And the larch has hung all his tassels forth; 

The fisher is out on the sunny sea, 

And the rein-deer bounds thro’ the pasture free. 

And the pine has a fringe of softer gi-een. 

And the moss looks bright where my step has been. 

I have sent rnro’ the wood-paths a gen’le sigh. 

And call’d out each voice of the deep blue sky, 

From the nightbird’s lay thro’ the starry time 
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime. 

To the swan’s wild note by the Iceland lakes, 

When the dark fir-bough into verdure brea**. 


312 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


From tbc streams and founts I have loos’d the chain, 
They are sweeping on to the silvery main. 

They are flashing down from the mountain-brows. 
They are flinging spray on the forest-boughs, 

They are bursting fresh from their starry caves. 

And the earth resounds with the joy of waves. 

Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come ! 

Where the violets lie, may be now your home , 

Ye of the rose-cheek and dew-bright eye. 

And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly. 

With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay, 
Come forth to the sunshine, I may not stay ! 

Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, 

The waters are sparkling in wood and glen. 

Away from the chamber and dusky hearth, 

The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth. 

Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains, 

And youth is abroad in my green domains. 

Mrs. IIemans. 


MOTHERING SUNDAY. 

For the Table Book. 

To the accounts in the Every-Day Book 
of the observance of Mid Lent , or “ Mo¬ 
thering Sunday,” I would add, that the 
day is scrupulously observed in this city 
and neighbourhood ; and, indeed, I believe 
generally in the western parts of England. 
The festival is kept here much in the same 
way as the 6th of January is with you : 
that day is passed over in silence with us. 

All who consider tnemselves dutiful 
children, or who wish to be so considered 
by others, on this day make presents to 
their mother, and hence derived the name 
of “ Mothering Sunday.” The family all 
assemble; and, if the day prove fine, pro¬ 
ceed, after church, to the neighbouring 
village to eat frumerty. The higher classes 
partake of it at their own houses, and in 
the evening come the cake and wine. 
The “ Mothering cakes ” are very highly 
ornamented, artists being employed to 
paint them. This social meeting does not 
seem confined to the middling or lower 
orders; none, happily, deem themselves 
too high to be good and amiable. 

The custom is of great antiquity ; and 
long, long may it be prevalent amongst 
us. 

Your constant reader, 

* 

JuVENIS (N.) 

Bristol , March 28 , 1827 . 


Uefoeana* 

No. II. 

MIXED BREEDS; 

OR, 

EDUCATION THROWN AWAY. 

I came into a public-house once in Lon¬ 
don, where there was a black Mulatto¬ 
looking man sitting, talking very warmly 
among some gentlemen, who I observed 
were listening very attentively to what he 
said; and I sat myself down, and did the 
like; ’twas with great pleasure I heard 
him discourse very handsomely on several 
weighty subjects ; I found he was a very 
good scholar, had been very handsomely 
bred, and that learning and study was his 
delight; and more than that, some of the 
best of science was at that time his employ¬ 
ment : at length I took the freedom to ask 
him, if he was born in England? tie re¬ 
plied with a great deal of good humour, 
but with an excess of resentment at his 
father, and with tears in his eyes, '‘Yes, 
yes, sir, I am a true born Englishman, to 
my father’s shame be it spoken; who, 
being an Englishman himself, could find in 
hia heart to join himself to a negro woman, 
though he must needs know, the children 
he should beget, would curse the memory 
of such an action, and abhor his very name 
for the sake of it. Yes, yes, (said he re¬ 
peating it again,) I am an Englishman, and 
born in lawful wedlock ; happy it had been 
for me, though my father had gone to the 

devil for wh-m, had he lain with a 

cook-maid, or produced me from the mean¬ 
est beggar in the street. My father might 
do the duty of nature to his black wife; 
but, God knows, he did no justice to his 
children. If it had not been for this black 
face of mine, (says he, then smiling,) I had 
been bred to the law, or brought up in the 
study of divinity : but my father gave me 
learning to no manner of purpose; for he 
knew I should never be able to rise by it to 
any thing but a learned valet de chambre. 
What he put me to school for I cannot 
imagine; he spoiled a good tarpawling, 
when he strove to make me a gentleman. 
When he had resolved to marry a slave, 
and lie with a slave, he should have begot 
slaves, and let us have been bred as we 
were born : but he has twice ruined me; 
first with getting me a frightful face, and 
then going to paint a gentleman upon me.” 

-—It was a most affecting discourse indeed, 
and as such I record it; and I found it 
ended in tears from the person, who wa* 


313 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


in himself the most deserving, modest, and 
judicious man, that I ever met with, under 
a negro countenance, in my life. 


CHINESE TDOL. 

It had a thing instead of a head, but no 
head ; it had a mouth distorted out of all 
manner of shape, and not to be described 
for a mouth, being only an unshapen 
chasm, neither representing the mouth of a 
man, beast, fowl, or fish : the thing was 
neither any of the four, but an incongruous 
monster: it had feet, hands, fingers, claws, 
legs, arms, wings, ears, horns, every thing 
mixed one among another, neither in the 
shape or place that nature appointed, out 
blended together, and fixed to a bulk, not a 
body; formed of no just parts, but a shape¬ 
less trunk or log; whether of wood, or 
stone, I know not; a thing that might have 
' stood with any side forward, or any side 
backward, any end upward, or any end 
downward ; that had as much veneration 
due to it on one side, as on the other; a 
kind of celestial hedgehog , that was rolled 
up within itself, and was every thing every 
way ; formed neither to walk, stand, go, 
nor fly; neither to see, hear, nor speak; but 
merely to instil ideas of something nause¬ 
ous and abominable into the minds of men 
that adored it. 


MANNERS OF A LONDON WATER¬ 
MAN, AND HIS FARE, A HUN¬ 
DRED YEARS AGO. 

What I have said last [0/ the Manners 
of a spruce London Mercer ,*] makes me 
think on another way of inviting customers, 
the most distant in the world from what I 
have been speaking of, I mean that which is 
practised by the watermen, especially on 
those whom by their mien and garb they k now 
to be peasants. It is not unpleasant to see half 
a dozen people surround a man they never 
saw in their lives before, and two of them 
, that can get the nearest, clapping each an 
! arm over his neck, hug him in as loving 
and familiar a manner as if he were their 
brother newly come home from an East 
India voyage; a third lays hold of his 
hand, another of his sleeve, his coat, the 
buttons of it, or any thing he can come at, 
whilst a fifth or a sixth, who has scampered 
twice round him already without being 
able to get at him, plants himself directly 
before the man in hold, and within three 


• Table Book, p. 567- 


inches of his nose, contradicting his rivals 
with an open-mouthed cry, shows him a 
dreadful set of large teeth, and a small 
remainder of chewed bread and cheese, 
which the countryman’s arrival had hinder¬ 
ed from being swallowed. At all this m 
offence is taken, and the peasant justly 
thinks they are making much of him ; there¬ 
fore far from opposing them he patiently 
suffers himself to be pushed or pulled 
which way the strength that surrounds him 
shall direct. He has not the delicacy tc 
find fault with a man’s breath, who has 
just blown out his pipe, or a greasy head 
of hair that is rubbing against his chaps : 
dirt and sweat he has been used to from 
his cradle, and it is no disturbance to him 
to hear half a score people, some of them 
at his ear, and the furthest not five feet 
from him, bawl out as if he was a hundred 
yards off: he is conscious that he makes 
no less noise when he is merry himself, and 
is secretly pleased with their boisterous 
usages. The hawling and pulling him 
about he construes in the way it is intend¬ 
ed; it is a courtship he can feel and under¬ 
stand : he can’t help wishing them well for 
the esteem they seem to have for him : he 
loves to be taken notice of, and admires 
the Londoners for being so pressing in 
their offers of service to him, for tne value 
of threepence or less; whereas in the coun¬ 
try, at the shop he uses, he can have nothing 
but he must first tell them what he wants, 
and, though he lays out three or four shil¬ 
lings at a time, has hardly a word spoke to 
him unless it be in answer to a question 
himself is forced to ask first. This alacrity 
in his behalf moves his gratitude, and un¬ 
willing to disoblige any, from his heart he 
knows not whom to choose. I have seen a 
man think all this, or something like it, as 
plainly as I could see the nose on his face ; 
and at the same time move along'very con¬ 
tentedly under a load of watermen, and 
with a smiling countenance carry seven or 
eight stone more than his own weight, to 
the water side. 

Fable of the Bees : 1725 . 


ilflap. 

MAY GOSLINGS.—MAY BATHERS. 
For the Table Book. 

On the first of May, the juvenile inha¬ 
bitants of Skipton, in Craven, Yorkshire, 
have a similar custom to the one in general 
use on the first of April. Not content wri> 
making their companions fools on one day. 


314 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


they set apart another, to make them *• May 
goslings , or geese. If a boy made any 
one a May gosling on the second of May, 
the following rhyme was said in reply :— 

May-day’s past and gone, 

Thou’s a gosling, and I’m none.” 

This distich was also said, mntatis mu¬ 
tandis , on the second of April. The prac- 
. tice of making May goslings was very 
common about twelve years ago, but is 
now dying away. 

As the present month is one when very 
i | severe colds are often caught by bathers, it 
may not be amiss to submit to the readers 
of the Table Book the following old say- 
1 ing, which is very prevalent in Skipton :—- 

“ They who bathe in May 
Will be soon laid in clay ; 

They who bathe in Jun« 

Will sing a merry tune.” 

T Q M 


SAILORS ON THE FIRST OF MAY. 

For the Table Book. 

Sir,—You have described the ceremony 
adopted by our sailors, of shaving all nau¬ 
tical tyros on crossing the line* but perhaps 
you are not aware of a custom which pre¬ 
vails annually on the first of May, in the 
whale-fishery at Greenland and Davis’s 
Straits. I therefore send you an account of 
the celebration which took place on board 
the Neptune of London, m Greenland, 
1824, of which ship I was surgeon at that 
period. 

Previous to the ship's leaving her port, 
the sailors collected from their wives, and 
other female friends, ribands “ for the 
garland,” of which great care was taken 
until a few days previous to the first of 
May, when all hands were engaged in pre¬ 
paring the said garland, with a model of 
the ship. 

The garland was made of a hoop, taken 
from one of the beef casks; this hoop, de¬ 
corated with ribands, was fastened to a 
stock of wood, of about four feet in length, 
and a model of the ship, prepared ny the 
carpenter, was fastened above the hoop to 
the top of the stock, in such a manner as 
to answer the purpose ot a vane. The first 
of May arrives; the tyros were kept 
from between decks, and all intruders ex¬ 
cluded while the principal performers got 
ready the necessary apparatus and dresses. 
The barber was the boatswain, the barber’s 


• Every-Day Book, vol. ii. 


mate was the cooper, and on a piece ol 
tarpawling, fastened to the entrance of the 
fore-hatchway, was the following inscrip¬ 
tion 

“ Neptune’s Easy Shaving Shop, 

Kept by 

John Johnson.” 

The performers then came forward, as 
follows :—First, the fiddler, playing as well 
as he could on an old fiddle, “ See the con¬ 
quering hero comes;” next, four men, two 
abreast, disguised with matting, rags, &c. 
so as to completely prevent them from 
being recognised, each armed with a boat¬ 
hook ; then came Neptune himself, also 
disguised, mounted on the carriage of the 
largest gun in the ship, and followed by 
the barber, barber’s mate, swab-bearer, 
shaving-box carrier, and as many of the 
ship’s company as chose to join them, 
dressed in such a grotesque manner as to 
beggar all description. Arrived on the 
quarter-deck they were met by the captain, 
when his briny majesty immediately dis¬ 
mounted, and the following dialogue en¬ 
sued :— 

Kept. Are you the captain of this ship, 
sir? 

Capt. I am. 

Nept. What’s the name of your ship ? 

Capt . The Neptune of London. 

Nept. Where is she bound to ? 

Capt. Greenland. 

Nept. What is your name ? 

Capt. Matthew Ainsley. 

Nept. You are engaged in the whale 
fishery l 

Capt. I am. 

Nept. Well, I hope I shall drink your ! 
honour’s health, and I wish you a pros¬ 
perous fishery. 

\Here the captain presented him ivith 
three quarts of r«wi.] 

Nept. ( filling a glass.) Here’s health to 
you, captain, and success to our cause. 
Have you got any fresh-water sailors on 
board ? for if you have, I must christen 
them, so as to make them useful to our king 
and country. 

Capt. We have eight of them on board 
at your service; I therefore wish you good 
morning. 

The procession then returned in the same 
manner as it came, the candidates for 
nautical fame following in the rear; after 
descending the fore-hatchway they congre¬ 
gated between decks, when all the offerings 
to Neptune were given to the deputy, (the 
cook,) consisting of whiskey, tobacco, &c. 
The barber then stood ready with his box 


315 





































THE TABLE HOOK. 


of lather, and the landsmen were ordered 
before Neptune, when the following dialogue 
took place with each, only with the altera¬ 
tion of the man’s name, as follows:— 

Nept. (to another .) What is your name ? 

Am. Gilbert Nicholson. 

Nept. Where do you come from ? 

Am. Shetland. 

Nept. Have you ever been to sea before ? 

Ans. No. 

Nept. Where are you going to? 

Ans. Greenland. 

At each of these answers, the brush dip¬ 
ped in the lather (consisting of soap-suds, 
oil, tar, paint, &c.) was thrust into the 
respondent’s mouth and over his face; then 
the barber’s-mate scraped his face with a 
razor, made of a piece of iron hoop well 
notched; his sore face was wiped with 
a damask towel, (a boat-swab dipped in 
filthy water) and this ended the ceremony. 
When it was over they undressed them¬ 
selves, the fiddle struck up, and they danced 
and regaled with their grog until they were 
“full three sheets in the ivind.” 

I remain, sir, &c. 

H. W. Dewhurst. 

Crescent-street , 

Euston-square. 


NAVAL ANECDOTE. 

During the siege of Acre, Daniel Bryan, 
an old seaman and captain of the fore-top, 
who had been turned over from the Blanche 
into sir Sidney Smith’s ship Le Tigr€, re¬ 
peatedly applied to be employed on shore; 
but, being an elderly man and rather deaf, 
his request was not acceded to. At the 
first storming of the breach by the French, 
one of their generals fell among the multi¬ 
tude of the slain, and the Turks, in triumph, 
struck off his head, and, after mangling the 
body with their sabres, left it a prey to the 
dogs, which in that country are of great 
ferocity, and rove in herds. In a few days 
it became a shocking spectacle, and when 
any of the sailors who had been on shore 
returned to their ship, inquiries were con¬ 
stantly made respecting the state of the 
French general. To Dan’s frequent de¬ 
mands of his messmates why they had not 
buried him, the only answer he received 
was, “ Go and do it yourself.” One morn¬ 
ing having obtained leave to go and see the 
town, he dressed himself as though for an 
excursion of pleasure, and went ashore 
with the surgeon in the jolly-boat. About 
an hour or two after, while the surgeon was 
dressing the wounded Turks in the hospital, 
in came honest Dan, who, in his rouo-h. 

' 0 7 


good-natured mannn, exclaimed, “I’ve 
been burying the general, sir, and now I’m 
come to see the sick !” Not particularly 
attending to the tar’s salute, but fearing 
that he might catch the plague, which was 
making great ravages among the wounded 
Turks, the surgeon immediately ordered 
him out. Returning on board, the cockswain 
asked of the surgeon if he had seen old 
Dan ? It was then that Dan’s words in the 
hospital first occurred, and on further in¬ 
quiry of the boat’s crew they related the 
following circumstances : — 

The old man procured a pick-axe, a 
shovel, and a rope, and insisted on being 
let down, out of a port-hole, close to the 
breach. Some of his more juvenile com¬ 
panions offered to attend him. “ No !” he 
replied, “ you are too young to be shot yet; 
as for me, I am old and deaf, and my loss 
would be no great matter.” Persisting in 
his adventure, in the midst of the firing-, 
Dan was slung and lowered down, with his 
implements of action on his shoulder. Ilis 
first difficulty was to beat away the dogs. 
The French levelled their pieces—they 
were on the instant of firing at the hero !— 
but an officer, perceiving the friendly in¬ 
tentions of the sailor, was seen to thro v 
himself across the file : instantaneously th? 
din of military thunder ceased, a deaa, 
solemn silence prevailed, and the worth/ 
fellow consigned the corpse to its paren 
earth. lie covered it with mould an 1 
stones, placing a large stone at its head, 
and another at its feet. The unostentatious 
grave was formed, but no inscription re¬ 
corded the fate or character of its possessor. 
Dan, with the peculiar air of a British 
sailor, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, 
and attempted to write 

“ Here you lie, old Crop!” 

He was then, with his pick-axe and shovel, 
hoisted into the town, and the hostile firing 
immediately recommenced. 

A few days afterwards, sir Sidney, having 
been informed of the circumstance, ordered 
old Dan to be called into the cabin.— 

“ Well, Dan, I hear you have buried the 
French general.”—“ Yes, your honour.”— 

“ Had you any body with you ?”—“ Yes, I 

your honour.”—“ Why, Mr.-says you 

had not.”—“ But I had, your honour.”— 
“Ah! who had you?”—“ God Almighty, 
sir-”—“A very good assistant, indeed. Give 
old Dan a glass of grog.”—“ Thank your 
honour.” Dan drank the grog, and left the 
cabin highly gratified. He was for severa. 
years a pensioner in tne royal hospital at 
Greenwich. 


316 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


THE “ RIGHT” LORD LOVAT. 

The following remarkable anecdote, com¬ 
municated by a respectable correspondent, 
with his name and address, may be relied 
on as genuine. 

For the Table Book. 

An old man, claiming to be “ the right 
lord Lovat,” i. e. heir to him who was be¬ 
headed in 1745, came to the Mansion-house 
in 1818 for advice and assistance. He was 
in person and face as much like the rebel 
lord, if one may judge from his pictures, 
as a person could be, and the more espe¬ 
cially as he was of an advanced age. He 
said he had been to the present lord Lovat, 
who had given him food and a little money, 
and turned him away. He stated his pedi¬ 
gree and claim thus :—The rebel lord had 
an only brother, known by the family name 
of Simon Fraser. Before lord Lovat en¬ 
gaged in the rebellion, Simon Fraser went 
to a w'edding in his highland costume; 
when he entered the room where the party 
was assembled, an unfortunate wight of a 
bagpiper struck up the favourite march of a 
olan in mortal enmity with that of Fraser, 
which so enraged him, that he drew his 
dirk and killed the piper upon the spot. 
Fraser immediately fled, and found refuge in 
a mine in Wales. No law proceedings 
took place against him as he was absent, 
and supposed to have perished at sea. He 
married in Wales, and had one son, the old 
man abovenamed, who said he was about 
sixty. When lord Lovat was executed his 
lands became forfeited ; but in course of 
time, lord L. not having left a son, the 
estates were granted by the crown to a 
collateral branch, (one remove beyond 
Simon Fraser,) the present lord, it not 
being known that Simon Fraser was alive 
or had left issue. It is further remarkable 
that the applicant further stated, that both 
he and his father, Simon Fraser, were called 
lord Lovat by the miners and other inhabit¬ 
ants of that spot where he was known. 
The old man was very ignorant, not know¬ 
ing how to read or write, having been born 
in the mine and brought up a miner; but 
he said he had preserved Simon Fraser’s 
highland dress, and that he had it in 
W ales. 


FAST-PUDDING. 

Extract from the Famous Historie of 
Friar Bacon. 

How Friar Bacon deceived his Man , that 
would fast for conscience sake. 

Friar Bacon had only one man to attend 


him; and he, too, was none of the wisest, 
for he kept him in charity more than for 
any service he had of him. This man of 
his, named Miles, never could endure to 
fast like other religious persons did; for he 
always had, in one corner or other, flesh, 
which he would eat, when his master eat 
bread only, or else did fast and abstain 
from all things. 

Friar Bacon seeing this, thought at one 
time or other to be even with him, which j 
he did, one Friday, in this manner: Miles, 
on the Thursday night, had provided a 
great black-pudding for his Friday’s fast; 
that pudding he put in his pocket, (think¬ 
ing to warm it so, for his master had no 
fire on those days.) On the next day, who 
was so demure as Miles ! he looked as 
though he coidd not have eat any thing. 
When his master offered him some bread, 
he refused it, saying, his sins deserved a 
greater penance than one day’s fast in a 
whole week. His master commended him 
for it, and bid him take heed he did not 
dissemble, for if he did, it would at last be 
known. “ Then were I worse than a Turk,” 
said Miles. So went he forth, as if he 
would have gone to pray privately, but it 
was for nothing but to prexj privily on his 
black-pudding. Then he pulled out, and 
fell to it lustily : hut he was deceived, for, 
having put one end in his mouth, he could 
neither get it out again, nor bite it off; so 
that he stamped for help. His master hear¬ 
ing him, came; and finding him in that 
manner, took hold of the other end of the 
pudding, and led him to the hall, and 
showed him to all the scholars, saying, 
“ See here, my good friends and fellow- 
students, what a devout man my servant 
Miles is ! He loved not to break a fast- 
day—witness this pudding, that his con¬ 
science will not let him swallow!” His 
master did not release him till night, when 
Miles did vow never to break any fast-day 
while he lived. 


CLERICAL ERRORS. 

For the Table Book. 

The Rev. Mr. Alcocr, of Burnsal, 

NEAR SkIPTON, YORKSHIRE. 

Every inhabitant of Craven has heard 
tales of this eccentric person, and number¬ 
less are the anecdotes told of him. I have 
not the history of Craven, and cannot name 
the period of his death exactly, but I believe 
it happened between fifty and sixty years 
ago. He was a learned man and a wit— 
so much addicted to waggery, that he 



317 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


sometimes forgot his office, and indulged in 
sallies rather unbecoming a minister, but 
nevertheless he was a sincere Christian. 
The following anecdotes are well known in 
Craven, and may amuse elsewhere. One 
of Mr. Alcock’s frends, at whose house he 
was in the habit of calling previously to 
his entering the church on Sundays, once 
took occasion to unstitch his sermon and 
misplace the leaves. A.t the church, Mr. 
Alcock, when he had read a page, dis¬ 
covered the joke. “ Peter,” said he, “ thou 
rascal! what’s thou been doing with my 
sermon?” then turning to his congregation 
he said, “ Brethren, Peter’s been misplacing 
the leaves of my sermon, I have not time 
to put them right, I shall read on as I 
find it, and you must make the best of it 
that you can and he accordingly read 
through the confused mass, to the astonish¬ 
ment of his flock. On another occasion, 
when in the pulpit, he found that he had 
forgotten his sermon; nowise disappointed 
at the loss, he called out to his clerk, “ Jo¬ 
nas, I have left my sermon at home, so 
hand us up that Bible, and I’ll read ’em a 
chapter in Job worth ten of it 1” Jonas, 
like his master, was an oddity, and used to 
make a practice of falling asleep at the 
commencement of the sermon, and waking 
in the middle of it, and bawling out “ amen,’’ 
thereby destroyed the gravity of the con¬ 
gregation. Mr. Alcock once lectured him 
for this, and particularly requested he 
would not say amen till he had finished his 
discourse. Jonas promised compliance, 
but on the following Sunday made bad 
worse, for he fell asleep as usual, and in the 
middle of the sermon awoke and bawled 
out “ Amen at a venture!” The Rev. Mr. 
Alcock is, I think, buried before the com¬ 
munion-table of Skipton church, under a 
slab of blue marble, with a Latin inscrip¬ 
tion to his memory. 

T. Q. M. 


REMARKABLE EPITAPH. 
v or the Table Book. 

Frank Fry, of Christian Malford, Wilts, 
whose bones lie undisturbed in the church¬ 
yard of his native village, wrote for himself 
the following 

(i Epitaph. 

“ Here lies I 
Who did die ; 

I lie did 
I die did. 

Old Frank Fry ; 


*• When the worms comes 
To pick up their crumbs, 

They’ll have in I— 

A rare Frank Fry I” 

The worms have had, in Frank, a lusty 
subject—his epitaph is recorded only in the 
Table Book. *, *, P. 


A MODERN MYSTERY. 

To the Editor. 

Blackwall , April 13, 1827. 

Sir,—As T perceive you sometimes insert 
in your Table Book articles similar to the 
enclosed original printed Notice, you may 
perhaps think it worthy of a place in your 
amusing miscellany; if so, it is much at 
your service. 

I am, &c. 

F. W. 

(Literal Copy.) 

NOTICE. 

Aturday 30 and on Sunday 31 of the 
corrent, in the Royal Theatre of St. Charles 
will be represented by the Italian Com¬ 
pany the famous Holy Drama intitled 

IL TRIONFO DI GIUDITTA, 

o si A 

LA MORTE D’OLOFERNE. 

In the interval of the frist to the second 
act it shall have a new and pompous Ball 
of the composition of John Baptista Gia- 
nini, who has by title : 

IL SACRIFICIO D’ABRAMO, 

in which will enter all the excellent corp ot 
Ball, who dance at present in the said 
Royal Theatre ; the spetacle will be 
finished with the second act and Ball ana¬ 
log to the same Drama, all with the nesses- 
sary decoration. 

This is who is offered to the Respectable 
Publick of whom is waited all the procte- 
tion and concurrence : 

It will begin at 8 o'clok. 

Na Officina de Simao Thaddeo Ferreira. 1811. Com 
licenca. 


ODD SIGN. 

For the Table Book. 

At West-end, near Skipton in Craven, 
Yorkshire, a gate hangs, as a sign to a 
public-house, with this inscription on it— 

This gate hangs well. 

And hinders none; 

Refresh and pay, 

And travel on. 

J. w. 



318 














THE TABLE BOOB 



\ 


« 


$)air of Curious ©10 Snuffers 

ripxcriheil on the next pa?e. 


319 


Y 











































THE TABLE BOO±x. 

SNUFFERS. 


Perhaps there is no implement of domes¬ 
tic use that we are less acquainted with, in 
11 its old form, than snuffers. I have now 
J before me a pair, which for their antiquity 
i and elegant workmanship seem worth at- 
j tention: the engraving on the other side 
i represents their exact size and construction. 

After some research, I can only meet 
with particulars of one other pair, which 
were found in digging the foundation of a 
granary, at the foot of a hill adjoining to 
Cotton Mansion-house, (formerly the seat 
of the respectable family of the Mohuns,) 
in the parish of St. Peter, Portisham, about 
two miles north-east from Abbotsbury in 
Dorsetshire. They were of brass, and 
weighed six ounces. “ The great differ¬ 
ence,” says Mr. Hutchins, “ between these 
and modern utensils of the same name and 
use is, that these are in shape like a heart 
fluted, and consequently terminate in a 
point. They consist of two equal lateral 
cavities, by the edges of which the snuff is 
i cut off and received into the cavities, from 
! which it is not got out without particular 
application and trouble. There are two 
circumstances attending this little utensil, 
which seem to bespeak it of considerable 
age : the roughness of the workmanship, 
which is in ail respects as rude and coarse 
as can be well imagined, and the awkward¬ 
ness of the form.” There is an engraving 
of the Dorsetshire snuffers in the histoiy of 
that county. 

The snuffers now submitted to notice are 
superior in design and workmanship to 
those found in Dorsetshire. The latter 
seem of earlier date, and they divide in the 
middle of the upper as well as the lower 
part, but in one respect both pairs are 
alike : they are each “ in shape like a 
heart,” and they each terminate in a point 
formed exactly in the manner shown by the 
present engraving. The print likewise shows 
that the box of the snuffers bears a boldly 
chased winged head of Mercury, who had 
more employments and occupations than 
any other of the ancient deities. Whether 
as the director of theft, as the conductor of 
the departed to their final destination, as an 
interpreter to enlighten, or as an office¬ 
bearer constantly in requisition, the portrait 
of Mercury is a symbol appropriate to the 
implement before us. The engraving shows 
the exact size of the instrument, and the pre¬ 
sent appearance of the chasing, which is in 
bold relief, and was, originally, very elegant. 

These snuffers are plain on the under¬ 
side, ana made without legs. They were 


purchased, with some miscellaneous articles, 
by a person who has no clue to their former 
possessors, but who rightly imagined that 
in an archaeological view they would be 
acceptable to the Table Book. 

* 


§am'tk piaps. 

No. XVIII. 

[From “David and Bethsabefurther 
Extracts.] 

Absalon, rebelling. 

Now for the crown and throne of Israel, 

To be confirm’d with virtue of my sword, 

And writ with David’s blood upon the blade. 

Now, Jove,* let forth the golden firmament. 

And look on him with all thy fiery eyes, 

Which thou hast made to give their glories lighl, 

To sjiew thou lovest the virtue of thy hand, 

Let fall a wreath of stars upon my head. 

Whose influence may govern Israel 
With state exceeding all her other Kings. 

Fight, Lords and Captains, that your Soverei 
May shine in honour brighter than the sun 
And with the virtue of my beauteous rays 
Make this fair Land as fruitful as the fields, 

That with sweet milk and honey overflowed. 

God in the whissing of a pleasant wind 
Shall march upon the tops of mulberry trees. 

To cool all breasts that burn with any griefs ; 

As whilom he was good to Moyses’ men, 

By day the Lord shall sit within a cloud. 

To guide your footsteps to the fields of joy ; 

And in the night a pillar bright as fire 
Shall go before you like a second sun. 

Wherein the Essence of his Godhead is ; 

That day and night you may be brought to pea**, 

And never swerve from that delightsome path 
That leads your souls to perfect happiness : 

This he shall do for joy when I am King. 

Then fight, brave Captains, that these joys may fly 
Into your bosoms with sweet victory. 

***** 

Absalon , triumphant. 

Absalon. First Absalon was by the trumpet’s sound 
Proclaim’d thro’ Hebron King of Israel; 

And now is set in fair Jerusalem 

With complete state and glory of a crown. 

Fifty fair footmen by my chariot run ; 

And to the air, whose rupture rings my fame, 
Wheree’er I ride, they offer reverence. 

Why should not Absalon, that in his face 
Carries the final purpose of his God, 

(That is, to work him grace in Israel), 


* Jove, for Jehovah. 


320 

























































T^S TABLE BOOK. 


described by Homer in P j’s transla¬ 
tion : 

Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms. 

And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms; 

When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves, 

The rough rock roars ; tumultuous boil the waves : 

T hey toss, they foam, a wild confusion raise. 

Like waters bubbling o’er the fiery blaze: 

Eternal mists obscure the aerial plain, 

And high above the rock she spouts the main. 

When in her gulfs the rushing sea subsides. 

She drains the ocean with the refluent tides. 

The rock rebellows with a thundering sound ; 

Deep, wondrous deep, below appears the ground. 

i 

I 

Virgil imagines the origin of this terrific 
scene: 

That realm of old, a ruin huge, was rent 
In length of ages from the continent. 

With force convulsive burst the isle away ; 

Through the dread opening broke the thund'ring sea : 
At once the thund’ring sea Sicilia tore, 

And sunder’d from the fair Hesperian shore; 

And still the neighbouring coasts and towns divides 
With scanty channels, and contracted tides, 
i Fierce to the right tremendous Scylla roars, 
Charybdis on the left the flood devours. 

Pitt. 

A great earthquake in the year 1783 
diminished tiie perils of the pass.* Thir¬ 
teen years before this event, which renders 
the scene less poetical, Brydone thus de¬ 
scribes 

Scylla. 

May 19, 1770. Fcund ourselves within 
half a mile of the coast of Sicily, which is 
low, but finely variegated. The opposite 
coast of Calabria is very high, and the 
mountains are covered with the finest ver¬ 
dure. It was almost a dead calm, our ship 
scarce moving half a mile in an hour, so 
that we had time to get a complete view of 
the famous rock of Scylla, on the Calabrian 
side, Cape Pylorus on the Sicilian, and the 
celebrated Straits of the Faro that runs be¬ 
tween them. Whilst we were still some 
miles distant from the entry of the Straits, 
we heard the roaring of the current, like 
the noise of some large impetuous river 
confined between narrow banks. This in¬ 
creased in proportion as we advanced, till 
we saw the water in many places raised to 
' a considerable height, and forming large 
eddies or whirlpools. The sea in every 
other place was as smooth as glass. Our 
old pilot told us, that he had often seen 
ships caught in these eddies, and whirled 


• Bourn’s Gazetteer. 


about with great rapidity, without obeying 
the helm in the smallest degree. When the 
weather is calm, there is little danger; but 
when the waves meet with this violent cur¬ 
rent, it makes a dreadful sea. He says, 
there were five ships wrecked in this spot 
last winter. We observed that the current 
set exactly for the rock of Scylla, and 
would infallibly have carried any thing 
thrown into it against that point; so that it 
was not without reason the ancients have 
painted it as an object of such terror. It 
is about a mile from the entry of the Faro, 
and forms a small promontory, which runs 
a little out to sea, and meets the whole 
force of the waters, as they come out of the 
narrowest part of the Straits. The head of 
this promontory is the famous Scylla. It 
must be owned that it does not altogether 
come up to the formidable description that 
Homer gives of it; the reading of which 
(like that of Shakspeare’s Cliff) almost 
makes one’s head giddy. Neither is the 
passage so wondrous narrow and difficult 
as he makes it. Indeed it is probable that 
the breadth of it is greatly increased since 
his time, by the violent impetuosity of the 
current. And this violence too must have 
always diminished, in proportion as the 
breadth of the channel increased. 

Our pilot says, there are many small 
rocks that show their heads near the base of 
the large ones. These are probably the 
dogs that are described as howling round 
the monster Scylla. There are likewise 
many caverns that add greatly to the noise 
of the water, and tend still to increase the 
horror of the scene. The rock is near two 
hundred feet high. There is a kind of 
castle or fort built on its summit; and the 
town of Scylla, or Sciglio, containing three 
or four hundred inhabitants, stands on its 
south side, and gives the title of prince to a 
Calabrese family. 

Charybdis. 

The harbour of Messina is formed by a 
small promontory or neck of land that runs 
off from the east end of the city, and sepa¬ 
rates that beautiful basin from the rest of 
the Straits. The shape of this promontory 
is that of a reaping-hook, the curvature of 
which forms the harbour, and secures it 
from all winds. From the striking resem¬ 
blance of its form, the Greeks, who never 
gave a name that did not either describe 
the object or express some of its most re¬ 
markable properties, called this place Zancle, 
or the Sickle, and feigned that the sickle of 
Saturn fell on this spot, and gave it its form. 
But the Latins, who were not quite so fond 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Endeavour to achieve with all his stiength 
The state that most may satisfy his joy— 
Keeping his statutes and his covenants sure ? 
His thunder is intangled in my hair. 

And with my beauty is his lightning quench’d. 
I am the man he made to glory in, 

When by the errors of my father’s sin 
He lost the path, that led into the Land 
Wherewith oui chosen ancestors were blest. 


[From a “ Looking Glass for England and 
London,” a Tragi-comedy, by Thomas 
Lodge and Robert Green, 1598.] 

Alvida, Paramour to Rasni , the Great 
King of Assyria , courts a petty King of 
Cilicia. 

Alvida. Ladies, go sit you down amidst this bower, 
And let the Eunuchs play you all asleep: 

Put garlands made of roses on your heads, 

And play the wantons, whilst I talk awhile. 

Ladies. Thou beautiful of all the world, we will 
(Exeunt.) 

Alvida. King of Cilicia, kind and courteou*; 

Like to thyself, because a lovely King ; 

Come lay thee down upon thy Mistress’ knee. 

And T will sing and talk of Love to thee. 

Cilicia. Most gracious Paragon of excellence, 
it fits not such an abject wretch as I 
To talk with Rasni’s Paramour and Love. 

Alvida. To talk, sweet friend! who would not talk 
with thee ? 

Oh be not coy: art thou not only fair ? 

Come twine thine arms about this snow vhit 
A love-nest for the Great Assyrian Kin$. 

Blushing I tell thee, fair Cilician Pnnce. 

None but thyself can merit such a grace. 

Cilica. Madam, I hope you mean not for to mock me. 
Alvida. No, King, fair King, my meaning is to yoke 
thee. 

Hear me but sing of Love : then by my sighs. 

My tears, my glancing looks, my changed cheer. 

Thou shalt perceive how I do hold thee dear. 

Cilicia. Sing, Madam, if you please; but love in jest. 
Alvida. Nay, I will love, and sigh at every jest. 

(She sings.) 

Beauty, alas! where wast thou born, 

Thus to hold thyself in scorn. 

When as Beauty kiss’d to wooe thee ? 

Thou by Beauty dost undo me. 

Heigho, despise me not. 

I and thou in sooth are one. 

Fairer thou, I fairer none : 

Wanton thou ; and wilt thou, wanton, 

Yield a cruel heart to plant on ? 

Do me right, and do me reason ; 

Cruelty is cursed treason. 

Heigho, I love; Heigho, I love; 

Heigho, and yet he eyes me not. 

Cilicia. Madam your Song is passing passionate. 


Alvida. And wilt thou then not pity my estate t 
Cilicia. Ask love of them who pitv may impart. 
Alvida. I ask of thee, sweet; thou hast stole jsJ 
heart. 

Cilicia. Your love is fixed on a greater King. 

Alvida Tut, women’s love—it is a fickle thing 
1 love my Rasni for my dignity: 

I love Cilician King for his sweet eye. 

I love my Rasni, since he rules the world: 

But more I love this Kingly little world. 

How sweet he looks !—0 were I Cynthia’s sphere, 

And thou Eudymion, I should hold thee dear: 

Thus should mine arms be spread about thy necK, 
Thus would I kiss rny Love at every beck. 

Thus would I sigh to see thee sweetly sleep; 

And if thou wak’st not soon, thus would I weep : 

And thus, and thus, and thus : thus much I love thee 

[From “ Tethys’ Festival,” by Samuel 
Daniel, 1610 .] 

Song at a Court Masque 

Are they shadows that we see 
And can shadows pleasure give?— 

Pleasures only shadows be, 

Cast by bodies we conceive ; 

And are made the things we deem 
In those figures which they seem.— 

But these pleasures vanish fast. 

Which by shadows are exprest:— 

Pleasures are not, if they last; 

In their passing is their best. 

Glory is most bright and gay 
In a flash, and so away. 

Feed apace then, greedy eyes, 

On the wonder you behold ; 

Take it sudden as it flies, 

Tho’ you take it not to hold : 

When your eyes have done their part. 
Thought must lengthen it in the heart. 

c. L. 


£>rplla anti Cbarpbbts. 

Ancient and Present State. 

Incidit in Scyliam, cupiens vitare Charybdis. 

This Latin verse, which has become 
proverbial, is thus translated :— 

He falls on Scylla, who Charybdis shuns. 

The line has been ascribed to Ovid ; it is 
not, however, in that or any other classic 
poet, but has been derived from Philippe 
Guaitier, a modern French writer of Latin 
verses. Charybdis is a whirlpool in the 
straits of Messina, on the coast of Sicily, 
opposite to Scylla, a dangerous rock on the 
coast of Italy. The danger to which mari¬ 
ners were exposed by the whirlpool is thus 


322 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


of fable, olianged its name to Messina, (from 
Alessis , a harvest,) because of the great fer¬ 
tility of its fields. It is certainly one of the 
safest harbours in the world after ships 
have got in; but it is likewise one of the 
most difficult access. The celebrated gulf 
or whirlpool of Charybdis lies near to its 
entry, and often occasions such an intestine 
and irregular motion in the water, that the 
helm loses most of its power, and ships 
have great difficulty to get in, even with 
the fairest wind that can blow. This whirl¬ 
pool, I think, is probably formed by the 
small promontory I have mentioned ; which 
contracting the Straits in this spot, must 
necessarily increase the velocity of the cur¬ 
rent; but no doubt other causes, of which 
we are ignorant, concur, for this will by no 
means account for all the appearances 
which it has produced. The great noise 
occasioned by the tumultuous motion of the 
waters in this place, made the ancients liken 
it to a voracious sea-monster perpetually 
roaring for its prey; and it has been repre¬ 
sented by their authors, as the most tremen¬ 
dous passage in the world. Aristotle gives 
a long and a formidable description of it in 
his 125th chapter De Admirandis , which l 
find translated in an old Sicilian book I 
have got here. It begins, “ Adeo profun- 
dum, horridumque spectaculum, &c.” but 
it is too long to transcribe. It is likewise 
described by Homer, 12th of the Odyssey; 
Virgil, 3d ALneid ; Lucretius, Ovid, Sallust, 
Seneca, as also by many of the old Italian 
and Sicilian poets, who all speak of it in 
terms of horror; and represent it as an 
object that inspired terror, even when looked 
on at a distance. It certainly is not now 
so formidable; and very probably, the vio¬ 
lence of this motion, continued for so many 
: ages, has by degrees worn smooth the rug¬ 
ged rocks and jutting shelves, that may 
| have intercepted and confined the waters. 
The breadth of the Straits too, in this place, 
I make no doubt is considerably enlarged. 
Indeed, from the nature of things it must 
be so; the perpetual friction occasioned by 
the current must wear away the bank on 
each side, and enlarge the bed of the water. 

The vessels in this passage were obliged 
to go as near as possible to the coast of 
Calabria, in order to avoid the suction oc¬ 
casioned by the whirling of the waters in 
this vortex; by which means when they 
! came to the narrowest and most rapid part 
! af the Straits, betwixt Cape Pelorus and 
Scylla, they were in great danger of being 
| carried upon that rock. From whence the 
; nroverb, still applied to those, who in at¬ 
tempting to avoid one evil fall into another. 


There is a fine fountain of white marble 
on the key, representing Neptune holding 
Scvlla and Charybdis chained, under the 
emblematical figures of two sea-monsters, 
as represented by the poets. 

The little neck of land, forming the har¬ 
bour of Messina, is strongly fortified. Tire 
citadel, which is indeed a very fine work 
is built on that part which connects it with 
the main land. The farthermost point, 
which runs out to sea, is defended by four 
small forts, which command the entry into 
the harbour. Betwixt these lie the lazaret, 
and a lighthouse to warn sailors of their 
approach to Charybdis, as that other on 
Cape Pelorus is intended to give them no¬ 
tice of Scylla. 

It is probably from these lighthouses (by 
the Greeks called Pharoi) that the whole of 
this celebrated Strait has been denominated 
the Faro of Messina. 


According to Brydone, the hazard to 
sailors was less in his time than the Nestor 
of song, and the poet of the iEneid, had 
depicted in theirs. In 1824, Capt. W. H. 
Smyth, to whom a survey of the coast 
of Sicily was intrusted by the lords of the 
Admiralty, published a “ Memoir” in 1824, 
with the latest and most authentic accounts 
of these celebrated classic spots—viz.: 

Scylla. 

As the breadth across this celebrated 
strait has been so often disputed, I particu¬ 
larly state, that the Faro Tower is exactly 
six thousand and forty-seven English yards 
from that classical bugbear, the Rock of i 
Scylla, which, by poetical fiction, has been 
depicted in such terrific colours, and to 
describe the horrors of which, Phalerion, a 
painter, celebrated for his nervous repre¬ 
sentation of the awful and the tremendous, 
exerted his whole talent. But the flights 
of poetry can seldom bear to be shackled 
by homely truth, and if we are to receive 
the fine imagery, that places the summit 
of this rock in clouds brooding eternal 
mists and tempests—that represents it as 
inaccessible, even to a man provided with 
twenty hands and twenty feet, and immerses 
its base among ravenous sea-dogs;—why 
not also receive the whole circle of mytho 
logical dogmas of Homer, who, though so 
frequently dragged forth as an authority in 
history, theology, surgery, and geography, 
ought injustice to be read only as a poet 
In the writings of so exquisite a ba r d. we 
must not expect to find ad his representa¬ 
tions strictly confined to a mere accu^t** 


323 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


( 


aarration of facts Moderns of intelligence, 
in visiting this spot, have gratified their 
imaginations, already heated by such de 
scriptions as the escape of the Argonauts, 
and the disasters of Ulysses, with fancying 
it the scourge of seamen, and that in a gale 
its caverns ‘ roar like dogs;’ but I, as a sailor, 
never perceived any difference between the 
effect of the surges here, and on any other 
coast, yet I have frequently watched it 
closely in bad weather. It is now, as I 
resume it ever was, a common rock, of 
old approach, a little worn at its base, and 
surmounted by a castle, with a sandy bay 
on each side. The one on the south side is 
memorable for the disaster that happened 
there during the dreadful earthquake of 
1783, when an overwhelming wave (sup¬ 
posed to have been occasioned by the fall of 
part of a promontory into the sea) rushed 
up the beach, and, in its retreat, bore away 
with it upwards of two thousand people. 

Charybdis. 

Outside the tongue of land, or Braccio 
di St. Rainiere, that forms the harbour of 
Messina, lies the Galofaro, or celebrated 
vortex of Charybdis, which has, with more 
reason than Scylla, been clothed with ter¬ 
rors by the writers of antiquity. To the 
undecked boats of the Rhegians, Locrians, 
Zancleans, and Greeks, it must have been 
formidable; for, even in the present day, 
small craft are sometimes endangered by it, 
ind I have seen several men-of-war, and 
even a seventy four gun ship, whirled round 
m its surface; but, by using due caution, 
there is generally very little danger or in¬ 
convenience to be apprehended. It appears 
to be an agitated water, of from seventy to 
ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick 
eddies. It is owing probably to the meet¬ 
ing of the harbour and lateral currents with 
the main one, the latter being forced over 
in this direction by the opposite point of 
Pezzo. This agrees in some measure with 
the relation of Thucydides, who calls it a 
violent reciprocation of the Tyrrhene and 
Sicilian seas; and he is the only writer of 
remote antiquity I remember to have read, 
who has assigned this danger its true situa¬ 
tion, and not exaggerated its effects. Many 
wonderful stories are told respecting this 
vortex, particularly some said to have been 
related by the celebrated diver, Colas, who 
lost his life here. I have never found rea¬ 
son, however, during my examination of 
this spot, to believe one of them. 


For the Table Book . 

A FRAGMENT. 

From Cornelius May’s “ Journey ta 

THE GREATE MaRKETT AT OLYMPUS”- 

“ Seven Starrs of Witte.” 

One daye when tired with worldly toil, 

Upp to the Olympian mounte 
I sped, as from soul-cankering care, 

Had ever been my wonte ; 

And there 'he gods assembled alle 
I founde, 0 strange to tell 1 
Chaffering, like chapmen, and around 
The wares they had to sell. 

Eache god had sample of his goodes, 

Which he displaied on high ; 

And cried, “ How lack ye ?” “ What’s y’re neede?" 
To every passer by. 

Quoth I, “ What have you here to sell? 

To purchase being inclined 
Said one, “ We’ve art and science here, 

And every gifte of minde.” 

“ What coin is current here ?” I asked, 

Spoke Hermes in a trice, 

“ Industrie, perseverence, toile, 

And life the highest price,” 

I saw Apollo, and went on, 

Liking his wares of olde ; 

“ Come buy,” said he, “ this lyre of mine 
I’ll pledge it sterling golde ; 

This is the sample of its worthe, 

’Tis cheape at life, come buy !” 

So saying, he drew olde Homer forth. 

And placed him ’neath my eye. 

I turn’d aside, where in a row 
Smalle bales high piled up stood ; 

Tyed rounde with golden threades of life. 

And eache inscribed with blood, 

“ Travell to far and foreign landes 
“ i'he knowledge of the sea 
“ Alle beastes, and birdes, and creeping th'nge*. 

And heaven’s immensity 
“ Unshaken faithe when alle men change,” 

“ The patriot’s holy heart;” 

** The might of woman’s love to stay 
When alle besides departe.” 

I ne .. saw things soe strange of forme, 

Their names I mighte not knowe, 

Unlike aught either in heaven or earthe. 

Or in the deeps below; 

Then Hermes to my thoughte replied, 

“ Strange as these thinges appeare. 

Gigantic power, the mighte of arte 
And science are laide here ; 

Yeare after yeare of toile and thoughte 
Can buy these stores alone; 

Yet boughte, how neare the gods is mas, 

What knowledge is made known 
The power and nature of all thinges. 

Fire, aire, and earthe, and flood. 

Known and made subject to man’s will 
For ev.L or for good.” 


324 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


Next look'd I in a darksome den, 

Webbed o'er with spider’s thread, 

Where bookes were piled, and on eache booke 
I “ metaphysics ” read ; 

Spoke Hermes, “ Friend, the price of these 
Is puzzling of the brain, 

A gulf of words which, who gets in. 

Can ne’er get oute again.” 

I then saw “ law,” piled up alofte, 

And asked its price to know; 

“ Its price is, conscience «d good name,” 
Said Hermes, whispering low. 

Nexte, “ Physic and divinity,” 

I stood as I was loth. 

To take or leave, with curling lip, 

Said Hermes, “ Quackery, both !” 

** Now, friend,” said I, “ siuce of your wares 
You no good thing can telle, 

You are the honestest chapman 
That e’er had wares to selle.” 

* * * * 


DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND: 

OR, 

MANNERS OF LON DON MERCHANTS 
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 
Tempore mutato de nobis fabula narratur. 


Tuesday, accepts of the other’s civility, and 
away they go in Alcander’s coach. Decio 
was splendidly entertained that night and 
the day following ; the Monday morning, 
to get himself an appetite, he goes to take 
the air upon a pad of Alcander’s, and com¬ 
ing back meets with a gentleman of his 
acquaintance, who tells him news was come 
the night before that the Barbadoes fleet 
was destroyed by a storm; and adds, that 
before he came out, it had been confirmed 
at Lloyd’s coffee-house, where it was thought 
sugars would rise twenty-five per cert, by 
change time. Decio returns to his friend, 
and immediately resumes the discourse 
they had broke off at the tavern. Alcander 
who, thinking himself sure of his chap, did 
not design to have moved it till after dinner, 
was very glad to see himself so happily 
prevented ; but how desirous soever he was 
to sell, the other was yet more eager 
to buy; yet both of them afraid of one 
another, for a considerable time counter¬ 
feited all the indifference imaginable, till at 
last Decio, fired with what he had heard, 
thought delays might prove dangerous, and 
throwing a guinea upon the table, struck 
the bargain at Alcander’s price. The next 
day they went to London; the news proved 
true, and Decio got five hundred pounds by 
his sugars. Alcander, whilst he had strove 
to overreach the other, was paid in his own 
coin : yet all this is called fair dealing ; 
but I am sure neither of them would have 
desired to be done by, as they did to each 
other. 

Fable of the Bees , 1725. 


CHILTERN HUNDREDS. 

The acceptance of this office, or steward¬ 
ship, vacates a seat in parliament, but with¬ 
out any emolument or profit. Chiltern is 
a ridge of chalky hills crossing the county 
of Bucks, a little south of the centre, reach¬ 
ing from Tring in Hertfordshire to Henly 
in Oxford. This district belongs to the 
crown, and from time immemorial has given 
title to the nominal office of stewards of 
the Chiltern hundreds. Of this office, as 
well as the manor of East Hundred, in 
Berks, it is remarkable, that although fre¬ 
quently conferred upon members of parlia¬ 
ment, it is not productive either of honour 
or emolument; being granted at the request 
of any member of that house, merely to 
enable him to vacate his seat by the accept¬ 
ance of a nominal office under the crown , 
and on this account it has frequently been 
granted to three or four members a week. 


Decio, a man of great figure, that had 
large commissions for sugar from several 
parts beyond sea, treats about a consider¬ 
able parcel of that commodity with Alcan¬ 
der, an eminent West India merchant; 
both understood the market very well, but 
could not agree. Decio was a man of sub¬ 
stance, and thought nobody ought to buy 
cheaper than himself. Alcander w r as the 
same, and not wanting money, stood for 
his price. Whilst they were driving their 
bargain at a tavern near the Exchange, 
Alcander’s man brought his master a letter 
from the West Indies, that informed him of 
a much greater quantity of sugars coming 
for England than was expected. Alcander 
now wished for nothing more than to sell 
at Decio’s price, before the news was 
public; but being a cunning fox, that he 
might not seem too precipitant, nor yet 
lose his customer, he drops the discourse 
they were upon, and putting on a jovial 
humour, commends the agreeableness of 
the weather; from whence falling upon the 
delight he took in his gardens, invites 
Decio to go along with him to his country 
house, that was not above twelve miles 
from London. It was in the month of May, 
and as it happened upon a Saturday in the 
afternoon, Decio, who was a single man, 
and would have no business in town before 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


This is an eccentric, good-humoured cha¬ 
racter—a lover of a chirruping cup—and a 
I favourite yvith the pitmen of Durham. He 
' dresses like them, and mixes and iokes 
J with them ; and his portrait seems an ap¬ 
propriate illustration of the following paper, 

I by a gentleman of the north, well acquaint¬ 
ed with their remarkable manners. 


THE PITMAN. 

For the Table Book. 

“ O the bonny pit laddie, the cannie pit laddie. 

The bonny pit laddie for me, 01— 

He sits in a hole, as black as a coal. 

And brings all the white money to me, 0 !” 

Old Tit Sono. 

Gentle Reader, — Whilst thou sittest 
casting thy feet at the glowing fuel in thy 


grate, watching in dreaming unconscious¬ 
ness the various shapes and fantastic forms 
appearing and disappearing in the bright, 
red heat of thy fire—here a beautiful 
mountain, towering with its glowing top 
above the broken and diversified valley 
beneath—there a church, with its pretty 
spire peeping above an imagined village ; 
or, peradventure, a bright nob, assuming 
the ken of human likeness, thy playful 
fancy picturing it the semblance of some 
distant friend—I say, whilst thou art sitting j 
in this fashion, dost thou ever think of that 
race of mortals, whose whole life is spent be¬ 
yond a hundred fathoms below the surface 
of mother earth, plucking from its unwilling 
bosom the materials of thy greatest com¬ 
fort ? 

The pitman enables thee to set at 
nought the “ pelting of the pitiless storm.” 


Comm!) Bril of Ijougbtondr^pring, Durham. 


326 





















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


and render a season of severity and pinch¬ 
ing bitterness, one of warmth, and kindly 
feeling, and domestic smiles. If thou hast 
never heard :>f these useful and daring men 
who 

'* Contemn the terrors of the mine, 

Explore the caverns, dark and drear. 

Mantled around with deadly dew ; 

Where congregated vapours blue, 

Fir’d by the taper glimmering near. 

Bid dire explosion the deep realms invade. 

And earth-born lightnings gleam athwart th* infernal 
shade ;”* 

—who dwell in a valley of darkness for thy 
sake, and whose lives are hazarded every 
moment in procuring the light and heat of 
the flickering flame—listen with patience, 
f not with interest, to a short account of 
them, from the pen of one who is not un¬ 
mindful of 

“ The simple annals of the poor.” 

The pitmen, who are employed in bring¬ 
ing coals to the suiface of the earth, from 
immensely deep mines, for the London and 
neighbouring maikets, are a race entirely 
distinct from the peasantry surrounding 
them. They are principally within a few 
miles of the river Wear, in the county of 
Durham, and the river Tyne, which traces 
the southern boundary of Northumberland. 
They reside in long rows of one-storied 
houses, called by themselves “ pit-rows,*’ 
built near the chief entrance to the mine. 
To each house is attached a small garden, 

“ For ornament or use,” 

and wherein they pay so much attention to 
the cultivation of flowers, that they fre¬ 
quently bear away prizes at floral ex¬ 
hibitions. 

Within the memory of the writer, (and 
his locks a^e not yet “ silver’d o’er with 
age,”) the pitmen were a rude, bold, savage 
set of beings, apparently cut off from their 
fellow men in their interests and feelings ; 
often guilty of outrage in their moments of 
ebrious mirth ; not from dishonest motives, 
or hopes of plunder, but from recklessness, 
and lack of that civilization, which binds 
the wide and ramified society of a great 
city. From the age of five or six years, 
their children are immersed in the dark 
abyss of their lower worlds; and when 
even they enjoy the “ light of the blessed 
sun,** it is only in the company of their 
immediate relations : all have the same vo¬ 
cation, and all stand out, a sturdy band, 


• HlTDDKSrOBD. 


separate and apart from the motley mixture 
of general humanity. 

The pitmen have the air of a primitive 
race. They marry almost constantly with 
their own people; their boys follow the 
occupations of their sires—their daughters, 
at the age of blooming and modest maiden¬ 
hood, linking their fate to some honest 
“ neebors bairn thus, from generation 
to generation, family has united with family, 
till their population has become a dense 
mass of relationship, like the clans of out 
northern friends, “ ayont the Cheviot’s 
range.” The dress of one of them is that 
of the whole people. Imagine a man, of 
only middling stature, (few are tall or 
robust,) with several large blue marks, 
occasioned by cuts, impregnated with coal- 
dust, on a pale and swarthy countenance, a 
coloured handkerchief around his neck, a 
“ posied waistcoat ” opened at the breast, 
to display a striped shirt beneath, a short 
blue jacket, somewhat like, but rather 
shorter than the jackets of our seamen, 
velvet breeches, invariably unbuttoned and 
untied at the knee, on the “ tapering calf ” 
a blue worsted stocking, with white clocks, 
and finished downwards by a long, low- 
quartered shoe, and you have a pitman 
before you, equipped for his Saturday’s 
cruise to “ canny Newcastle,” or for his 
Sabbath’s gayest holiday. 

On a Saturday evening you will see a 
long line of road, leading to the nearest 
large market town, grouped every where 
with pitmen and their wives or “ lasses,” 
laden with large baskets of the “ stomach’s 
comforts,” sufficient for a fortnight’s con¬ 
sumption. They only are paid for their 
labour at such intervals; and their weeks 
are divided into what they term “ pay 
week,” and “ bauf week,” (the etymology 
of “ bauf,”* I leave thee, my kind reader, 
to find out.)—All merry and happy— 
trudging home with their spoils—not un- 1 
frequently the thrifty husband is *een 
“ half seas over,” wrestling his onward way 
with an obstinate little pig, to whose hind 
leg is attached a string, as security for al¬ 
legiance, while ever and anon this third 
in the number of “ obstinate graces,” seeks 
a sly opportunity of evading its unsteady 
guide and effecting a retreat over the road, 
and “ Geordie” (a common name among 
them) attempts a masterly retrograde reel 
to regain his fugitive. A long cart, lent 

* Quaere ? Whether r ome wag has not originally 1 
given the pitman the benefit of this term from b.'-Jler 
or baffolier, to mock or affront ; “ aiblins.” it may b« 
a corruption of our English term “ baik.” to disao 
point. 








































THE TABLE BOOK 


by the owners of the colliery for the pur¬ 
pose, is sometimes filled with the women 
and their marketings, jogging homeward at 
a smart pace; and from these every way¬ 
farer receives a shower of taunting, coarse 
jokes, and the air is filled with loud, rude 
merriment. Pitmen do not consider it any 
deviation from propriety for their wives to 
accompany them to the alehouses of the 
market town, and join their husbands in 
their glass and pint. I have been amused 
by peeping through the open window of a 
pothouse, to see parties of them, men and 
women, sitting round a large fir table, 
talking, laughing, smoking, and drinking 
con amore; and yet these poor women are 
never addicted to excessive drinking. The 
men, however, are not particularly abste¬ 
mious when their hearts are exhilarated with 
the bustle of a town. 

When the pitman is abou* to descend to 
the caverns of his labour, he is dressed in 
a checked flannel jacket, waistcoat, and 
trowsers, with a bottle or canteen slung 
(across his shoulders, and a satchell or 
haversack at his side, to hold provender for 
his support during his subterrene sojourn, 
i At all hours, night and day, groups of men 
and boys are seen dressed in this fashion 
| wending their way to their colliery, some 
carrying sir Humphrey Davy's (called by 
them “ Davy's”) safety-lamp, ready trim¬ 
med, and brightened for use. They descend 
the pit by means of a basket or “ corfe,” 
or merely by swinging themselves on to a 
chain, suspended at the extreme end of the 
cordage, and are let down, with inconceiv¬ 
able rapidity, by a steam-engine. Clean 
and orderly, they coolly precipitate them¬ 
selves into a black, smoking, and bottom¬ 
less-looking crater, where you would think 
it almost impossible human lungs could 
play, or blood dance thiuugh the heart. 
At nearly the same moment you see others 
coming up, as jetty as the object of their 
search, drenched and tired. I have stood 
in a dark night, near the mouth of a pit, 
lighted by a suspended grate, filled with 
flaring coals, casting an unsteady but fierce 
reflection on the surrounding swarthy coun¬ 
tenances; the pit emitting a smoke as 
dense as the chimney of a steam-engine ; 
the men, with their sooty and grimed 
faces, glancing about their sparkling eyes, 
while the talking motion of their red lips 
disclosed rows of ivory ; the steam-engines 
clanking and crashing, and the hissing from 
the huge boilers, making a din, only broken 
by the loud, mournful, and musical cry of 
the man stationed at the top of the pit 
u ihaft,” calling down to his companions 


in labour at the bottom. This, altogether, 
is a scene as wild and fearful as a painter 
or a poet could wish to see. 

All have heard of the dreadful accidents 
in coal-mines from explosions of fire-damp, 
inundations, &c., yet few have witnessed 
the heart-rending scenes of domestic cala¬ 
mity which are the consequence. .Aged 
fathers, sons, and sons’ sons, a wide branch¬ 
ing family, all are sometimes swept away 
by a fell blast, more sudden, and, if possi¬ 
ble, more terrible, than the deadly Sirocca 
of the desert. 

Never shall I forget one particular scene 
of family destruction. I was passing along 
a “ pit-row ” immediately after a “ firing,” 
as the explosion of fire-damp is called, when 
I looked into one of the houses, and my 
attention bee <me so nvetted, that I scarcely 
knew I had entered the room. On one bed 
lay the bodies of two men, burnt to a livid 
ash colour; the eldest was apparently sixty, 
the other about forty—father and son:— 
on another bed, in the same room, were 
“ streaked ” three fine boys, the oldest not 
more than fifteen—sons of the younger 
dead—all destroyed at the same instant by 
the same destructive blast, let loose from 
the mysterious hand of Providence : and 
I saw—Oh God! I shall never forget—I 
saw the vacant, maddened countenance, 
and quick, wild glancing eye of the father¬ 
less, widowed, childless being, who in the 
morning was smiling in her domestic feli¬ 
city ; whose heart a few hours before was- 
exultingly beating as she looked on her 
“ gudeman and bonny bairm .” Before the 
evening sun had set she was alone in the 
world; without a prop for her declining 
age, and every endearing tie woven around 
her heart was torn and dissevered. I passed 
into the neat little garden—it was the 
spring time—part of the soil was fresh 
turned up, and some culinary plants were 
newly set:—these had been the morning 
work of the younger father—his spade was 
standing upright in the earth at the last 
spot he had laboured at; he had left it 
there, ready for the evening’s employment: 
—the garden was yet blooming with all the 
delightful freshness of vernal vegetation 
its cultivator was withered and dead—his 
spade was at hand for another to dig its 
owner’s grave. 

Amidst all their dangers, the pitmen are 
a cheerful, industrious race of men. Thev 
were a few years ago much addicted to 
gambling, cock-fighting, horse-racing, &c. 
Their spare hours are diverted now to a 
widely different channel; they are for the 
most part members of the Wesleyan sects : 


328 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


and, not unfrequently in passing their hum- 
ole but neat dwellings, instead of brawls 
and fights you hear a peaceful congregation 
of worshippers, uttering their simple pray¬ 
ers ; or the loud hymn of praise breaking 
the silence of the eventide. 

The ancient custom of sword-dancing at 
Christmas is kept up in Northumberland, 
exclusively by these people. They may be 
constantly seen at that festive season with 
their fiddler, bands of swordsmen, Tommy 
and Bessy, most grotesquely dressed, per¬ 
forming their annual routine of warlike 
evolutions. I have never had the pleasure 
of seeing the Every-Day Book , but I have 
no doubt this custom has there been fully 
illustrated. 

* 


Some years ago a Tynemouth vessel, 
called the “ Northern Star,” was lost, and 
the following ballad made on the occasion : 
the memory of a lady supplies the words— 

For the Table Book. 

THE NORTHERN STAR. 

The Northern Star 
Sail’d over the bar. 

Bound to the Baltic sea— 

In the morning grey 
She stretch’d away,— 

’Twas a weary day to me. 

For many an hour 
In sleet and shower 
By the lighthouse rock I stray. 

And watch till dark 
For the winged bark 
Of him that is far away. 

The castle’s bound 
I wander round 

Amidst the grassy graves,* 

But all I hear 

Is the north wind drear. 

And all I see are the waves. 

Oh roam not there 
Thou mourner fair, 

Nor pour the useless tear, 

Thy plaint of woe 
Is all below— 

The dead —they cannot hear. 

The Northern Star 
Is set afar. 

Set in the Baltic sea, 

And the waves have spread 
The sandy bed, 

That holds thy love from thee. 

* Tynemouth-castle, the grounds of which are used 
m a cemetery. 


British iHiiifg. 

For the Table Book. 

M ines of gold and silver, sufficient to re¬ 
ward the conqueror, were found in Mexica 
and Peru; but the island of Britain neves 
produced enough of the precious metaij 
to compensate the ihvader for the trouble 
of slaughtering our ancestors. 

Camden mentions gold and silver mines 
in Cumberland, a mine of silver in Flint¬ 
shire, and of gold in Scotland. Speaking of 
the copper mines of Cumberland, he says 
that veins of gold and silver were found 
intermixed with the common ore; and in 
the reign of Elizabeth gave birth to a suit 
at law between the earl of Northumberland 
and another claimant. 

Borlase, in his History of Cornwall, 
relates, “that so late as the year 1753 
several pieces of gold were found in what 
the miners call stream tin ; and silver is now 
got in considerable quantity from several of 
our lead mines.” 

A curious paper, concerning the gold 
mines of Scotland, is given by Mr. Pennant, 
in the Appendix, No. 10. to his second 
pari of a “Tour in Scotland, in 1772;” 
but still there never was sufficient gold and 
silver enough to constitute the price of 
victory. The other metals, such as tin, 
copper, iron, and lead, are found in abun¬ 
dance at tiiis day; antimony and manga¬ 
nese in small quantities* 

Of the copper mines now working in 
Cornwall, “ Dolcoath,” situated near Cam- 
born, is the deepest, having a 220 fathom 
level under the adit, which is 40 fathoms 
from the surface; so that the total depth is 
260 fathoms, or 1560 feet: it employs up¬ 
wards of 1000 persons. The “ Consolidated 
Mines,” in Gwennap, are the most pro¬ 
ductive perhaps in the world, yielding from 
10/. to 12000/. a month of copper ore, with 
a handsome profit to the shareholders* 
“ Great St. George ” is the only productive 
mine near St. Agnes, and the only one 
producing metal to the “ English Mining 
Association.” 

Of the tin mines, “ Wheal Nor,” in 
Breague, is an immense concern, producing 
an amazing quantity, and a large profit ti¬ 
the company. “ Carnon Stream,” neai 
Perran, is now yielding a good profit on its j 


* A Missouri paper states, that copper is in such 
abundance and purity, from the falls of St. Anthony 
to Lake Superior, that the Indians make hatchets and j 
ornaments of it, without any other instrument than the 
hammer. The mines still remain in the possession e* 
the Indians. 













































THE TABLE BOOK. 


capital. It has a shaft sunk in the middle 
of the stream. The washings down from 
so many mines, the adits of which run in 
this stream, bring many sorts of metal, with 
some curious bits of gold. 

Of late years the mine called Wheal 
Rose, and some others belonging to sir 
Christopher Hawkins, have been the most 
prolific of lead, mixed with a fair proportion 
of silver. Wheal Penhale, Wheal Hope, 
and others, promise favourably, 
i As yet Wheal Sparnon has not done 
much in cobalt; the quality found in that 
mine is very excellent, but quantity is the 
“ one thing needful.” 

The immense quantity of coals consumed 
m the numerous fire-engines come from 
Wales ; the vessels convey the copper ore, 
as it is brought by the copper companies, to 
their smelting works: it is a back freight 
for the shipping. 

Altogether, the number of individuals 
who derive their living by means of the 
mineral district of Cornwall must be incal¬ 
culable ; and it is a great satisfaction to 
know, that this county suffered less during 
the recent bad times than perhaps any 
other county. 

Sam Sam’s Son. 

April 30, 1827. 


angling 

AT THAMES DITTON. 

For the Table Book. 

Thames Ditton is a pretty little village, 
delightfully situated on the banks of the 
Thames, between Kingston and Hampton 
Court palace. During the summer and 
autumn, it is the much-frequented resort of 
the followers of Isaac Walton’s tranquil 
occupation. 

The Swan inn, only a few paces from the 
water’s edge, remaikable for the neatness 
and comfort of its appearance, and for the 
still more substantial attractions of its in¬ 
ternal accommodation, is kept by Mr. John 
Locke, a most civil, good-natured, and 
obliging creature ; and, what is not of 
slight importance to a bon-vivant, he has a 
wife absolutely incomparable in the pre¬ 
paration of “ stewed eels,” and not to be 
despised in the art of cocking a good beef¬ 
steak, or a mutton-chop. 

| But what is most remarkable in this 
place is its appellation of “ lying Ditton ”— 
from what reason I have ever been unable 
to discover, unless it has been applied by 
those cockney anglers, who, chagrined at 


their want of sport, have bestowed uoon 
that very opprobrious designation j and 
perhaps not entirely without foundation 
for when they have’ been unsuccessful in j 
beguiling the finny tribe, the fishermen, 
who attend them in their punts, are always 
prepared to assign a cause for their failure; 
as that the water is too low—or not suffi¬ 
ciently clear—or too muddy—or there is a 
want of rain—or there has been too much of 
that element—or—any thing else—except 
a want of skill in the angler himself, who 
patiently sits in his punt, watching the 
course of his float down the stream, or its 
gentle diving under the water, by which he 
flatters himself he has a bite, listening to 
the stories of his attendant, seated in calm 
indifference at his side, informing him of 
the mortality produced among the gelid 
tribe by the noxious gas which flows into 
the river from the metropolis, the alarming 
effects from the motion of the steam-boats 
on their fishy nerves, and, above all, from 
their feeding at that season of year on the 
green weeds at the bottom. 

However, there are many most skilful 
lovers of the angle who pay weekly, month¬ 
ly, or annual visits to this retired spot; 
amongst whom are gentlemen of fortune, 
professional men, and respectable trades¬ 
men. After the toils of the day, the little 
rooms are filled with aquatic sportsmen,! 
who have left the cares of life, and the' 
great city behind them, and associate in! 
easy conversation, and unrestrained mirth. | 

One evening last summer there alighted 
from the coach a gentleman, apparently of 
the middle age of live, who first seeing 
his small portmanteau, fishing-basket, and 
rods safely deposited with the landlord,! 
whom he heartily greeted, walked into the 
room, and shaking hands with one or two 
of his acquaintances, drew a chair to the 
window, which he threw up higher than it 
was before; and, after surveying with a 
cheerful countenance the opposite green 
park, the clear river with its sedgy 
islands, and the little flotilla of punts, 
whose tenants were busily engaged on 
their gliding floats, he seemed as delighted 
as a bird that has regained his liberty: 
then, taking from his pocket a paper, he 
showed its contents to me, who happened 
to be seated opposite, and asked if I was a 
connoisseur in “ single hair;” for, if I was, 
I should find it the best that could be pro¬ 
cured for love or money. I replied that I 
seldom fished with any but gut-lines; yet 
it appeared, as far as I could judge, to be 
very fine. “ Fine!” said he, “ it would do 
for the filament of a spider’s-web ; and yet 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


I expect to-morrow to kill with it a fish of 
a pound weight. I recollect,” continued 
he, “ when I was but a tyro in the art of an¬ 
gling, once fishing with an old gentleman, 
whose passion for single-hair was so great, 
that, when the season of the year did not 
permit him to pursue his favourite diver- 
lion, he spent the greatest part of his time in 
Ravelling about from one end of the king¬ 
dom to the other, seeking the best speci¬ 
mens of this invaluable article. On his 
visits to the horse-dealers, instead of scru¬ 
tinizing the horses in the customary way, 
fly examining their legs, inquiring into 
their points and qualities, or trying their 
paces, to the unspeakable surprise of the 
venders, he invariably walked up to the 
nether extremities of the animals, and seized 
hold of their tails, by which means he was 
enabled to select a capital assortment of 
hairs for his ensuing occupation.” 

After the new-comer had finished his 
amusing anecdote, the noise of a numerous 
flock of starlings, which had assembled 

O 7 

among the trees in the park preparatory to 
their evening adjournment to roost, attracted 
his notice by the babel-like confusion of 
their shrill notes, and led him again to en¬ 
tertain us with a story touching their pecu¬ 
liarities. 

“ I remember,” said he, “ when I was at 
a friend’s house in Yorkshire last autumn, 
there were such immense numbers of these 
birds, who sought their sustenance by day 
on the neighbouring marshes, and at night 
came to roost in his trees, that at length 
there was not room for their entire accom¬ 
modation ; the consequence of which was, 
that it became a matter of necessity that a 
separation of their numbers should take 
place—a part to other quarters, the re¬ 
mainder to retain possession of their old 
haunts. If I might judge from the con¬ 
flicting arguments which their confused 
chatterings seemed to indicate, the contem¬ 
plated arrangement was not at all relished 
by those who were doomed to separate 
from their companions—a separation, how¬ 
ever, did take place—but the exiles would 
not leave the field undisputed. Birds, like 
aid-de-camps of an army, flew from one 
side to the other—unceasing voices gave 
note of dreadful preparation—and, at last, 
both sides took flight at the same instant. 
The whirring sound of their wings was 
perfectly deafening; when they had at¬ 
tained a great height in the air, the two 
forces clashed together with the greatest 
impetuosity ; immediately the sky was ob¬ 
scured with an appearance like the falling 
cf snow, descending gradually to the earth, 


accompanied with a vast quantity of bodies 
of the starlings, which had been speared 
through by hostile beaks—they literally fell 
like hail. It was then growing rather dusk; 
I could merely see the contending flocks far 
above me for some time—it became darker 
—and I returned to narrate this extraordi¬ 
nary aerial combat to my friend, who in the 
morning had the curiosity to accompany 
me to the held of battle, where we picked 
up, according to an accurate calculation, 
1087 of these birds, some quite dead, and 
others generally severely wounded, with an 
amazing quantity of their feathers.” 

1 saw this amusing gentleman on the 
following morning sitting quietly in his 
punt, exercising h‘is single-hair skill, nearly 
ooposite to the little fishing-house. 

E. J. II. 

April, 1827. 


TICKLING TROUT. 

For the Table Book. 

It is a liberty taken by poachers with the 
little brook running through Castle Coombe, 
to catch trout by tickling. I instance the 
practice there because I have there wit¬ 
nessed it, although it prevails in other 
places. The person employed wades into 
the stream, puts his bare arms into the 
hole where trout resort, slides his fingers 
under the fish, feels its position, com¬ 
mences tickling, and the trout falls gradu¬ 
ally into his hand, and is thrown upon the 
grass. This is a successful snare, destruc¬ 
tive to the abundance of trout, and the 
angler’s patient pleasure. The lovers of 
the “ hook and eye ” system oppose these* 
ticklish practices, and the ticklers, when 
caught, are “ punished according to law,” 
while the patrons of the “rod and line ” 
escape. Shakspeare may have hinted at 
retribution, when he said 

“ A thousand men the^sAes gnawed upon.’ 

Pope tell us that men are 

“ Pleased with a feather, tickled,with a straw.” 

P. 


THE CLERKS OF CORNWALL. 

1. In the last age there was a familianty 
between the parson and the clerk and the 
people, which our -feelings of decorum 
would revolt at, e. g.—“ I have seen the 
ungodly flourish like a green bay tree.’’— 
“ How can that be, maister I” said the clers 




331 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


ot St. Clement’s. Of this I was myself an 
ear-witness. 

2. At Kenwyn, two dogs, one of which 
was the parson’s, were fighting at the west- 
end of the church; the parson, who was 
then reading the second lesson, rushed out 
of the pew, and went down and parted 
them, returned to his pew, and, doubtful 
where he had left off, asked the clerk, 
“ Roger, where was I V' “ Why down 
parting the dogs, maister,” said Roger. 

3. At Mevagizzey, when non-resident 
Clergymen officiated, it was usual with the 
squire of the parish to invite them to din¬ 
ner. Several years ago, a non-resident 
clergyman was requested to do duty in tho 
■ church of Mevagizzey on a Sunday, when 
the Creed of St. Athanasius is directed to 
be read. Before he had begun the service, 
the parish-clerk asked him, whether he in¬ 
tended to read the Athanasian Creed that 
morning. “ Why?” said the clergyman. 
“ Because if you do, no dinner for you at 
the squire’s, at Penwarne.” 

4. A very short time since, parish-clerks 
used to read the first lesson. I once heard 
the St. Agnes clerk cry out, “ At the mouth 
of the burning viery vurnis , — Shadrac, 
Meshac, and Abednego, com voath and com 
hether .” [Daniel, chap, iii.] 

The clerk of Lamorran, in giving out the 
Psalm, “ Like a timorous bird, to distant 
mountains fly,” always said, “ Like a tem- 
mersum burde , &c. &c.” with a shake of the 
head, and a quavering of the voice, which 
could not but provoke risibility.* 


Custom 

OBSERVED BY THE 

LORD LIEUTENANTS OF IRELAND 

On the great road from London to West 
Jhester, we find, at the principal inns, the 
mats of arms of several lord lieutenants of 
Ireland, framed, and hung up in the best 
ooms. At the bottom of these armorial 
jiictures (as I may call them) is a full dis¬ 
play of all the titles of the party, together 
vith tlue date of the year when each vice- 
lyship commenced. I have often inquired 
j*.e reason of this custom, but never could 
rocure a satisfactory answer. I do not 
feprobate the idea of this relique of an¬ 
cient dignity, as these heraldic monuments 
were doubtless intended to operate as pub¬ 
lic evidences of the passage of each lord- 


• Rev. Mr. Polwhele’s Recollections. 


deputy to his delegated government. They 
now seem only to be preserved for the | 
gratification of the vanity of the capital inn- 
keepers, by showing to humble travellers 
that such and such lord lieutenants did 
them the honour to stop at their houses; 
and yet I will not say, but that for half-a- 
crown handsomely offered to his excel-1 
lency’s gentleman, they might likewise 
become part of the furniture of every ale¬ 
house in Dunstable. 

After fruitless inquiry, accident furnished 
me with the ground of this custom, which 
now only serves to excite a little transitory 
curiosity. Having occasion to look into sir 
Dudley Digge’s “ Complete Ambassador,” 
published in 1654, I was obliged to the 
editor for a solution, who, in the preface, 
(signed A. H.,) speaking of the reserve of 
the English ambassadors, in not making 
public their negotiations, has this observa¬ 
tion :—“ We have hardly any notion of 
them but by their arms, which are hung up 
in inns where they passed.” 

This paragraph at once accounts for the 
point before us, and is sufficient, at the 
same time, to show that the custom was 
anciently, and even in the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, common to every ambassador, though 
it now only survives with those who go in 
the greater and more elevated line of royal 
representation to Ireland. 

Samuel Pegge.* 


For the Table Book. 

THE BACHELOR’S PLAINT. 
An Ode of the olden Time. 

Hark! the curfew, friend to night. 

Banishes the cheerful light; 

Now the scholar, monk, and sage— 

All by ramp that con the page— 

All to whom the light is dear 
Sigh that sullen knell to hear . 

Labour now with day is done; 

To the wave the weary sun 
Rushes, from its cool to borrow 
Vigour for his course to-morrow: 

Yet, in kindness, scorning quite 
Thus to rob the world of light, 

He lends the moon his useful beams. 

And through the night by proxy gleams. 
Kine unyok’d, sheep safely penn’d, 
Ploughmen, hind, and shepherd wend 
To the hostel's welcome latch. 

From the tankard’s draught to snatch 


“* Cunaha Miscellanea. 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Strength, relax’d, which, blithe of strain. 

Deeds of day they act again! 

Now the nightingale’s sad note 
ThroHgh the listening air ’gins float, 

Warning youth in warded tower. 

Maiden in her greenwood bower; 

Tis the very witching time. 

Dear alike to love and rhyme I 
Every lover, at the strain. 

Speeds the shady grove to gain, 

Where awaits the treasur’d maid ; 

Where each care and toil’s repaid! 

Each fond heart now lightly veers, 

With alternate hopes and fears ; 

Each fond heart now sweetly glows. 

With love’s rapturous joys and woes ; 

Each fond heart—ah, why not mine I— 

Gently hails the day’s decline ; 

But, alas ! mine,—woe is me !— 

Is benumb’d by apathy ; 

Is indifference’ dull throne— 

There she reigns, unmov’d, alone ! 

There one stagnant calm presides. 

Chilling all sweet feelings’ tides ! 

Ah, methinks, I fierce despair 
Better than such calm could bear: 

I have nought to hope or fear— 

No emotion claims a tear— 

No soft rapture wakes a smiie, 

Meeding centuries of toil! 

Listless, sad, forlorn, I rove. 

Feeling still the heart wants Love ! 

Nought to me can pleasure give. 

Shadow of the dead I live ! 

No sweet maid’s consenting blush 
On my cheek brings rapture’s flush ! 

No fond maiden’s tender tear 
Thrills my soul with transports dear ! 

No kind maiden’s kiss bestows 
Blest reward for all my woes ! 

No sweet maid’s approving smile 
Beams my labours to beguile ! 

Best incentive Love can claim. 

Leading age to wealth and fame. 

A lone and lonely being I, 

Only seem to live—to die ! 

With mankind my vacant heart 
Feels as if it had no part! 

Love, thy slave I’d rather be. 

Than free, if this is being free ! 

Rather feel thy worst annoy, 

Than live and never know thy joy ! 

Come, then, let thy keenest dart, 

Drive this loath’d Freedom from my heart: 

I’ll Dear <vhole ages of thy pain. 

One moment of thy bliss to gain ! 

W. T. M. 

Afrj, 1827 


BRUMMELLIANA, 

A great deal used to be said of Beau 
Nash and his witticisms ; but certainly we 
never met with any thing of his which was 
at all equal to the oracular sentences of the 
gentleman who gives a name to this article. 
Of all the beaux that ever flourished—at 
least, of all that ever flourished on the same 
score—exemplary of waistcoat, and having 
authoritative boots from which there was 
no appeal—he appears to us to have been 
the only one who made a proper and per¬ 
fect union of the coxcombical and ingeni¬ 
ous. Other men may have been as scientific 
on the subject of bibs, in a draper-like 
point of view ; and others may have said as 
good things, which had none of the colour¬ 
ing arising out of the consciousness of 
fashionable preeminence. Beau Fielding, 
we believe, stands on record as the hand¬ 
somest of beaux. There is Beau Skeffing- 
ton, now rather sir Lumley, who, under all 
his double-breasted coals and waistcoats, 
never had any other than a single-hearted 
soul; he is to be recorded as the most 
amiable of beaux ; but Beau Brummell 
for your more than finished coxcomb. He 
could be grave enough, but he was any 
thing but a solemn coxcomb. lie played 
with his own sceptie It was found a 
grand thing to be able to be a consummate 
fop, and yet have the ciedit of being some¬ 
thing greater; and he was both. Never 
was any thing more exquisitely conscious, 
yet indifferent; extravagant, yet judicious. 
His superiority in dress gave such import¬ 
ance to his genius, and his genius so 
divested of insipidity his superiority in 
dress, that the poet’s hyperbole about the 
lady might be applied to his coat; and 

“ You might almost say the body thought.” 

It was a moot point which had the more 
tact, his gloves or his fingers’ ends. He 
played the balls of wit and folly so rapidly 
about his head, that they lost their distinc¬ 
tions in one crowning and brilliant halo. 

Mr. Brummell, it is true, is no longer in 
favour as a settler of fashions. Why, it is 
not our business to inquire. But though it 
may be said of his waistcoat, like Troy, that 
it teas, his wit is, and will remain; and 
here, for the first time, a few specimens of 
it are collected. If George Etheridge him¬ 
self would not have acknowledged a brother 
in George Brummell, then are no two 
gloves of a colour. 

To begin with what is usually reckoned 
the prince of his good things. Mr. Brum¬ 
mell having fallen out of favour with an 


333 




THE TABLE BOOK. 


illustrious person, was of course to be cut, 
as the phrase is, when met in public 
Riding one day with a friend, who hap¬ 
pened to be otherwise regarded, and en¬ 
countering the personage in question, who 
spoke to the friend without noticing Mr. 
Brummell, he affected the air of one who 
waits aloof while a stranger is present; 
and then, when the great oaan was moving 
off, said to his companion, loud enough for 
the other to hear, and placidly adjusting 
his bibs, “ Eh ! who is our fat friend ?” 

Having taken it into his head, at one 
time, to eat no vegetables, and being asked 
by a lady if he had never eaten any in his 
life, he said, “ Yes, madam, I once eat a 
pea.” 

Being met limping in Bond-street, and 
asked what was the matter, he said he had 
hurt his leg, and “the worst of it was, it 
vas his favourite leg.” 

Somebody inquiring where he was going 
.o dine next day, was told that he really 
did not know: “ they put me in my coach 
and take me somewhere.” 

He pronounced of a fashionable tailor 
that he made a good coat, an exceedingly 
good coat, all but the collar : nobody could 
achieve a good collar but Jenkins. 

Having borrowed some money of a city 
beau, whom he patronised in return, he 
was one day asked to repay it; upon which 
he thus complained to a friend: “ Do you 
know what has happened ?”—“ No.’’— 
“ Why, do you know, there’s that fellow, 
Tomkins, who lent me five hundred pounds, 
has had the face to ask me for it; and 
yet I had called the dog ‘ Tom,’ and let 
myself dine with him.” 

“ You have a cold, Mr. Brummell,” ob¬ 
served a sympathizing group. “ Why do 
you know,” said he, “ that on the Brighton 
road, the other day, that infidel, Weston, 
jhis valet,) put me into a room with a damp 
Itranger.” 

Being asked if he liked port, he said, 
with an air of difficult recollection, “ Port ? 
port?—Oh, port /—Oh, ay; what, the hot 
intoxicating liquor so much drank by the 
lower orders ?” 

Going to a rout, where he had not been 
invited, or rather, perhaps, where the host 
wished to mortify him, and attempted it, 
he turned placidly round to him, and, with 
a happy mixture of indifference and sur¬ 
prise, asked him his name. “ Johnson,” 
was the answer. “ Jauhnson,” said Brum¬ 
mell, recollecting, and pretending to feel 
for a card; “ Oh, the name, I remember, 
was Thaun-son (Thompson;) and Jauhn¬ 
son and Thaunson, you know, Jauhnson 


and Thaunson, are really so much the same 
kind of thing !” 

A beggar petitioned him for charity 
“ even if it was only a farthing.”—“ Fel¬ 
low,” said Mr. Brummell, softening the 
disdain of the appellation in the gentleness 
of his tone, “ I don’t know the coin.” 

Having thought himself invited to some¬ 
body’s country seat, and being given to 
understand, after one nights lodging, that 
he was in error, he told an unconscious 
friend in town who asked him wl'iat sort of 
a place it was, that it was an “ exceedingly 
good place for stopping one night in.” 

Speaking lightly of a man, and wishing 
to convey his maximum of contemptuous 
feeling about him, he said, “ He is a fellow 
row, that would send his plate up twice 
for soup.” 

It was his opinion, that port, and not 
porter, should be taken with cheese. “ A 
gentleman,” said he, “ never malts with his 
cheese, he always ports." 

It being supposed that he once failed in 
a matrimonial speculation, somebody con¬ 
doled with him; upon which he smiled, 
with an air of better knowledge on that 
point, and said, with a sort of indifferent 
feel of his neckcloth, “ Why, sir, the truth 
is, I had great reluctance in cutting the 
connection ; but what could I do ? (Here 
he looked deploring and conclusive.) Sir, 1 
discovered that the wretch positively ate 
cabbage.” 

Upon receiving some affront from an 
illustrious personage, he said that it was 
“ rather too good. By gad, I have half a 
mind to cut the young one, and bring old 
G—e into fashion.” 

When he went visiting, he is reported to 
have taken with him an elaborate dressing 
apparatus, including a silver basin; “ For,” 
said he, “ it is impossible to spit in clay.” 

On being asked by a friend, during an 
unseasonable summer, if he had ever seen 
such a one? “Yes,” replied B. “last 
wunter.” 

On a reference being made to him as to 
what sum would be sufficient to meet the 
annual expenditure for clothes, he said, 
“ that with a moderate degree of prudence j 
and economy, he thought it might be 
managed for eight hundred per annum ” 

He told a friend that Ikj was reforming 
his way of life, “ For instance,” said he, 
“ I sup early ; I take a-a-little lobster, an 
apricot puff, or so, and some burnt cham- 
paigne, about twelve; and my man gets 
me to bed by three.”* 


• Literary Pocket Book. 


334 































Cbe CroohrtJ BtUrt, on $Jmge Common. 


Friday , May ,— 1827. 

I had appointed this morning with my 
rriend W. for a visit to the gallery of paint- 
I ngs at Dulwich College ; and he was to 
obtain from a printseller an admission 
ticket, and bring it with him. He came 
furnished with the ticket, but as the ticket 
provided that the public were not to be 
admitted on a Friday, our seeing the pic¬ 
tures was out of the question. Neither of 
us, however, was in a humour to be dis¬ 
appointed of a holiday ; we therefore set 
i out in the direction we had intended. A 
coachman hailed us from the box of a Dul¬ 
wich stage; we gave him an assenting nod, 
and mounted the roof: and after a brisk 
drive through Walworth and Camberwell, 
which are now no other way distinguishable 
from the metropolis, than by the irregular 
forms and sizes of the houses, and the bits 
of sickly grass and bottle-green poplars 
that further diversify them, we attained to 


fche sight of the first out-of-town looking trees 
and verdure on the ascent towards Heme- 
hill. Here we began to feel “another air 
and during the calm drive down the hill into 
Dulwich—the prettiest of all the village 
entrances in the environs of London—we 
had glimpses, between the elms and syca- j 
mores, of pleasant lawns and blooming 
gardens, with bursts of the fine distances. 
The calm of the scene was heightened by 
the note of the cuckoo : it was no “ note of I 
fear’’ to us—we remembered our good wives 
surrounded by their families; they had 
greeted our departure with smiles, and 
hopes that the day would be pleasant, and 
that we should enjoy ourselves; — the 
mother and the children rejoiced in “fa¬ 
ther’s holiday” as a day of happiness to 
them, because it would make him happier. 

Leaving Dulwich College on our right, j 
with an useless regret, that, by our mistake I 
as to the day, the picture-gallery was closed j 


THE TABLE BOOK 


335 


z 






































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


: 

to us, we indulged in a passing remark on 
I the discrepancies of the building—the hail 
i and west wing of the Elizabethan age; the 
j east wing in the Vanbrugh style; and the 
; gallery differing from each. Alighting, just 
beyond, at the end of the old road, and 
crossing to the new one in the same line, 
we diligently perused an awful notice from 
the parochial authorities against offenders, 
and acquainted ourselves with the rewards 
for apprehending them. The board seemed 
to be a standing argument in behalf of 
reading and writing, in opposition to some 
of the respectable inhabitants of Dulwich, 
who consider ignorance the exclusive pro¬ 
perty of labourers and servants, which they 
cannot be deprived of without injury to 
their morals. 


Ascending the hill, and leaving on the 
left hand a large house, newly built by a rich 
timber-merchant, with young plantations 
that require years of growth before they 
can attain sufficient strength to defend the 
mansion from the winds, we reached the 
summit of the lull, and found a direction- 
post that pointed us to a choice of several 
roads. We strolled into one leading to 
Penge Common through enclosed wood¬ 
lands. Our ears were charmed by throngs 
of sweet singing birds; we were in a 
cathedtal of the feathered tribes, where 
u every denomination ’ chanted rapturous 
praises and thanksgivings; the verger- 
robins twittered as they accompanied us 
with their full sparkling eyes and brigh‘ 
liveried breasts.— 


Chiefs of the choir, and highest in the heavens, 
As emulous to join the angels’ songs. 

Were soaring larks; and some had dared so far 
They seem’d like atoms sailing in the light; 

Their voices and themselves were scarce discern d 


Above their comrades, who, in lower air 
Hung buoyant, brooding melody, that fell 
Streaming, and gushing, on our thirsty ears. 
In this celestial chancel we remain’d 


To reverence these creatures’ loud Te Deum— 


A holy office of their simple natures 
To Him—the great Creator and Preserver— 
Whom they instinctively adored. 


A gate in the road was opened to us by 
a poor woman, who had seen our approach 
; from her toad-side dwelling; she had the 
! care of collecting the toll from horsemen 
and carriage-drivers—we were foot- pas¬ 
sengers, and credited our tailots for the 
civility. At a few yards beyond this turn¬ 
pike we stopped to read a dictatorial inti¬ 
mation :—“ All trespassers on these woods 
will be prosecuted, and the constables have 
orders to take them into custody.” I am 
not sure that there is a “ physiognomy of 
hand-writing,” but I am a believer in the 
physiognomy of style, and the features of 
this bespoke a Buonaparte of the hundred 
! who had partaken of the carvings under an 
enclosure-act. No part was fenced off from 
the common road, and the land had been 
open to all till spoliation deprived the com¬ 
moners of their ancient, right, and annexed 
he common soil to a neighbouring domain. 
Whose it now is, by law, I know not, nor 
inquiied. I look around, and cottages 
have disappeared, and there are villas in- 
-tead ; and the workhouses are enlarged, 


and, instead of labour, tread-mills are pro¬ 
vided. According to a political economist I 
of ancient times, “ There is much food in 1 
the tillage of the poor;” and “ lie that 
maketh haste to be rich shall not be inno¬ 
cent.” To whom of old was it said, “ The 
spoil of the poor is in your houses ?” 

We lingered on our way, and passed a 
bridge over the canal, towards a well-look¬ 
ing public-house, called “ the Old Crooked 
Billet.” Before the door is, what is called, 
a “ sign,” which, according to modern 
usage, is a sign-post, with a sign-board 
without a sign, inscribed with the name of 
what the sign had been. Formerly this was 
a little ale-house, and to denote its use to 
the traveller, the landlord availed himself 
of one of the large old trees then before 
the door, and hung upon the lowest of its 
fine spreading branches not the “sign ” of 
the billet, but a real “ crooked billetthis 
was the origin of “ the Old Crooked Billet” 
on (what teas) Penge Common. We had 
set out late and loitered, and after a brief 
reconnoitre entered the house in search of 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


refreshment. The landlord and his family 
, were at dinner in a commodious, respect¬ 
able bar. He rose to us like “ a giant re¬ 
freshed,” and stood before us a good- 
humoured “ Boniface”—every inch a man 
—who had attained to stiength and fair 
proportion, by virtue of the ease and con¬ 
tent wherein he lived. We found from his 
notable dame that we could have eggs and 
bacon,-and spinach put into the pot from 
the garden, in a few minutes; nothing 
could have been suggested more suitable to 
our inclination, and we had the pleasure of 
being smiled into a comfortable parlour, 
with a bow-window view of the common. 
The time necessary for the preparation of 
our meal afforded leisure to observe the 
hostel. W. went out to pencil the exterior 
| in his sketch-book. Except for the situa- 
j tion, and the broad, good-humoured, coun¬ 
try face of our landlord, we might have 
imagined ourselves in town ; and this was 
the only uncomfortable feeling we had. 
The sign-board on the other side of the 
road revealed the name of our entertainer 
>—“ II. Harding,” and the parlour mantle- 
piece told that he was a “ Dealer in Foreign 
Wines, Segars, &c.” This inscription, 
written in clerk-like German text, framed 
and glazed, was transportation against my 
will, to the place from whence 1 came. 

()ur attention was diverted by the rolling 
! tip of a gig, espied afar off by “ mine host,” 
j who waited at the door with an eye to busi- 
; ness, and his hands in the pockets of his 
i,ean jacket. The driver, a thin, sharp- 
featured, pock-faced man, about forty, 
alighted with as much appearance of kindly 
disposition as he could bring his features to 
assume, and begged the favour of an order 
for “ a capital article.” His presented card 
was received with a drop of the landlord’s 
countenance, and a shake of the head. The 
solicitor—and he looked as keenly as a 
! Chancery-lane one—was a London Capil- 
j laire-maker; he urged “ a single bottle;” 

J the landlord pleaded his usage of sugar 
! and demurred, nor could he be urged on to 
trial. Our repast brought in, and finished 
j with a glass of coi.ntry brewed and a segar, 

I VV. completed his sketch, and we paid a 
I moderate charge, and departed with “ the 
: Old Crooked Billet” as exhibited in the en¬ 
graving. The house affords as “ good accom¬ 
modation for man and horse” as can be found 
in any retired spot so near London. Our 
stroll to it was delightful. We withdrew 
along the pleasant road to the village of 
Beckenham. Its white pointed spire, em¬ 
bowered in trees, had frequently caught our 
sight in the course of the day, and we de¬ 


sired to obtain a near view of a church that 
neightened the cheerful character of the j 
landscape. It will form another article— 
perhaps two. 

* 


02Hitc'ocraft. 

THE MOUNTAIN ASH. 

To the Editor. 

Witherslack , near Milnthorpe 
Westmoreland. 

Sir,—-1 think you have not celebrated | 
in the Every-Day Book the virtues of 
tne mountain ash, or as it is called in 
the northern counties, the Wiggen Tree. 
—Its anti-witching properties are there 
held in very high esteem. No witch will 
come near it ; and it is believed that the 
smallest twig, which might Gross the path 
of one of these communers with the powers 
of darkness, would as effectually stop her 
career, however wild it might be, or how¬ 
ever intent she might be on the business of 
evil, as did the “ key-stane” of the bridge 
of Doon stop the fiendish crew, that pur¬ 
sued poor Tam O’Shanter and his luckless 
mare Maggie. 

You are well aware that there are few 
places, especially in the country, in which 
one of these agents of the devil, yeleped 
“ witches,” does not reside. She may 
always be known by her extreme penury 
and ugliness. There is generally also a 
protuberance of flesh on some part of the 
neck or jaw, by which it is known that she 
has sold herself to the father of lies. She 
has usually a large black cat, of which she 
is prodigiously fond, and takes special care. 
Some shrewdly suspect this to be the “old 
gentleman” himself. She is very envious, 
and frequently makes malicious prognosti¬ 
cations of evil, which subsequent events but 
too faithfully verify. She must therefore, 
witli all these qualifications, be the authoress 
of every mishap, which cannot more rea- 
sonably be accounted for. For example, 
should the “ auld witch” call at any farm¬ 
house during the operation of churning, 
and be sulfered to depart without a sop 
being thrown to her, in the shape of a small 
print of butter, you will be sure to have 
many a weary hour of labour the next 
time you churn, before butter can be ob¬ 
tained. And, therefore, to prevent the old 
beldam introducing herself into the churn, i 
the churn-staff must be made of the “ Wig- 
gen Tree,” ana you will be effectually freed 


































THE TABLE BOOK 


from her further interference in that case. 
The cattle in the stables and cow-houses, 
if she takes a spite against you, are fre¬ 
quently found, or dreaded to be found, 
(for many an instance of such things is 
recorded on undoubted testimony,) in a 
morning, tied together, standing on their 
heads, the cows milked, and every other 
i mischievous prank played, which a mali¬ 
cious fiend could invent: and therefore to 
i prevent all these dire ills, the shafts of 
the forks, and all other utensils used in 
those places, must be made of the all- 
powerful “ Wiggen.” She frequently does 
the same mischief in places far remote on 
the same night; and although old and 
crippled, and showing “ all the variety of 
wretchedness” by day, at night she mounts 
her broomstick, and wings her airy course 
I to the moon, if need be. All honest people, 
i who have a due regard to undisturbed 
! slumbers during the night, when all the 
world knows that 

Church-yards yawn, 

And hell itself breathes forth contagion to the world, 


take special care to have a branch of 
this never-failing antidote to witchery at 
j their bed heads. This has been the prac¬ 
tice of my mother ever since I can re¬ 
member; she also carries a hare’s foot 
in her pocket, to guard against all at¬ 
tacks in that quarter by day. You will 
think that these precautions are very un¬ 
called for, perhaps, at this time of day, but 
such we have been in our generations, and 
such to a considerable extent we now are , 
and therefore pray do record us. 

I remain. Sir, &c. 

CARLE. 


A PARTICULAR DIRECTION. 

A few months ago a letter, bearing the. 
following curious superscription, was put 
into the post-office in Manchester:—“ For 
Mr. Colwell that Keeps the Shop in Back 
Anderson-st. to Bee Gave to Jack Timlen 
that Keeps the pigs in his own Sellar in 
Back Anderson-st. the irish man that has 
the Large family that bgs the mail from 
Mr. Colwell and milk to Bolton.”* 


P 

r 


L 


. 

igarnrfe flags. 

No XIX. 


[From the “Silver Age,” an Historcal 
Play, by Thomas Hey wood, 1613.J 

Proserpine seeking Flowers. 


Pros. 0 may these meadows ever barren be. 
That yield of flowers no more variety ! 

Here neither is the White nor Sanguine Rose, 
The Strawberry Flower, the Paunce, nor Violet; 
Methinks 1 have too poor a meadow chose: 

Going to beg, I am with a Beggar met. 

That wants as much as I. I should do ill 
To take from them that need.— 


Ceres , after the Rape of her Daughter. 

Cer. Where is my fair and lovely Proserpine? 
Speak, Jove’s fair Daughter, whither art thou stray’d 
I’ve sought the meadows, glebes, and new-reap’d fields 
Yet cannot find my Child. Her scatter’d flowers. 
And garland half-made-up, I have lit upon ; 

But her I cannot spy. Behold the trace 
Of some strange wagon,* that hath scorcht the trees. 
And singed the grass : these ruts the sun ne’er sear’d, 
Where art thou, Love, where art thou, Proserpine ?— 

She questions Triton for her Daughter. 


Cer. -thou that on thy shelly trumpet. 

Summons the sea-god, answer from the depth. 

Trit. On Neptune’s sea-horse with my concave trump 

Thro’ all the abyss I’ve shrill’d thy daughter's loss. 

The channels clothed in waters, the low cities 

In which the water-gods and sea-nymphs dwell, 

I have perused; sought thro’ whole woods and forests 

Of leafless coral, planted in the deeps; 

Toss’d up the beds of pearl; rouzed up huge whales, 

And stern sea-monsters, from their rocky dens; 

Those bottoms, bottomless ; shallows and shelves. 

# * 

And all those currents where th’ earth’s springs break 

in; 

Those plains where Neptune feeds his porpoises, 
Sea-morses, seals, and all his cattle else : 

Thro’ all our ebbs and tides my trump hath blazed her, 
Yet can no cavern shew me Proserpine. 

She questions the Earth. 

Cer. Fair sister Earth, for all these beauteous fields. 
Spread o’er thy breast; for all these fertile crops. 
With which my plenty hath enrich’d thy bosom ; 

For all those rich and pleasant wreaths of grain. 

With which so oft thy temples I have crowned; 

For all the yearly liveries, and fresh robes. 

Upon thy summer beauty I bestow— 

Shew me my Child ! 

Earth. Not in revenge, fair Ceres, 

That your remorseless ploughs have rak’t my breast. 


• Boltoo Express. 


The car of Dis. 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Nor that jour iron-too’.h’d harrows print my ftvce 
So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides 
For marie and soil, and make me bleed my springs 
Thro’ all my open’d veins to weaken me— 

Do I conceal your Daughter. 1 have spread 
My arms from sea to sea, look'd o’er my mountains, 
Examin’d all my pastures, groves, and plains, 

Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields, 
My dens and caves—and yet, from foot to head, 

1 have no place on which the Moon* doth tread. 

Cer. Then, Earth, thou’st lost her; and, for Proser¬ 
pine, 

I’ll strike thee with a lasting barrenness. 

No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows ; 

I’ll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike: 

With idle agues I’ll consume thy swains ; 

Sow tares and cockles m thy lands of wheat, 

Whose spikes the weed and coooh-grass shall outgrow, 
And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers 
Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch, 
Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be 
A prey to ravenous birds.—Oh Proserpine !— 

You Gods that dwell above, and you below. 

Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks. 
Fountains and wells, some one among you all 
Shew me her self or grave : to you I call. 

Arethusa riseth. 

Are. That can the river Arethusa do. 

My streams you know, fair Goddess, issue fortD 
From Tartary by the Tenarian isles: 

My head’s in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns. 

There did 1 see the lovely Proserpine, 

Whom Pluto hath rapt hence ; behold her girdle, 
Which on her way dropt from her lovely waist. 

And scatter’d in my streams.—Fair Queen, adieu ! 
Crown you my banks with flowers, as 1 tell true. 


[From the “ Golden Age,” an Historical 
Play, by the same Author, 1611.] 

Sibilla , the Wife of Saturn, is by him 
enjoined to slay the neut-born Jupiter. 

, None can do it for his smiles. 

Sibilla. Vesta. Nurse. 

Sib. Mother, of all that ever mothers were 
Most wretched 1 Kiss thy sweet babe ere he die, 

That hath life only lent to sntfer death. 

Sweet Lad, I would thy father saw thee smile. 

Thy beauty, and thy pretty infancy, 

Would mollify his heart, were’t hew’d from flint, 

Or carved with iron tools from Corsic rock. 

Thou laugh’st to think thou must be kill’d in jest. 

Ch 1 if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murtheress, 
And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.— 

And can’st tfcou laugh to see thy mother weep? 

Or art thou in thy chearful smiles so free, 

* Proserpine; who was also Luna in Heaven, Diana 

w Earth, 


In scorn of thy rude father’s tyranny ? 

I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life 
The Lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife. 

Vest. Then give him me ; I am his Grandmother, 
And I will kill him gently: this sad office 
Belongs to me, as to the next of kin. 

Sib. For heaven's sahe, when you kill him, hurt him 
not. 

Vest. Come, lit tle knave, prepare your naked throat 
I have not heart to give thee many wounds, 

My kindness is to take thy life at once. 

Now— 

Alack, my pretty Grandchild, smilest thou still ? 

I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill. 

Nurse. You may be careless of the King’s command 
But it concerns me ; and I love my life 
More than I do a Stripling’s. Give him me, 

I’ll make him sure ; a sharp weapon lend. 

I’ll quickly bring the Youngster to his end.— 

Alack, my pretty knave, ’twere more than sin 
With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin. 

O Madam, he’s so full of angel grace, 

I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face. 

Sib. I’ll wink, and strike; come, once more leaoh 
him hither; 

For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed : 

’Las, for a world I would not see him bleed. 

Vest. Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy ; 

The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless. 

C. L. 


THE FIRST BUTTERFLY. 

One of the superstitions prevailing in 
Devonshire is, that any individual neglect¬ 
ing to kill the first butterfly he may see for 
the season will have ill-luck throughout 
the year. The following recent example is 
given by a young lady :—“ The other Sun¬ 
day, as we were walking to church, we met 
a man running at full speed, with his hat 
in one hand, and a stick in the other. As 
he passed us, he exclaimed, ‘ I shaVt hat’en 
now, l b’lieve.’ He did not give us time 
to inquire what he was so eagerly pursuing; 
but we presently overtook an old man, 
whom we knew to be his father, and who 
being very infirm, at upwards of seventy, 
generally hobbled about by the aid of two 
sticks. Addressing me, he observed, ‘ My 
zin a took away wan a’ my sticks, miss, 
wan’t be ebble to kill’n now, though, 1 
b’lieve/ 1 Kill what?’ said I. ‘ Why, ’tis 
a butterfly, miss, th efurst hee’th a zeed for 
the year; and they zay that a body wu 
have cruel bad luck if a ditn’en kill a furst 
a zeeth.’ ”* 


* Dorset Ck onicle. May, 1835. 


339 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


KING JAMES I. AT DURHAM. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—If you think the subjoined worthy 
of a place in your Table Book , I snail feel 
1 glad to see it. I believe it has never been 
! in print; it is copied from an entry in one 
of the old corporation books. 

Yours, very truly, 

Durham , May , 1827. M. J. 

The Manner of the Kinges Majesty 

COMING TO THE (JlTTIE OF DURHAM, 

Anno Dom. 1617, as followfth. 

Upon Good Friday, being the 18th of 
April, 1617, Mr. Heaborne, one of his 
m jesties gentlemen ushers spoke to George 
, Walton, iVlaior, that it was his majesties 
pleasure to come in state unto the cittie, 
and that it were fitting that the maior and 
aldermen should be ready upon the next 
daie following, being Satturdaie, to give 
their attendance upon his majestie in some 
convenient place within the cittie; and 
the said maior to have his foot-cloth horse 
their ready to attend, which likewise was 
done upon Elvet Bridge, near the tower 
thereof, being new rayled, within the rayles 
of wood then made for that purpose: 
at which time his said majesties said gen¬ 
tleman usher standing by the said maior 
and aldermen till his majesties coming, 
when there was a speech delivered by the 
said maior to his majestie, together with 
the maces and staffe ; and at time fitting in 
the same speech so made, a silver bowde gilt, 
with a cover, was presented by the said 
maior to his majestie, which appeares as 
followeth:— 

“ Most gracious soveraigne. What un¬ 
speakable joy is this your highness pre¬ 
sents unto us, your loving subjects; our 
tongues are not able to utter, nor our meanes 
to shew you welcome. Y’our gracious 
majestie, at your happie cominge hither 
with much peace and plentie found this 
cittie inabled, with divers liberties and pn- 
veledges, all sovering pittie and power 
spiritual and temporal being in yourself, 
gave unto us the same againe; and after¬ 
wards, of your gracious bountie, confirmed 
them under your great seal of England. 
We humbly beseech your majestie continue 
vour favours towards this cittie; and in 
token of our love and loyaltie, crave the 
I acceptance of this myte, and we shall be 
j readie to the uttermost expence of our 
dearest blond, to defend you and your royal 
progeny here on earth, as with our prayers 


to God to blesse you and all yours in all 
eternitie.” 

After which speech the maior was called 
by his majesties gentleman usher to take 
his horse, and to ride before his majestie; 
immediate upon which commandment made 
by his majesties gentleman usher, there was 
at the same place, about forty yards dis¬ 
tance, certayne verses spoken by an appren¬ 
tice of this cittie to his majestie, as follow¬ 
ed! : after which, the maior was placed in 
rank next the sword, and so rode forward, 
carring the citties mace, to the church. 

To the Kinges most Excellent Majestie. 

“ Durham’s old cittie thus salutes our king 
With entertainment, she doth hornlie bring: 

And cannot smyle upon his majestie 
With shew of greatness; but humilitie 
Makes her express herself in modern guise 
Dejected to this north, bare to your eyes. 

For the great prelate, which of late adorde 
His dignities, and for which we implore 
Your highnesse aide to have a continuance— 

And so confirmed by your dread-arm. 

Yet what our royal James did grant herein, 

William, our bishoppe, hath oppugnant been ; 

Small task to sway down smallnesse-, where man’s 
might 

Hath greater force than equity or right. 

But these are only in your brest included 

From your most gracious grant. Therefore we pray, 

That the faire sunshine of your brightest daie, 

Would sinyle upon this cittie with clere beams, 

To exhale the tempest off insuing streames. 

Suffer not, great prince, our ancient state, 

By one forc’d will to be depopulate, 

Tis one seeks our undoeing : but to you. 

Ten thousand hearts shall pray, and knees shall bowe 
And this dull cell of earth wherein we live, 

Unto your name immortal prayse shall give. 

Confirm our grant, good kinge. Durham’s old cittie 
Would be more powerful so it has Jame’s pittie.” 

Remark. 

The complaint against the bishop arose 
from a suit which he had instituted against 
the corporation in the Exchequer, for taking 
all the bishop’s privileges and profits of 
the markets and courts into their own 
hands, and for driving his officers by vio¬ 
lence out of the tollbooth on the 3d of 
October, (7th of James I.,) and preventing 
their holding the courts there as usual, as 
well as for several other similar matters, 
when judgment was given against the cor¬ 
poration on the 24th of June, (8th of 
James I.,) 1611. 


340 










.. * ' ~ " ' ^ i ,. ,. . — I., 1-n .aft. 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


MARCH OF INTELLECT. 

I , 

Evety intelligent mind of right reflection 
accords its wishes for general enlightenment. 
It appears, from a fashionable miscellany, 
that a late distinguished writer expressed 
himself to that effect; the following are 
extracts from the article referred to. They 
contain, in the sequel, a forcible opinion on 
the tendency of the present general diffusion 
of literature.— 

Conversations of Maturin. 

Maturin’s opinions of poetry, as of every 
thing else, were to be inferred rather than 
I gathered. It was very difficult to draw him 
into literary conversation : like Congreve, 

: he wished to be an author only in his 
study. Yet he courted the society of men 
of letters when it was to be had ; but 
would at any time have sacrificed it to 
dally an hour in the drawing-room, or 
at the quadrille. Sometimes, however, 
amongst friends (particularly if he was in 
a splenetic mood) he freely entered into a 
discussion upon the living authors of Eng¬ 
land, and delivered his opinions rapidly, 
brilliantly, and with effect. On one occa¬ 
sion a conversation of this description took 
place, in which I had the pleasure of parti¬ 
cipating. I will recall the substance of it 
as well as I can. Do not expect from 
Maturin the turgidity of Boswell’s great 
man, or the amiable philosophy of Frank¬ 
lin : you will be disappointed if you antici¬ 
pate any thing profound or speculative from 
him; for at the best of times he was 
exceedingly fond of mixing up the frivolity 
of a fashtonable conversazione with the 
most solid subjects. 

I met him in the county of Wicklow on 
a pedestrian excursion in the autumn ; a 
relaxation he constantly indulged in, parti¬ 
cularly at that season of the year. It was 
in that part of the vale of Avoca, where 
Moore is said to have composed his cele¬ 
brated song: a green knoll forms a gradual 
declivity to the river, which flows through 
the vale, and in the centre of the knoll there 
is the trunk of an old oak, cut down to a 
seat. Upon that venerable trunk, say the 
peasants, Moore sat when he composed a 
song that, like the Bans de Vache ot the 
Swiss, will be sung amidst those mountains 
and valleys as long as they are inhabited. 
Opposite to that spot I met Maturin, ac¬ 
companied by a young gentleman carrying 
a fishing-rod. We were at the distance of 
thirty miles from Dublin ; in the heart of 
the most beautiful valley in the island ; 
surrounded by associations of history and 
I _ 


poetry, with spirits subdued into tranquil¬ 
lity by the Italian skies above, and the 
peaceful gurgling of the waters below us.' 
Never shall l forget Maturin’s strange ap¬ 
pearance amongst those romantic dells. He 
was dressed in a crazy and affectedly shabby 
suit of black, that had waxed into a “ bril¬ 
liant polish” by over zeal in the service of 
its master; he wore no cravat, for the heat; 
obliged him to throw it off, and his delicate 
neck rising gracefully from his thrice-crested 
collar, gave him an appearance of great 
singularity. His raven hair, which he 
generally wore long, fell down luxuriantly 
without a breath to agitate it; and his head 
was crowned with a hat which I could 
sketch with a pencil, but not with a pen. 
His gait and manner were in perfect keep¬ 
ing ; but his peculiarities excited no sur¬ 
prise in me, for I was accustomed to them 
In a short time we were seated on the 
banks of the Avoca, the stream cooling our 
feet with its refreshing spiay, and the green 
foliage protecting us from the sun. 

“ Moore is said to have written his song 
in this place.” j 

“ I don’t believe a word of it,” replied 
Maturin. “ No man ever wrote poetry 
under a burning sun, or in the moonlight. 

I have often attempted a retired walk in the 
country at moonlight, when I had a madri¬ 
gal in my head, and every gust of wind 
rang in my ears like the footsteps of a rob¬ 
ber. One robber would put to flight a 
hundred tropes. You feel uneasy in a 
perfectly secluded place, and cannot collect 
your mind.” 

“ But Moore, wdio is a poet by inspira-* 
tion, could write in any circumstances t" ! 

“ There is no man of the age labours 
harder than Moore. He is often a month 
woiking out the fag-end of an epigram . 1 
’Pon my honour, I would not be such a 
victim to literature for the reputation of 
Pope, the greatest man of them all.” j 

Don’t you think that every man has his 
own peculiarity in writing, and can only 
write under particular excitements, and in 
a particular way ?” 

“ Certainly. Pope, who ridiculed such 
a caprice, practised it himself; for he never 
wrote well but at midnight. Gibbon dic¬ 
tated to his amanuensis, while he walki-d 
up and down the rnoir. in a terrible pas¬ 
sion ; Stephens wrote on horseback in a 
full gallop ; Montaigne and Chateaubriand 
in the fields; Sheriuan over a bottle of 
wine; Molifere with his knees in the fire; 
and lord Bacon in a small room, which he 
said helped him to condense his thoughts. 
But Moore, whose peculiarity is retirement. 


Ml 





















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would never come here to write a song he 
could write better elsewhere, merely because 
it related to the place/' 
j “Why omit yourself in the list? you 
have your own peculiarity/’ 
j “ I compose on a long walk; but then 
the day must neither be too hot, nor cold ; 
it must be reduced to that medium from 
which you feel no inconvenience one way 
or the other; and then when Tam perfectly 
free from the city, and experience no annoy¬ 
ance from the weather, my mind becomes 
lighted by sunshine, and I arrange my plan 
perfectly to my own satisfaction.” 

“ From the quantity of works our living 
poets have given to the public, 1 would be 
disposed to say that they write with great 
facility, and without any nervous whim/’ 

***** * 

“ But lord Byron—he must write with 
great ease and rapidity ?” 

“ That I don’t know; I never could 
finish the perusal of any of his long poems. 
There is something in them excessively at 
variance with my notions of poetry. He 
is too fond of the obsolete; but that I do 
not quarrel with so much as his system of 
converting it into a kind of modern antique, 
by superadding tinsel to gold. It is a sort 
of mixed mode, neither old nor new, but 
incessantly hovering between both.” 

“ What do you think of Childe Harold ?” 

“ I do not know what to think of it, nor 
can I give you definitively my reasons for 
disliking his poems generally.” 

“ You have taken up a prejudice, per¬ 
haps, from a passage you have forgotten, 
and never allowed yourself patience to 
examine it.” 

“ Perhaps so; but I am not conscious of 
a prejudice.” 

“ No man is.” 

* * « * * 

“ And which of the living poets fulfils 
your ideal standard of excellence?” 

“ Crabbe. He is all nature without 
pomp or parade, and exhibits at times deep 
pathos and feeling. His characters are cer¬ 
tainly homely, and his scenes rather un- 
poetical; but then he invests his subject 
with so much genuine tenderness and 
sweetness, that you care not who are the 
actors, or in what situations they are placed, 
but pause to recollect where it was you met 
something similai in real life. Do you re¬ 
member the little story ‘ Delay is Danger?’ 
I’ll recite you a few lines describing my 
favourite scene, an autumn-evening land- 
4cape;— 


* On the right side, the youth a wood •urvey’d. 

With all its dark intensity of shade; 

Where the rough wind alone was heard to move. 

In this, the pause of nature and of love. 

When now the young are rear’d, and when the old 
Lost to the tie, grow negligent and cold— 

Far to the left he saw the huts of men 
Half hid in mist that hung upon the fen ; 

Before him swallows, gathering for the sea. 

Took their short flights, and twitter’d on the lea 
And near the bean-sheaf stood, the harvest done. 

And slowly blacken’d in the sickly sun ; 

All these were sad in nature, or they took 
Sadness from him, the likeness of his look. 

And of his mind—he ponder’d for a while. 

Then met his Fanny with a borrow’d smile.* 

“ Except Gray’s Elegy, there is scarcely 
so melancholy and touching a picture in 
English poetry.” 

“ And whom do you estimate aftet 

Crabbe ?” 

“ I am disposed to say Hogg. His 
Queen’s Wake is a splendid and impas¬ 
sioned work. I like it for its varieties, and 
its utter simplicity. What a fine image is 
this of a devoted vessel suddenly engulfed 
at sea: 

“ Some ran to the cords, some kneerd at the shrine. 
But all the wild elements seem’d to combine ; 

*Twas just but one moment of stir and commotion. 

And down went the ship like a bird of the ocean !” 

“ But do not altogether take me at my 
word in what I say of Crabbe and Hogg. 
They have struck the chord of my taste; 
but they are not, perhaps, the first men of 
the day. Moore is a writer for whom I 
feel a strong affection, because he has done 
that which I would have done if I could : 
but after him it would be vain to try any 
thing.” 

***** 

“ Is it your opinion that the swarm of 
minor poets and writers advance the cause 
of literature, or that the public taste would 
be more refined and informed, if those who 
administered to it were fewer and better?” 

“ I object to prescribing laws to the re¬ 
public of letters. It is a free republic, in 
which every man is entitled to publicity if 
he chooses it. The effect unquestionably 
of a swarm of minor poets is the creation 
of a false taste amongst a certain class; 
but then that is a class that otherwise would 
have no taste at all, and it is well to draw 
their attention to literature by any agency. 
In the next age their moral culture will im¬ 
prove, and we shall go on gradually dimi¬ 
nishing the contagion/’* 


• Naw Mon'hly Mag&iin*. 


v 


342 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 



M Sixpence A pound, fair cherries 1 *’ 


CDj Eori&mt 


We have here a print of the cherry- 
woraau of a hundred years ago, when 
cherries were so little grown, that the 
popular street cry was double the price of the 
present day. Readers of the Every-Day 
Book may remember the engraving of the 
“ London barrow-woman,” with her cherry- 
cry— “round and sound”—the cherry- 
woman (that was) of our own times—the 
recollection of whose fine person, and 
melodious voice, must recur to every one 
who saw and heard her—a real picture to 
the mind’s eye, discoursing “ most excel- 
ent music.” 

The man blowing a trumpet, “ Troop, 
every one! ” was a street seller of hobby¬ 
horses—toys for the children of a hundred 
years ago. He carried them, as represented 
in the engraving, arranged in a partitioned 
frame on his shoulder, and to each horse’s 
head was a small flag with two bills at- 

i 



Troop, every one!” 


Cites, No. II. 

tached. The crier and his ware are wholly 
extinct. Now-a-days we give a boy the 
first stick at hand to thrust between his 
legs as a Bucephalus—the shadow of a 
shade:—our forefathers were better na- 
tured, for they presented him with some* 
thing of the semblance of the generous 
animal. Is a horse now less popular with 
boys than then ? or did they, at that time, 
rather imitate the galloping of the real 
hobby-horse in the pageants and mum¬ 
meries that passed along the streets, or 
pranced in the shows at fairs and on the 
stage ? Be that as it may, this is a pretty J 
plaything for “little master;” and toy- ! 
makers would find account in reviving the 
manufacture for the rising generation. They j 
have improved the little girl’s doll, and j 
baby-house: are they ignorant that boys, 
as soon as they can walk, demand a whip 
and a horse ? 


343 

































































-<»-c ■ -. ... ^ ....- ■ . .... ■ - ... — ...... ... . 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


MU. HOBDAY’S GALLERY. 

No. 54, Pall-mall. 

In addition to the associations for the 
exhibition and sale of pictures by living 
artists, Mr. Hobday opened an establish¬ 
ment on the 21st of May for the same pur¬ 
pose, adjoining the British Institution. 
This gentleman is known to the public as 
a respectable portrait paintei, with a taste 
for art entitled to consideration for his pre¬ 
sent spirited endeavour in its behalf. 

In this exhibition there are performances 
of distinguished merit by several eminent 
artists. The Upas, or poison-tree of Java, 
by Mr. Danby, in illustration of the legend 
in Darwin’s Loves of the Plants, is a fine 

f »icture, already known. Another by Mr. 
^anby—is a wood on the sea-shore, with 
figures, Ulysses and Nausicaa, from Homer. 
A Fete Champ6tre, by Mr. Stothard, is one 
of a class of subjects, which its venerable 
painter lias distinguished by his magic pen¬ 
cil ; Mr. Edwin Landseer’s Lion disturbed at 
his repast, a forcible and well-remembered 
effort of his genius, stands near it. Mr. 
Charles Landseer’s Merchant, with Slaves 
and Merchandise, reposing in a Brazilian 
ltancho; the Entombing of Christ, by Mr. 
Westall; landscapes, by Messrs. Daniel, 
Glover, Hoffland, Laporte, Linnell, W. 
Westall, &c.; pictures by sir W. Beechey, 
Messrs. Chalon, Kidd, Heaphy, Rigaud, 
Singleton, Stephanoff, J. Ward, &c., grace 
the walls of the establishment. Every pic¬ 
ture in this gallery is for sale; and, under 
Mr. Hobday’s management, it promises to 
be a means of introducing the public to an 
acquaintance with distinguished works of 
art still remaining open to the selection of 
its patrons. 


Copograpbi). 

ORIGINAL NOTICE. 

For the Table Book. 

Denton-castle, in the West Riding of 
Yorkshire, and on the north-west side of 
Otley, was once the seat of the parliament’s 
' general, Fairfax, and came to the present 
family of Ibbetson by relationship. Prince 
Rupert in passing by it on his march into 
Lancashire, in order to assist the kino’s 
troops in that quarter, was about to raze 
it, but going into the house, he observed 

i 


the pictures of the Manners and the Vil- 
liers, Fairfax’s ancestors, and out of good 
will towards them he desisted. It, how¬ 
ever, was afterwards unfortunately destroyed 
by the carelessness of a maid servant, wiio 
dropping asleep at the time she was pick¬ 
ing feathers, the candle fell into the feathers 
and burnt the house to the ground. In a 
few years afterwards, it was rebuilt by the 
father of sir Henry Ibbetson, bart in the 
year 1721, and has this remarkable motto 
in the pediment :— 

“ Quod nee Jovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum.” 

Verses 

To the memory of Denzil Ibbetson, 
fourth son of sir Henry Ibbetson, bart., 
who unfortunately lost his life by an 
accidental discharge of his gun when 
shooting at Cocken, near Durham, the 
seat of his aunt, lady Mary Carr, 
sister of Henry earl of Darlington- 
1774. 

1. 

Thy fate, lamented Ibbetson, we weep. 

With an unfeign’d and sympathetic tear; 

Thy virtues, on our mem’ries graven deep. 

Recall the painful thought of what was dear 

2 . 

Yet ’tis not for thy sufferings, but our own, 

That heaves the heartfelt melancholy sigh, 

That death, which haply cost thee not a groan, 
Leaves us to mourn with what we ne’er can vie. 

3. 

That life, good humour, and that manly sense, 

Those ever-pleasing ties, that friendly heart, 

Which but unwittingly could give offence. 

Disarm’d ev’u Death’s grim tyrant of his dart. 

4. 

Without one pang or agonizing groan, 

Thy soul reliev’d forsook its vile abode, 

For joys more worthy of the good alone— 

“ The bosom of thy Father and thy God.’* 


PRONUNCIATION. 

The difficulty of applying rules to the 
pronunciation of our language may be 
illustrated in two lines, where the combina¬ 
tion of the letters oug/i, is pronounced in 
no less than seven different ways, viz. as 
o, n f of f up, oiv, oo, and ock . 

Though the tough cough and hiccough dough me 
through; 

O’er life’s dark lough my course I still pursue. 


344 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book 

EMIGRATION OF THE ROOKS 

FROM 

CARLTON GARDENS, 1827. 

“ I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau, 

If birds confabulate or no :— 

’ Tis certain they were always able. 

To hold discourse, at least in fable.'* 

Cowpcr . 

The mandate pas-Jd, the axe applied, 

The woodman’s efforts echoed wide ; 

The toppling elm trees fell around. 

And cumbrous ruin strew’d the ground. 

The tuneful thrush, whose vernal song 
Was earliest heard the boughs among. 

Exil’d from grounds, where he was bred, 
l'o some far habitation fled ; 

Remote from court and courtly strife. 

To pass a sober, quiet life. 

O’er head the Rooks, in circles flew, 

And closer still, and closer drew ; 

Then perch’d amid the desolation. 

In senatorial consultation : 

The chairman, far advanc’d in age, 

A sapient-look'ng personage, 

Who long the councils of the land 
Had sway’d with a tenacious hand ; 

—For e’en among the feather’d race. 

There are, who cling to pow’r and plac-t 
There wanted not, among the throng, 

Those who averr’d, that much too long 
He had, within the sable state, 

Continued to adjudicate ;— 

So tardily his judgments came. 

They injur’d his judicial fame; 

What, though they were unting’d by bribe, 

Or fear ;—the sad impatient tribe, 

Who fed on Hope’s expectancies. 

Were ruin’d—by his just decrees ! 

But to our tale:—the speaker now. 

Perch’d on an elm tree’s topmost bough. 

Had hush’d the multitude in awe. 

You might not hear a single “ caw ,” 

He then in pride of conscious pow’r. 
Commenc’d the bus’ness of the hour. 

“ Ye rook9 and daws in senate met 
He said, and smooth’d his breast of jet: 

*• What crimes, among our sable baud, 

Have brought this ruin on our land? 

Has murder mark’d our noonday flight? 

Or depredation in the night ? 

Has rook or daw, in thought or word, 

Rebell’d against our Sovereign I-ord ? 

No ! rather say, our loyalty 
Has echo’d oft, from tree to tree ! 

Have we not, when the cannon's sound 
Gave joyous intimation round. 

Of triumph wen ny land or sea. 

Join’d in the general jubi)«e ? 


Why, then, ye advocates of tat!*, 

Lay ye our habitations wasde ? 

Why level low our rookery. 

And blot it out from memory ? 

Alan lacketh not a host of pleas, 

To vindicate his cruelties. 

’ Improvement’s come!’ ’tis thus they ihvun* 
* Upon the rolling car of Time.’ *— 

Yes! come, if blessings they dispense. 

With due regard to feeling—sense ; 

But when they emanate from pride. 

And scheme on scheme is multiplied. 

To beautify by acts like this. 

Their overgrown metropolis. 

To please the vitiate taste of men, 

They cease to be improvements then. 

’ Tis not enough, to please the eye, 

With terrace walks, and turrets high ; 

With sloping lawns, and dark arcades ; 

With cock-boat lakes, and forest glades , 
With schoolboy cataracts and jets ; 

With Turkish mosques and minarets 
Or Lilliputian arches, rich. 

Spanning a vegetating ditch ! 

Improvement opes a nobler field. 

Than Grecian plinth and column yield ! 

’ Tis when the streams of treasure flow, 

To lighten sorrow,—soften woe ;— 

Rebuild the structure, ruin raz’d, 

Relume the eye, that want hath glaz’d 
And flowing far from revelry. 

They cheer the sons of penury. 

Who sicken in the breeze of health ! 

And starve, amid a nation’s wealth 1 
To chase despair—and bring relief. 

For human crime, and human grief! 

These are thy triumphs. Virtue ! the*'* 

Are sparks of heav’n-born sympathies. 

That through man’s denser nature shine. 

And prove his origin divine I 

Oh ! may we hope, in Britain’s school. 

There are, who, free from sophist rule, 

Have learnt not, ’neath Italian skies. 

Their native genius to despise; 

In whom, amid the bosom’s throes, 

The innate love of country glows ! 
Assembled birds I it is for you 
To point the course we must pursue : 

Our monarch ne’er could contemplate 
Amid the recent change in state. 

That we, like other rooks, should be 
Exil’d from seats of royalty ! 

Then let us humbly seek the throne. 

And make our common grievanee known 
His Majesty will ne’er consent. 

That this, our sable parliament, 

Should thus be driv’n abroad to roam. 

And banish’d from our native home.” 


• Come bright Improvement on the car of Time. 
And rule the spacicus world from clime to clime . 

lUcasurct uf Hep i 


345 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


He ceas da shout of wild applause. 
Tumultuous burst, from rooks and daws ' 
Ne’er yet, had yonder central sun, 

Since worlds had in their orbits run, 

Beheld upon a spot of earth 
So much of simultaneous mirth. 

Scarce had the turbulence subsided. 

When, as if Fate their joy derided, 

The hatchet reach’d with thund’ring stroke 
The tree from whence the Chairman spoke. 
Alas ! the triumph was but brief; 

The sound struck awe—like midnight thief— 
The senate fled from falling tiees, 

And stretch’d their pinions to the breeze : 

The shrubs behind Spring Garden-place 
Receiv’d the emigrated race. 

Now far from woodman’s axe, with care 
They build, and breed, and nestle there. 

T. T. 


MUSIC AND ANIMALS. 

Bonaventure d’Argonne says, “ Doubt- 
vng the truth of those who say it is natural 
for us to love music, especially the sounds 
of instruments, and that beasts are touched 
with it, I one day, being in the country, 
endeavoured t© determine the point; and, 
while a man was playing on the trump 
marine, made my observations on a cat, a 
dog, a horse, an ass, a hind, cows, small 
birds, and a cock and hens, who were in a 
yard, under a window on which I was 
leaning. 1 did not perceive that the cat 
was the least affected; and I even judged, 
by her air, that she would have given all 
the instruments in the world for a mouse, 
sleeping in the sun all the time; the horse 
stopped short from time to time before the 
window, lifting his head up now and then, 
as he was feeding on the grass; the dog 
continued for above an hour seated on his 
hind legs, looking steadfastly at the player ; 
the ass did not discover the least indication of 
his being touched, eating his thistles peace¬ 
ably ; the hind lifted up her large wide 
ears, and seemed very attentive; the cows 
slept a little, and after gazing as though 
they had been acquainted with us, went 
forward : some birds who were in an aviary, 
and others on the trees and bushes, almost 
tore their throats with singing; but the 
cock, who minded only his hens, and the 
hens, who were solely employed in scraping 
on a neighbouring dunghill, did not show 
in any manner that they took the least plea- 
ure in hearing the trump marine.” 


IRISHMEN ON A HOLIDAY. 

When they met at a “ pattern,” (patron, 
perhaps,) or merry-making, the lively dance 
of the girls, and the galloping jig-note of 
the bagpipes, usually gave place to the 
clattering of alpeens, and the whoops of 
onslaught; when one of them sold his pig, 
or, under Providence, his cow, at the fair, 
the kicking up of a “ scrimmage/’ or at 
least the plunging head foremost into one, 
was as much matter of course as the long 
draughts of ale or whiskey that closed his 
mercantile transaction. At the village 
hurling-match, the “ hurlet,” or crooked 
stick, with which they struck the ball, often 
changed its playful utility ; nay, at a fune¬ 
ral, the body was scarce laid in the grave, 
when the voice of petty discord might be 
heard above the grave’s silence. 

These contentions, like all great events, 
generally arose from very trivial causes. 
A drunken fellow, for instance, was in a 
strange public-house; he could not content 
himself with the new faces near him, so 
struck at some three, six, or ten, as it might 
be ; and, in course, got soundly drubbed. | 
On his return home he related his case of 
injury, exhibiting his closed eye, battered 
mouth, or remnant of nose ; enlisting all his 
relatives, “ kith-and-km ;” in fact, all his 
neighbours who liked “ a bit of diversion,” \ 
and they generally included the whole male 
population able to bear arms. At the head 
of his faction he attended the next fair, or 
other place of popular resort, where he 
might expect to meet his foes; the noise of 
his muster went abroad, or he sent a pre¬ 
vious challenge : the opposite party assem¬ 
bled in as much force as possible, never 
declining the encounter; one or other side 
was beaten, and tried to avenge its disgrace 
on the first opportunity ; defeat again fol¬ 
lowed, and again produced like efforts and 
results; and thus the solemn feud ran 
through a number of years and several 
generations. 

A wicked, “ devil-may-care” fellow, fever¬ 
ish for sport, would, at fair, pattern, or 
funeral, sometimes smite another without 
any provocation, merely to create a riot; 
the standers-by would take different sides, 
as their taste or connections inclined them ; 
and the fray, thus commencing between 
two individuals who owed each other no 
ill-will, embroiled half the assembled con- ! 
course. Nay, a youth, in despair that so 
fine a multitude was likely to separate 
peaceably, stripped off his heavy outside 
coat, and trailed it through the puddle, 
darrtg any of the lookers on .o tread unon 


346 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


it; bis defiance was rarely ineffectual; he 
knocked down, if possible, the invited 
offender; a general battle ensued, that 
soon spread like wild-fire, and every “ al- 
peen” was at work in senseless clatter and 
unimaginable hostility. 

I The occurrence of the word “alpeen” 
seems to suggest a description of the weapon 
of which it is the name, and this can best 
be given in a piece of biographical anecdote. 

Jack Mullally still lives in fame, though 
his valiant bones are dust. He was the 
landlord of a public-house in a mountain 
district; a chivalrous fellow, a righter of 
wrongs, the leader of a faction of desperate 
fighting men, and, like Arthur, with his 
doughty knights, a match for any four 
among them, though each a hero; and, 
above all, the armourer of his depaitment. 
In Jack’s chimney-corner hung bundles of 
sticks, suspended there for the puipose of 
being dried and seasoned ; and these were 
of two descriptions of warlike weapons; 
shortish oaken cudgels, to be used as quar¬ 
ter-staves, or, par excellence , genuine shil- 
elaghs ; and the alpeens themselves,—long 
wattles with heavy knobs at the ends, to be 
wielded with both hands, and competent, 
under good guidance, to the felling of a 
: reasonable ox. 

Jack and his subjects, Jack and his 
alpeens, were rarely absent from any fair 
within twenty miles, having always business 
on hands in the way of their association. 
When a skirmish took place, the side that 
could enlist in its interests Jack, his alpeens, 
and his merry men, was sure of victory. 
The patriarch was generally to be found 
seated by his kitchen fire; business was 
beneath him ; he left all that to the “ vani- 
thee;” and his hours lapsed, when matters 
of moment did not warn him to the field, 
either in wetting his sticks with a damp 
cloth, and then heating them over the turf 
blaze, to give them the proper curve ; or, in 
teaching a pet starling to speak Irish, ai d 
whistle “ Sliaun Buoy or, haply, in im¬ 
bibing his own ale or whiskey, and smoking 
his short black pipe, or duohdeen, as himself 
termed it. And here he gave audience to 
the numerous suitors and ambassadors who, 
day by day, came to seek his aid, prepara¬ 
tory to a concerted engagement. His an¬ 
swer was never hastily rendered. He pro¬ 
mised, at all events, to be with his corps at 
the appointed ground ; and then and there 
he would proclaim of which side he was the 
ally. This precautionary course became 
the more advisable, as he was always sure 
of a request from both factions ; and time, 
forethought, and inquiry, were necessarv 


to ascertain which side might prove the 
weakest; for to the weakest (the most ag¬ 
grieved formed no part of his calculations 
Jack invariably extended his patronage. 

The vanithee, good woman, when she 
heard of an approaching fair, or other 
popular meeting, immediately set about 
preparing plasters and ointments; and 
this resulted from a thrifty forecast; for 
were she to call in a doctor every time her 
husband’s head wanted piecing, it would 
run away with the profits of her business. 
Jack, indeed, never forgot his dignity so far 
as to inform his wife that he intended being 
engaged on such occasions ; but she always 
took it for granted, and with the bustle of ! 
a good housewife, set about her prepara¬ 
tions accordingly : till, at length, a breach 
happened in his skull which set her art at 
defiance ; and ever since she lives the sole 
proprietor of the public-house where Jack 
once reigned in glory. The poor widow 
has thriven since her husband’s death; and 
is now rich, not having lately had Jack’s 
assistance in spending, (she never had it in 
earning.) She recounts his exploits with 
modest spirit; and one blessing at least 
has resulted from her former matronly care 
of the good man—she is the Lady Bounti¬ 
ful of her district; a quack it may be, yet 
sufficiently skilful for the uncomplicated 
ailments of her country customers.* 


LONDON HOLIDAYS. 

Holidays, like all other natural and lively 
things, are good things ; and the abuse 
does not argue against the use. They 
serve to keep people in mind that there is 
a green and glad world, as well as a world 
of brick and mortar and money-getting. 
They remind them disinterestedly of one 
another, or that they have other things to 
interchange besides bills and commodities. 
If it were not for holidays and poetry, and 
such like stumbling blocks to square-toes, 
there w'ould be no getting out of the way 
of care and common-places.—They keep 
the world fiesh for improvement. The 
great abuse of holidays is when they are 
too few. There are offices, we understand, 
in the city, in which, with the exception of 
Sundays, people have but one holiday or so 
throughout the year, which appears to us a 
very melancholy hilarity. It is like a single 
living thing in a solituae, which only adds 
to the solitariness. A clerk issuing forth 
on his exclusive Good Friday must in vain 


• T»’<es of the O’Hara Family. Firtt Serial 


347 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


attempt to be merry, unless he is a very 
ax rry person at other times. He must be 
oppressed with a sense of all the rest of the 
yea' He cannot have time to smile be¬ 
fore he has to be grave again. It is a differ¬ 
ence, a dream, a wrench, a lay-subbath, 
any thing but a holiday. There was a 
G eek philosopher, who, when he was 
asked on his death-bed what return could 
be made him for the good he had done his 
country, requested that all the little boys 
might have a holiday on the anniversary of 
his birth-day. Doubtless they had many 
besides, and yet he would give them an¬ 
other. When we were at school, we had a 
holiday on every saint’s day, and this was 
pretty nearly all that we, or, indeed, any 
one else, knew of some of those blessed 
names in the calendar. When we came to 
know that they had earned this pleasure 
for us by martyrdom and torment, we con¬ 
gratulated ourselves that we had not known 
it sooner; and yet, upon the principle of 
.he Greek philosopher, perhaps a true lover 
of manmkin-kind would hardly object to 
have his old age burnt out at the stake, if 
he could secure to thousands hereafter the 
beatitude of a summer’s holiday.* 


THE HUSBANDMEN OF HINDU. 

They are generally termed Roonbees, 
and on the whole they are better informed 
| than the lower classes of our own country- 
I men ; they certainly far surpass them in 
I propriety and orderliness of demeanour. 
They are mild and unobtrusive in their 
manners, and quickly shrink from any thing 
like an opposite behaviour in others. Liti¬ 
gation is not a marked part of their charac¬ 
ter. They are forgetful of injury; or if 
they harbour animosity, they are seldom 
hurried by it into acts of violence or cruelty. 
Custom has taught them not to have much 
respect for their women, or rather, indeed, 
to look on them with contempt; but they 
are always indulgent to them, and never 
put any restraint on their liberty. The 
great attachment they have to their children 
forms an amiable part of their character. 
They are usually frugal, inclining to parsi¬ 
mony, and not improvident; but at their 
marriage feasts they are lavish and profuse, 
and on these and other occasions often con- 
j tract debts that are a burden to them for 
life. Their religion strongly enjoins charity, 
i and they are disposed to be hospitable, but 
1 tV.eir extreme poverty is a bar to their being 


extensively so. No person, however, would 
ever be in want of a meal amongst them, 
and they are always kind and attentive to j 
strangers when there is nothing offensive in | 
their manners. They are just in their deal- ; 
ings amongst themselves, but would not be 
scrupulous in overreaching government or 
those without. Theft is'scarcely known 
amongst them, and the voice of the com- j 
munity is loud against all breaches of de- j 
corum, and attaches weight and respecta- ! 
bility to virtuous conduct in its members. 
The vices of this people, which they owe 
chiefly to their government, are dissimula¬ 
tion, cunning, and a disregard to truth. 
They are naturally timid, and will endea¬ 
vour to redress their wrongs rather by 
stratagem than more generous means; when 
roused, however, they will be fuund not 
without courage, nor by any means con¬ 
temptible enemies. Although not remark¬ 
able for sharpness, they are not wanting in 
intelligence. They are all minutely informed 
in every thing that relates to their own call¬ 
ing. They are fond of conversation, discuss 
the merits of different modes of agricul¬ 
ture, the characters of their neighbours, and 
every thing that relates to the concerns of 
the community, and many of them are not 
without a tolerable knowledge of the lead¬ 
ing events of the history of their country. 

The Hindu husbandman rises at cock 
crow, washes his hands, feet, and face, re¬ 
peats the names of some of his gods, and 
perhaps takes a whiff of his pipe or a quid 
ot tobacco, and is now ready to begin his 
labour. He lets loose his oxen, and drives 
them leisurely to his fields, allowing them 
to graze, if there is any grass on the ground, 
as they go along, and takes his breakfast 
with him tied up in a dirty cloth, or it is 
sent after him by one of his children, and 
consists of a cake (made unleavened of the 
flour of Badjeree or Juwaree,) and some ot 
the cookery of the preceding day, or an 
onion or two. On reaching his field it is 
perhaps seven or eight o’clock ; he yokes 
his oxen, if any of the operations of hus¬ 
bandry requite it, and works for an hour or 
two, then squats down and takes his break¬ 
fast, but without loosing his cattle. He re¬ 
sumes his work in a quarter of an hour, 
and goes on till near twelve o’clock, when 
his wife arrives w'ith his dinner. He then 
unyokes his oxen, drives them to drink, and 
allows them to graze or gives them straw ; 
and takes his dinner by the side of a well 
or a stream, or under the shade of a tree it 
there happens to be one, and is waited on 
during his meal by his wife. After his' 
dinner he is joined 1 by any of his fellow, 


• Literary Pocket Book 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


labourers who may be near, and after a 
chat takes a nap on his spread cuinley or 
jota for half an hour, while his wife eats 
what he has left. lie yokes his cattle again 
about two or half-past two o’clock, and 
works till sunset, when he proceeds leisurely 
I home, ties up and feeds his oxen, then goes 
himself to a brook, bathes and washes, or 
i has hot water thrown over him by his wife 
at home. After his ablutions, and perhaps 
on holidays anointing himself with sandal 
; wood oil, he prays before his household 
gods, and often visits one or more of the 
i village temples. His wife by this time has 
prepared his supper, which he takes in 
company with the males of the family. 
His principal enjoyment seems to be be¬ 
tween this meal and bed-time, which is nine 
or ten o’clock. He now fondles and plays 
with his children, visits or is visited by his 
neighbours, and converses about the labour 
of the day and concerns of the village, 
either in the open air or by the glimmering 
light of a lamp, learns from the shopkeeper 
or beadle what strangers have passed or 
stopped at the village, and their history, 
and from any of the community that may 
have been at the city ^Poolmah) what news 
he has brought. In the less busy times, 
which are two or three months in the year, 
the cultivators take their meals at home, 
and have sufficient leisure for amusement. 
They then sit in groups in the shade and 
converse, visit their friends in the neigh¬ 
bouring villages, go on pilgrimages, ftc. &c. 

The women of the cultivators, like those 
of other Asiatics, are seldom the subject of 
gallantry, and are looked on rather as a 
part of their live stock than as companions, 
and yet, contrary to what might be expect¬ 
ed, their condition seems far from being 
unhappy. The law allows a husband to 
beat his wife, and for infidelity to maim her 
or else put her to death ; but these severi- 
; ties are seldom resorted to, and rarely any 
! sort of harsh behaviour. A man is despised 
who is seen much in company with women. 
A wife, therefore, never looks for any fond¬ 
ling from her husband; it is thought un¬ 
becoming in him even to mention her name, 
and she is never allowed to eat in company 
with him, from the time of their wedding 
dinner; but patiently waits on him during 
his meals, and makes her repast on what he 
leaves. But setting aside these marks of 
contempt, she is always treated v.’ith kind¬ 
ness and forbearance, unless her conduct is 
very perverse and bad, and she has her 
! entire liberty. The women have generally 
the sole direction of household affairs, and 
if ciever, notwithstanding all their disad¬ 


vantages, not unfrequently gain as great an 
ascendancy over their lotds as in other parts 
of the world.* 


ROUND ROBIN. 

It was customary among the ancients to 
write names, whether of the gods, or of 
their friends, in a circle, that none might 
take offence at seeing another’s name pre¬ 
ferred to his own. The Cordeliers have 
formerly been know n to have paid the same 
attention to delicacy, and when a pope has 
demanded the names of some priests of 
their order, that one might be raised to the 
purple, they have sent those names written 
circularly, that they might not seem to re¬ 
commend one more than another. The 
race of sailors are the only people who 
preserve this very ancient custom in its 
purity, for when any remonstrance is on 
foot among them, they sign it in a circle, 
and call it a round robin. 


NAMES. 

Toward tne middle of the fifteenth cen¬ 
tury, it was the fancy of the wits and 
learned men of the age, particularly in 
Italy, to change their baptismal names for 
classical ones. As Sannazarius, for instance, 
who altered his own plair. name “Jacopo ” 
to “ Actius Syncerus.” Numbers did the 
same, and among the rest, Platina the his¬ 
torian, at Rome, who, not w ithout a solemn 
ceremonial, took the name of “ Callima¬ 
chus,” instead of “ Philip.” Pope Paul 
II., who reigned about that time, unluckily 
chanced to be suspicious, illiterate, and 
heavy of comprehension. He had no idea 
that persons could wish to alter their names, 
unless they had some bad design, and 
actually scrupled not to employ imprison¬ 
ment, and other violent methods, to discovet 
the fancied mystery. Platina was most 
cruelly tortured on this frivolous account; 
he had nothing to confess, so the pope, after 
endeavouring in vain to convict him of 
heresy, sedition, &c released him, after * 
long imprisonment. 


Formerly there were many persons sur- 
named Devil. In an old book, the title of 
wdiich does not recur, mention is maue 
of one Rogerius Diabolus, lord of Mon- 
tresor. 


* Mr. Coates in Trans. Bombay Lit. 


319 





































THE'TABLE BOOH. 


An English monk, “ \ nlelmus, cogno- 
mento Diabolus,” and another person, 
■ “ Hughes le Diable, lord of Lusignan.” 

Robert, duke of Normandy, son to Wil¬ 
liam the Conqueror, was surnamed “ the 
Devil.” 

! In Norway and Sweden there were two 
families of the name of “ Trolle,” in Eng¬ 
lish “ Devil,’’ and every branch of these 
families had an emblem of the “ Devil ” 
for their coat of arms. 

In Utrecht there was a family of “ Teu- 
fels,” or “ Devils,” and another in Brittany 
named “ Diable.” 


A SEA BULL. 

| j 

An Irishman, who served on board a 
man of war in the capacity of a waister, 
was selected by one of the officers to haul 
in a tow-line of considerable length, which 
was towing over the tafrail. After rowsing 
in forty or fifty fathoms, which had put his 
! patience severely to proof, as well as every 
muscle of his arms, he muttered to himself, 
“ Sure, it’s as long as to day and to-mor¬ 
row ! It’s a good week’s work for any five 
in the ship!—Bad luck to the arm or leg 
j it’ll leave me at last!—What! more of it 
J yet!—Och, murder; the sa’s mighty deep 
to be sure !”—After continuing in a similar 
strain, and conceiving there was little pro¬ 
bability of the completion of his labour, 
he suddenly stopped short, and addressing 
the officer of the watch, exclaimed, “ Bad 
manners to me, sir, if I don’t think some¬ 
body’s cut off the other end of it /” 


CHEERFUL FUNERAL. 

Lodovick Cortusius, an eminent lawyer, 
who died at Padua on the 15th of July, 
1518, when upon his death-bed forbad his 
relations to shed tears at his funeral, and 
even put his heir under a heavy penalty if 
he neglected to perform his orders. On the 
other hand, he ordered musicians, singers, 
pipers, and fiddlers, of all kinds, to supply 
the place of mourners, and directed that 
fifty of them should walk before his corpse 
with the clergymen, playing upon their 
several instruments ; for this service he or¬ 
dered each of them half a ducat. He like¬ 
wise appointed twelve maids in green habits 
to carry his corpse to the chureh of St. 
Sophia, where he was buried, and that tl ey 


too as they went along should sing aloud 
having each of them, as a recompense, a 
handsome sum of money allotted for a por¬ 
tion. All the clergy of Padua marched 
before in long procession, together with all 
the monks of the convent, except those 
wearing black habits, whom he expressly 
excluded by his will, lest the blackness of 
their hoods should throw a gloom upon the 
cheerfulness of the procession. 


ANECDOTE. 

Charles I. and Parliaments. 

| 

Mr. Pye, the late poet laureate, in his 
“ Sketches,” says, “ When I was at Ox¬ 
ford, my tutor having the revisal of some 
papers relative to the civil war, (I know 
not if they have been published,) showed 
me a letter from one of the king’s secreta¬ 
ries, with remarks on the margin in the 
king’s own handwriting. One expression 
particularly struck me, as seeming to show 
his determination to lay aside the use of 
parliaments. The paper was a circular re¬ 
quest to some of the counties for their 
pecuniary assistance, I believe on the Scots’ 
invasion. The words were, as nearly as 
I can recollect, (sixteen years having 
elapsed since I saw the letter,) « Youi 
obliging me in this instance will induce me 
to ask your aid in a manner more agreeable 
to yourselves.’ These words had a line 
drawn through them ; and there was written 1 
on the margin, in the king’s hand : * I have 
scored out these words, as they seem to 
imply a promise of calling a parliament, of 
which I have no intention.’ ” 


THE YANKEE CAUGHT IN HIS OWN 
TRAP. 

For the Table Book. 

A Pat—an odd joker—and Yankee more sly. 

Once riding together, a gallows pass’d by : 

Said the Yankee to Pat, “ If I don’t make too free, * 
Give that gallows its due, pray where then would yo» 
be ?” 

“ Wh y honey, ’ said Pat, “ faith that’s easily known 
I’d be riding to town—by myself—all alone.” 

Sam Sam’s Soy 


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THE TABLE BOOK. 



Srtioge on tfte 3&oatj to Becfeeniiam. 

—Ancient Charity let flow this brook 
Across the road, for sheep and beggar-men 
To cool their weary feet, and slake their thirst 


On our way from Penge,* W. thought 
this object worth sketching. He occupied 
himself with his pencil, and I amused 
myself with dropping grains of dust among 
a fleet of tadpoles on the yellow sands, 
and watching their motions: a few inches 
from them, in a clearer shallow, lay a shoal 
of stickle-backs as on their Dogger-bank : 
a thread and a blood-worm, and the absence 
of my friend, and of certain feelings in 
behalf of the worms, would have afforded 
me excellent sport. The rivulet crosses the 
road from a meadow, where I heard it in 
its narrow channel, and muttering inwardly 


• See p. <74. 


“ the rapids are near,” from the “ Cana¬ 
dian Boat-song,” I fell into a reverie on 
Wilson’s magnificent painting of the falls 
of Niagara, in Mr. Landseer’s painting- 
room. While I seated myself by the way- 
side, and, among ground-ivy and periwinkle, 
discriminating the diminutive forms of trees 
in the varied mosses of an old bank, I 
recollected descriptions I had read of 
transatlantic scenery, and the gigantic 
vegetation on the Ohio and Mississipi. 

A labourer told us, that this little brook i> 
called “ Chaffinch’s River,” and that I 
springs from “ the Alders,” near Croydor. 
and runs into the Ravensbourne. 


2 A 


351 




























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


(Sarrtrfe pap$* 

No. XX. 

jFrom “ Bussy D’Ambois his Revenge/’ a 
Tragedy, by George Chapman, 1613.) 

Plays and Players. 

Guise. — I would have these things 
Brought upon Stages, to let mighty Misers 
See all their grave and serious mischiefs play’d, 

As once they were in Athens and old Rome. 

Clermont. Nay, we must now have nothing brought 
on Stages 

But puppetry, and pied ridiculous antics. 

Men thither come to laugh, and feed fool-fat; 

Check a't all goodness there, as being profaned : 

When, wheresoever Goodness comes, she makes 
The place still sacred, though with other feet 
Never so much ’tis scandal’d and polluted. 

Let me learn any thing, that fits a man. 

In any Stables shewn, as well as Stages.— 

Baligny Why, is not all the World esteem’d a Stage? 
Clermont. Yes, and right worthily; and Stages too 
Have a respect due to them, if but only 
For what the good Greek Moralist says of them • 

“ Is a man proud of greatness, or of riches ? 

Give me an expert Actor ; I’ll shew all 
That can within his greatest glory fall: 
s a man ’fraid with poverty and lowness ? 

Give me an Actor ; I’ll shew every eye 
What he laments so, and so much does fly : 

The best and worst of both.”—If but for this then, 

To make the proudest outside, that most swells 
With things without him, and above his worth, 

Sec how small cause he has to be so blown up ; 

And the most poor man, to be griev’d with poorness; 
Bo h being so easily borne by expert Actors s 
The Stage and Actors are not so contemptful. 

As every innovating Puritan, 

And ignorant Swearer out of jealous envy, 

Would have the world imagine. And besides 
That all things have been liken’d to the mirth 
Used upon Stages, and to Stages fitted ; 

The Splenetive Philosopher, that ever 
Laugh’d at them all, were worthy the enstaging: 

All obj-ects, were they ne’er so full of tears. 

He so conceited, that he could distill thence 
Matter, that still fed his ridiculous humour. 

Heard he a Lawyer, never so vehement pleading- 
He stood and laugh’d. Heard he a Tradesman, swear¬ 
ing 

Never so thriftily, selling of his wares, 

He stood ami laugh’d. Heard he a Holy Brother, 

For hollow ostentation, at his prayers 
Ne’er so impetuously, he stood and laugh’d. 

Saw he a Great Man, never so insulting, 

Severely inflicting, gravely giving laws, 

Not for their good but his—he stood and laugh’d. 

Saw he a Youthful Widow, 

Never so weeping, wringing of her hands 

For her dead Lord, still the Philosopher laugh’d.— 

Now, whether he supposed all these Presentments 


Were only maskeries, and wore false facet. 

Or else were simply vain, I take no care; 

But still he laugh’d, how grave soe’er they were. 


Stoicism. 

-in this one thing all the discipline 

Of manners and of manhood is contain’d ; 

A Man to join himself with the Universe 
In his main sway; and make (in all things fit) 
One with that All • and go on, round as it : 

Not plucking from the whole his wretched part, 
And into straits, or into nought revert; 

Wishing the complete Universe might be 
Subject to such a rag of it as He. 


Apparitions before the Body's Death . 
Scotice, Second Sight. 

-these true Shadows of the Guise and Cardinal, 

Fore-running thus their Bodies, may approve. 

That all things to be done, as here we live. 

Are done before all times in th’ other life. 

[From “ Satiromuvfiv.” a Comedy, by Tho¬ 
mas Decker, 16u~ .n which Ben Jon* 
son, under the name of Horace, is repre¬ 
hended, in retaliation of his “ Poetaster;” 
in which he had attacked .wo of his 
Brother Dramatists, probably Marston 
and Decker, under the names of Crispi 
nus and Demetrius.] 

Horace. What could I do, out of a just revenge. 

But bring them to the Stage ? they envy me. 

Because I hold more worthy company. 

Demetrius. Good Horace, no; my cheeks do blush 
for thine. 

As often as thou speaks’t so. Where one true 
And nobly-virtuous spirit for thy best part 
Loves thee, I wish one ten even fr< mj heart. 

I make account I put up as deep share 

In any good man’s love, which thy worth owns. 

As thou thyself; we envy not to see 
Thy friends with bays to crown thy Poesy. 

No, here the gall lies; we that know what stuff 
Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk 
On which thy learning grows, and can give life 
To thy (once dying) baseness, yet must we 
Dance antics on thy paper. 

Crispinus. This makes us angry, but not envious. 
No; w-ere thy warpt soul put in a new mould. 

I’d wear thee as a jewel set in gold. 


[From the “ Antipodes,” a Comedy, by 
Richard Brome, 1633.] 

Directions to Players. 

Nobleman. —-My actois 

Are all in readiness, and I think all perfect. 

But. one, that never will be perfect in a thing 


352 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


lie studies ; yet he makes such shifts extempore, 
Knowing the purpose what he is to speak to). 

That, he moves mirth in me ’hove all the rest. 

For I am none of those Poetic Furies, 
that threats the actor’s life, in a whole Play 
That adds a syllable, or takes away. 

If he can fribble through, and move delight 
In others, I am pleased.— # # • • 

Let me not see you now. 

In the scholastic way you brought to town with you, 

I Wiih see-saw sack-a-down, like a sawyer ; 

Nor in a comic scene play Hercules Furens, 

Tearing your throat to split the audients’ ears;— 

And you. Sir, you had got a trick of late 
Of holding out your breech in a set speech ; 

Your fingers fibulating on your breast, 

As if your buttons or your bandstrings were 
Helps to your memory ; let me see you in’t 
No more, I charge you. No, nor you, Sir, 
jin that c’er-action of your legs I told you of, 

Your singles and your doubles—look you—thus— 

Like one of the dancing-masters of the beai-garden ; 
And when you’ve spoke, at end of every speech, 

Not minding the reply, you turn you round 
As tumblers do, when betwixt every feat 
They gather wind by tirking up their breeches. 

I’ll none of these absurdities in m v house ; 

But words and actions married so together, 

That shall strike harmony in the ears and eyes 
Of the severest, if judicious, critics. 

Players. My Lord, we are corrected. 

Nobleman. Go, be ready.— 

But yon. Sir, are incorrigible, and 

Take licence to yourself to add unto 

Your parts your own fiee fancy ; and sometimes 

To alter or diminish what the writer 

With care and skill composed ; and when you are 

To speak to your Co-actors in the scene. 

You hold interloqutions with the audients. 

Player. That is a way, my Lord, has been allowed 
On elder stages, to move mirth and laughter. 

Nobleman. Yes, in the days of Tarleton and Kemp, 
Before the Stage was purged from barbarism, 

And brought to the perfection it now shines with. 

Then Fools and Jesters spent their wits, because 
The Poets were wise enough to save their own 
For profitabler uses.— 

C. L. 


THE DIVER OF CHARYBDIS. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Mr. Brydone, in the quotations you 
have made,* appears to doubt the accuracy 
of the stories relating to Charybdis. I 
never recollect to have heard mention of 
the name of Colus, but apprehend he was 
the same as the famous Sicilian diver, 
Nicolo Pesce. Associated with Charybdis, 


• At page 643, 2tc. 


some notice of this extraordinary nan maj 
not be uninteresting. 

The authenticity of this account depend:- 
entirely on the authority of Kircher. H< 
assures us, he had it from the archives o! 
the kings of Sicily ; but its having so much 
of the marvellous in it, many have been 
disposed to doubt its accuracy. Historians 
are too fond of fiction, but we should b\ 
no means doubt their sincerity, when we 
find them on other subjects not contempti¬ 
ble authorities. 

“ In the time of Frederic, king of Sicily, 
(says Kircher,) there lived a celebrated 
diver, whose name was Nicholas, and who, 
from his amazing skill in swimming, and 
his perseverance under the water, was sur- 
named the fish. This man had from his 
infancy been used to the sea; and earned 
his scanty subsistence by diving for corals 
and oysters, which he sold to the villagers 
on shore. His long acquaintance with the 
sea at last brought it to be almost his 
natural element. lie was frequently known 
to spend five days in the midst of tin 
waves, without any other provisions than 
the fish which he caught there, and ate raw. 
He often swam over from Sicily into Cala¬ 
bria, a tempestuous and dangerous passage, 
carrying letters from the king. He was 
frequently known to swim among the 
gulfs of Lipari, no way apprehensive of 
danger. 

“ Some mariners out at sea one dav 
observing something at a distance from 
them, regarded it as a sea-monster; but 
upon its approach it was known to be 
Nicholas, whom they took into their ship. 
When they asked him whither he was going 
in so stormy and rough a sea, and at such 
a distance from land, he showed them a 
packet of letters, which he was carrying to 
one of the tow’ns of Italy, exactly done up 
in a leather bag, in such a manner that 
they could not be wetted by the sea. He 
kept them company for some time in their 
voyage, conversing and asking questions, 
and, after eating with them, took his leave, 
and jumping into the sea, pursued his 
voyage alone. 

“ In order to aid these powers of endur¬ 
ing in the deep, nature seemed to have 
assisted him in a very extraordinary man¬ 
ner ; for the spaces between his fingers and 
toes were webbed as in a goose: and his 
chest became so very capacious, that he 
was able, at one inspiration, to take in as 
much breath as would serve him a whole 
day. 

“ The account of so extraordinary a per¬ 
son did not fail to reach the king himself; j 


3)3 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


who commanded Nicholas to be brought 
before him. It was no easy matter to find 
Nicholas, who generally spent his time in 
.he solitudes of the deep; but, at last, after 
much searching, he was discovered, and 
6rought before his majesty. The curiosity of 
this monarch had long been excited by the 
accounts he had heard of the bottom of the 
gulf of Charybdis; he now therefore con¬ 
ceived that it would be a proper oppor¬ 
tunity to obtain more certain information. 
He therefore commanded the poor diver to 
examine the bottom of this dreadful whirl¬ 
pool; and, as an incitement to his obedi¬ 
ence, he ondered a golden cup to be thrown 
into it. Nicholas was not insensible of the 
danger to which he was exposed ; dangers 
best known only to himself, and therefore 
he presumed to remonstrate ; but the hopes 
of the reward, the desire of pleasing the 
king, and the pleasure of showing his skill, 
at last prevailed. He instantly jumped 
into the gulf, and was as instantly swal¬ 
lowed up in its bosom. He continued for 
three quarters of an hour below, during 
which time the king and his attendants re¬ 
mained on shore anxious for his fate: but 
he at last appeared, holding the cup in 
triumph in one hand, and making his way 
good among the waves with the other. It 
may be supposed he was received with 
applause when he came on shore; the cup 
was made the reward of his adventure; the 
king ordered him to be taken proper care 
of; and, as he was somewhat fatigued and 
debilitated with his labour, after a hearty 
meal he was put to bed, and permitted to 
refresh himself with sleeping. 

“ When his spirits were thus restored, 
he was again brought before the king, to 
satisfy his curiosity with a narrative of the 
wonders he had seen; and his account 
was to the following effect:—He would 
never, he said, have obeyed the king’s 
commands, had he been apprized of half 
the dangers that were before him. There 
were four things, he said, which rendered 
the gulf dreadful, not only to men but to 
the fishes themselves. 1. The force of the 
water bursting up from the bottom, which 
required great strength to resist. 2. The 
abruptness of the rocks, which on every 
side threatened destruction. 3. The force 
of the whirlpool dashing against these 
ocks. And, 4. The number and magni¬ 
tude of the polypous fish, some of which 
appeared as large as a man; and which, 
every where sticking against the rocks 
projected their fibrous arms to entangle 
him. Being asked, how he was able so 
readily to find the cup that had been thrown 


m, he replied, that it happened to De flung 
by the waves into the cavity of a rodir 
against which he himself was urged in hi 
descent. This account, however, did no' 
satisfy the king’s curiosity. Being requect- 
ed once more to venture into the gulf for 
further discoveries, he at first refused : bu 
the king, desirous of having the most accu¬ 
rate information possible of all things to be 
found in the gulf, repeated his solicita¬ 
tions; and to give them greater weight, 
produced a larger cup than the former, and 
added also a purse of gold. Upon these 
considerations the unfortunate diver once 
again plunged into the whirlpool, and was 
never heard of more.” 

This is Kircher’s account, some asser¬ 
tions of whom will undoubtedly excite in¬ 
credibility in the minds of all. I do not 
wish to offer any remarks, but leave your 
readers to form their own opinions. 

People, by being accustomed to the 
water from their infancy, may often, at 
length, not only be enabled to stay much 
longer under water, but putting on a kind 
of amphibious nature, have the use of all 
their faculties as well under the water as 
on the dry land. Most savage nations are 
remarkable for this; and, even among ci¬ 
vilized nations, many persons are found 
capable of continuing submerged for an 
incredible time. 

I am, &c. 

A. B. 

Hackney , May, 1827. 


COUNTRY LITTLE KNOWN. 

We have to inform the public of a re¬ 
markable discovery, which, though partially 
disclosed by former travellers, has still 
remained, for the most part, a strange 
secret. It is this;—that there is actually, 
at this present moment, and in this our own 
beautiful country of Great Britain, a large 
tract of territory, which to nine hundred 
and ninety-nine thousandths of our beloved 
countrymen is as much an undiscovered 
land as the other end of New South Wales, 
or the Pole which they have gone to find 
out. We have read of places in romance, 
which were more shut out by magic from 
people’s eyes, though close to them, than if 
a fifty-foot wall encircled them. It would 
seem as if some such supernatural prohibi¬ 
tion existed with regard to the land in 
question ; for the extremities of it reach to 
within a short distance from the metropolis, 
which it surrounds on all sides; nay, we 
have heard of persons riding through it, 


354 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


without seeing any thing but a sign-post or 
some corn ; and yet it is so beautiful, that 
it is called emphatically “ the country.” 

It abounds in the finest natural produc¬ 
tions. The more majestic parts of it are at 
a distance, but the zealous explorer may 
come upon its gentler beauties in an incredi- 
oly short time. Its pastures and cattle are 
admirable. Deer are to be met with in the 
course of half a day’s journey; and the 
traveller is accompanied, wherever he goes, 
with the music of singing birds. Imme¬ 
diately towards the south is a noble river, 
j which brings you to an upland of the most 
: luxuriant description, looking in the water 
like a rich-haired beauty in her glass: yet 
the place is in general solitary. Towards 
, the north, at a less distance, are some other 
hilly spots of ground, which partake more 
of the rudely romantic, running however 
into scenes of the like sylvan elegance; 
and yet these are still more solitary. The 
inhabitants of these lands, called the coun¬ 
try-people, seem, in truth, pretty nearly as 
blind to their merits as those who never see 
them ; but their perceptions will doubtless 
increase, in proportion as their polished 
neighbours set the example. It should be 
said for them, that some causes, with which 
we have nothing to do in this place, have 
rendered them duller to such impressions 
than they appear to have been a century or 
two ago; but we repeat, that they will not 
live in such scenes to no purpose, if those 
who know better take an interest in their 
improvement. Their children have an in¬ 
stinct that is wiser, till domestic cares do it 
away. They may be seen in the fields and 
green lanes, with their curly locks and 
brown faces, gathering the flowers which 
abound there, and the names of which are 
as pretty as the shapes and colours. They 
are called wild roses, primroses, violets, the 
*ose campion, germander, stellaria, wild 
inemone, bird’s-eye, daisies and butter- 
tups, lady-smocks, ground-ivy, hare-bells 
or blue-bells, wake-robin, lillies of the val¬ 
ley, &c. &c. The trees are oaks, elms, 
birches, ash, poplar, willow, wild cherry, 
the flowering may-bush, &c. &c. all, in 
short, that we dote upon in pictures, and 
wish that we had about us when it is hot 
in Cheapside and Bond-street. It is per¬ 
fectly transporting, in fine weather, like the 
resent for instance, to lounge under the 
edge-row elms in one of these sylvan 
places, and see the light smoke of the cot¬ 
tages fuming up among the green trees, the 
cattle grazing or lying about with a heavy 
placidity accordant to the time and scene, 
u painted jays ” glancing about the glens. 


the gentle hills sloping down into water, 
the winding embowered lanes, the leafy 
and flowery banks, the green oaks against 
the blue sky, their ivied trunks, the silver¬ 
bodied and young-haired birches, and the 
mossy grass treble-carpeted after the vernal 
rains. Transporting is it to see all this; 
and transporting to hear the linnets, thrush¬ 
es, and blackbirds, the grave gladness ol 
the bee, and the stock-dove “ brooding ovei 
her own sweet voice.” And more tran? 
porting than all is it to be in such places 
with a friend, that feels like ourselves, in 
whose heart and eyes (especially if they 
have fair lids) we may see all our own 
happiness doubled, as the landscape itseli 
is reflected in the waters.* 


SPECTROLOGY. 

A Remarkable Narrative. 

Nicolai, the celebrated German book¬ 
seller, a member of the royal society ol 
Berlin, presented to that institution a me- j 
moir on the subject of a complaint with 
which he was affected, and one of the sin¬ 
gular consequences of which was, the re¬ 
presentation of various spectres. M. Nicola; 
for some years had been subject to a con¬ 
gestion in the head, and was blooded 
frequently for it by leeches. After a de¬ 
tailed account of the state of his health, on 
which he grounds much medical as well as 
psychological reasoning, he gives the fol¬ 
lowing interesting narrative :— 

In the first two months of the year 1791, 
I was much affected in my mind by several 
incidents of a very disagreeable nature, 
and on the 24th of February a circumstance 
occurred which irritated me extremely. At 
ten o’clock in the forenoon my wife and 
another person came to console me; I was 
in a violent perturbation of mind, owing to 
a series of incidents which had altogether 
wounded my moral feelings, and from which 
I saw no possibility of relief: when sud¬ 
denly I observed at the distance of ten 
paces from me a figure—the figure of a 
deceased person. I pointed at it, and 
asked my wife whether she did not see it 
She saw nothing, but being much alarmed 
endeavoured to compose me, and sent for 
the physician. The figure remained some 
seven or eight minutes, and at length I be¬ 
came a little more calm; and as I was 
extremely exhausted, I soon afterwards fell 
into a troubled kind of slumber, which 


• The Indicator. 


355 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


j lasted for half an hour. The vision was 
ascribed to the great agitation of mind in 
which I had been, and it was supposed I 
should have nothing more to apprehend 
from that cause; but the violent affection 
having put my nerves into some unnatural 
| state, from this arose further consequences, 
'which require a more detailed description. 

In the afternoon, a little after four o’clock, 
tin; figure which I had seen in the morning 
again appeared. I was alone when this 
happened ; a circumstance which, as may 
be easily conceived, could not be very 
agreeable. I went therefore to the apart¬ 
ment of my wife, to whom I related it. 

1 But thither also the figure pursued me. 
Sometimes it was present, sometimes it 
vanished; but it was always the same 
standing figure. A little after six o’clock 
several stalking figures also appeared ; but 
they had no connection with the standing 
figure. I can assign no other reason for 
this apparition than that, though much more 
composed in my mind, l had not been able 
so soon entirely to forget the cause of such 
deep and distressing vexation, and had re¬ 
flected on the consequences of it, in order, 
if possible, to avoid them; and that this 
happened three hours after dinner, at the 
time when the digestion just begins. 

A; length 1 became more composed with 
respect to the disagreeable incident which 
had given rise to the first apparition ; but 
though I had used very excellent medicines, 
and found myself in other respects perfectly 
well, yet the apparitions did not diminish, 
but, on the contrary, rather increased in 
number, and were transformed in the most 
•extraordinary manner. 

After I had recovered from the first im¬ 
pression of terror, I never felt myself par¬ 
ticularly agitated by these apparitions, as I 
considered them to be what they really 
were, the extraordinary consequences of 
indisposition ; on the contrary, I endea¬ 
voured as much as possible to preserve my 
composure of mind, that l might remain 
distinctly conscious of what passed within 
me. I observed these phantoms with treat 
accuracy, and very often reflected on my 
previous thoughts, with a view to discover 
st me law in the association of ideas, by 
which exactly these or other figures might 
present themselves to the imagination.— 
Sometimes I thought I had made a dis¬ 
covery, especially in the latter period of my 
; visions; but, on the whole, I could trace no 
i connection which the various figures that 
! thus appeared and disappeared to rny sight 
j had, cither with my state of mind or with 
iry employment, and the other thoughts 


which engaged my attention. After fre¬ 
quent accurate observations on the subject, 
having fairly proved and maturely con¬ 
sidered it, I could fprm no other conclusion 
on the cause and consequence of such ap¬ 
paritions than that, when the nervous sys¬ 
tem is weak, and at the same time too 
much excited, or rather deranged, similar 
figures may appear in such a manner as if 
they were actually seen and heard; for 
these visions in my case were not the con¬ 
sequence of any known law of reason, of 
the imagination, or of the otherwise usual 
association of ideas ; and such also is the 
case with other men, as far as we can reason 
from the few examples w r e know. 

The origin of the individual pictures 
which present themselves to us, must un¬ 
doubtedly be sought for in the structure of 
that organization by which we think ; but 
this will always remain no less inexplicable 
to us than the origin of these powers by 
which consciousness and fancy are made to 
exist. 

The figure of the deceased person never 
appeared to me after the first dreadful day ; 
but several other figures showed themselves 
afterwards very distinctly ; sometimes such 
as I knew, mostly, however, of persons I 
did not know, and amongst those known 
to me, were the semblances of both living 
and deceased persons, but mostly the for¬ 
mer; and I made the observation, that 
acquaintances with whom I daily conversed 
never appeared to me as phantasms ; it was 
always such as w'ere at a distance. When 
these apparitions had continued some weeks, 
and I could regard them with the greatest 
composure, I afterwards endeavoured, at 
my own pleasure, to call forth phantoms of 
several acquaintance, whom I for that rea¬ 
son represented to my imagination in the 
most lively manner, but in vain. — For 
however accurately I pictured to my mind 
the figures of such persons, I never once 
could succeed in my desire of seeing them 
externally ; though I had some short time 
before seen them as phantoms, and they 
had perhaps afterwards unexpectedly pre¬ 
sented themselves to me in the same man¬ 
ner. The phantasms appeared to me in 
every case involuntarily, as if they had been 
presented externally, like the phenomena 
in nature, though they certainly had their 
origin internally ; and at the same time 1 
was always able to distinguish with the 
greatest precision phantasms from pheno¬ 
mena. Indeed, I never once erred in this, 
as T was in general perfectly calm and self- 
collected on the occasion. I knew extremely 
well, when it only appeared to me that tin 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


door was opened, and a phantom entered, 
and when the door really was opened and 
any person came in. 

It is also to be noted, that these figures 
appeared to me at all times, and under the 
most different circumstances, equally dis¬ 
tinct and clear. Whether I was alone, or 
in company, by broad daylight equally as 
in the nighttime, in my own as well as in 
my neighbour’s house ; yet when I was at 
another person’s house, they were less fre¬ 
quent ; and when I walked the public street 
they very seldom appeared. When I shut 
my eyes, sometimes the figures disappeared, 
sometimes they remained even after I had 
closed them. If they vanished in the 
former case, on opening my eyes again 
nearly the same figures appeared which I 
had seen before. 

I sometimes conversed with my physician 
and my wife, concerning the phantasms 
which at the time hovered around me; for 
in general the forms appeared oftener in 
motion than at rest. They did not always 
continue present—they frequently left me 
altogether, and again appeared for a short 
or longer space of time, singly or more at 
once; but, in general, several appeared 
together. For the most part I saw human 
figures of both sexes; they commonly 
passed to and fro as if they had no connec¬ 
tion with each other, like people at a fair 
where all is bustle; sometimes they ap¬ 
peared to have business with one another. 
Once or twice I saw amongst them persons 
on horseback, and dogs and birds; these 
figures all appeared to me in their natural 
size, as distinctly as if they had existed in 
real life, with the several tints on the un¬ 
covered parts of the body, and with all the 
different kinds of colours of clothes. But 
I think, however, that the colours were 
somewhat paler than they are in nature. 

None of the figures had any distinguish¬ 
ing characteristic; they were neither terri¬ 
ble, ludicrous, nor repulsive; most of them 
were ordinary in their appearance—some 
were even agreeable 

On the whole, the longer I continued in 
this state, the more did the number of 
phantasms increase, and the apparitions 
became more frequent. About four weeks 
afterwards I began to hear them speak: 
sometimes the phantasms spoke with one 
another; but for the most part they ad¬ 
dressed themselves to me: those speeches 
were in general short, and never contained 
any thing disagreeable. Intelligent and 
respected friends often appeared to me, 
who endeavoured to console me in my 
i!rief, which still left deep traces in my 


mind. This speaking I heard most fre¬ 
quently when I was alone; though I some 
times heard it in company, intermixed with 
the conversation of real persons; frequently 
in single phrases only, but sometimes even 
in connected discourse. 

Though at this time I enjoyed rather a 
good state of health, both in body and 
mind, and had become so very familiar 
with these phantasms, that at last they did 
not excite the least disagreeable emotion, 
but on the contrary afforded me frequent 
subjects for amusement and mirth ; yet as 
the disorder sensibly increased, and the 
figures appeared to me for whole days 
together, and even during the night, if I 
happened to awake, I had recourse to se¬ 
veral medicines, and was at last again 
obliged to have recourse to the application, 
of leeches. 

This was performed on the 20th of April, 
at eleven o’clock in the forenoon. 1 was 
alone with the surgeon, but during the 
operation the room swarmed with human 
forms of every description, which crowded 
fast one on another; tins continued till half¬ 
past four o’clock, exactly the time when the 
digestion commences. I then observed that 
the figures began to move more slowly; 
soon afterwards the colours became gradu¬ 
ally paler; and every seven minutes they 
lost more and more of their intensity, with¬ 
out any alteration in the distinct figure of 
the apparitions. At about half-past six 
o’clock all the figures were entirely white, 
and moved very little; yet the forms ap¬ 
peared perfectly distinct ; by degrees they 
became visibly less plain, without decreas¬ 
ing in number, as had often formerly been 
the case. The figures did not move off, 
neither did they vanish, which also had 
usually happened on other occasions. In 
this instance they dissolved immediately 
into air; of some even whole pieces re¬ 
mained for a length of time, which also by 
degrees were lost to the eye At about 
eight o’clock there did not remain a vestige 
of any of them, and I have never since 
experienced any appearance of the same 
kind. Twice or thrice since that time I 
have felt a propensity, if 1 may be so al 
lowed to express myself, or a sensation, as 
if I saw something which in a moment 
again was gone. I was even surprised by 
this sensation whilst writing the present 
account, having, in order to render it more 
accurate, perused the papers of 1791, and 
recalled to my memory all the circumstances 
of that time. So little are we sometimes, 
even in the greatest composure of mind, 
masters of our imagination 


357 













Cfre porrt) of 3Serftmf)am C&urrfcpariu 

Beyond the Lich-gate stand ten ancient yews— 
Branching so high they seem like giant mutes, 

With plumes, awaiting rich men’s funerals 
And poor men’s bury’ngs :—stretching, over all, 

An arch of triumph for Death’s victories. 


Over tne wickets to many of the church¬ 
yards in Kent is a shed, or covered way, of 
ancient structure, used as a *esting-place 
for funerals, and for the shelter of the 
corpse until the minister arrives to com¬ 
mence the service for the dead. This at 
Beckenham is one of the most perfect in 
the county: the footway beyond, to the 
great entrance-door of the church, is cano¬ 
pied by a grove of trees, “ sad sociate to 
grates.” These old church-yard buildings, 
now only seen in villages, were formerly 
called lich-gates , and the paths to them 
were called lich-lanes, or lich-ways. 

The word lich signified a corpse Hence 


* 

the death-owl was anciently called the lich - 
owl. 

The shrieking Litch-owl , that doth never cry 
But boding death, and quick herself inters 
In darksome graves, and hollow sepulchres. 

Drayton. 

Also, from lich is derived the name of 
the city of Lichfield , so called because of a 
massacre on that spot. 

A thousand other saints whom Amphibal had taught. 
Flying the pagan foe, their lives that strictly sought, 
Were slain where Litchfield is, whose name doth rightls 
sound 

There, of those Christians slain, dead field, or burying 
ground. Drayton. 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


358 




































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

THE TWO GRAVES. 

In yonder cowslip’s sprinkled mead 
A church’s tapering spire doth rise, 

3 As if it were directing us 
Unto a fairer paradise; 

Within the yard, so fair and green. 

Full many a grave is to be seen. 

Often upon a summer’s eve 
The church-yard’s smooth, green sward I’ve trod t 
Reading the rugged epitaphs 

Of those who lie beneath the sod ; 

But in one spot two graves were seen-. 

Which always stopp’d my wandering. 

Upon one stone’s expansive front 

Was writ, in language stiff and cold. 

That he, who lay beneath that slab. 

Had died when he was very old ; 

And at its close a simple line 
Said, that his age was ninety-nine. 

Another small and polish’d stone 
Beside the former did appear ; 

It said, that that grave’s occupant 
Had died when in his third year : 

How eloquent the polish’d praise 
Lavish’d on that child’s winning ways 1 

The old man lay beneath the stone, 

Where nought in praise of him was told ; 

It only said, that there he lay, 

And that he died when he was old : 

It did not chronicle his years, 

His joys and sorrows—hopes and fean , 

Ninety-nine years of varying life 
On gliding pinions by had fled, 

(Oh what long years of toil and strife!) 

Ere he was number’d with the dead; 

But yet no line was left to tell 
How he had liv’d, or how he fell! 

Had he no wife,—no child,—no friend ? 

To cheer him as he pass’d away ; 

No one who would his name commend, 

And wail as he was laid in clay ? 

Of this the record nought supplied,— 

It only said he liv’d and died ! 

How must his soul have been oppress’d. 

As intimates dropp’d from his side ! 

And he, almost unknown, was left 
Alone,—upon this desert wide ! 

Wife—children—friends—all, all were gone, 

And he left in the world alone J 

His youthful friends had long grown old, 

And then were number’d with the dead ; 

His step had totter’d, sight grown dim. 

And ev’ry source of pleasure fled ; 

By nature’s law such must have been, 

IV effect of the long years he’d seen I 


but then the record nought supplied. 

How he had spent this length’ned life; 
Whether in peace and quietness. 

Or had he worried been with strife ; 

Perhaps the muse to him had given 
Visions of glory, fire from Heaven 

All is conjecture ! He was laid 
Beneath the cold, unfeeling clay , 

His fame—if he had sigh’d for fame— 

Had from remembrance pass’d away. 

Hope, joy, fear, sorrow, all were fled, 

And he lay number’d with the dead! 

Oh 1 cold and cheerless is the thought. 

That I shall be as he is now, 

My very name remember’d not, 

And fame’s wreath wither’d on my brow 
Of me no record be supplied. 

But that I liv’d, and that I died ! 

Such is the tone of sorrowing thought 
That through my heart has often past, 

As, on a summer’s brightnmg eve, 

A look upon those graves I’ve cast, 

Where youth and age together lie, 

Emblems of frail mortality I 

O. N. Y. 


THE WHITE LADY. 

A ROMANTIC AND TRUE ANECDOTE. 

At Nottingham, a year or two ago, Sophia 
Hyatt, in consequence of extreme deafness, 
was accidentally run over by a carrier’s cart, 
at the entrance of the Maypole inn-yard, 
and unfortunately killed. She had arrived 
that morning in a gig from Newstead Pap- 
plewick, or somewhere in that neighbour¬ 
hood, and had been, for the three or four 
preceding years, a lodger in one of the 
farm-houses belonging to colonel Wild- 
man, at Newstead Abbey. No one knew 
exactly from whence she came, nor what 
were her connections. Her days were 
passed in rambling about the gardens and 
grounds of the abbey, to which, from the 
kindness of colonel Wildman, she had free 
access. Her dress was invariably the same \ 
and she was distinguished by the servants 
at Newstead, as the “ white lady.” She 
had ingratiated herself with the Newfound¬ 
land dog which came from Greece with the 
body of lord Byron, by regularly feeding 
him; and on the evening before the fatal 
accident, she was seen, on quitting the 
gardens, to cut off a small lock of the dog’s 
hair, which she carefully placed in her 
handkerchief. On that evening also, she 
delivered to Mrs. Wildman a sealed packet, 


359 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


ich ;i request that it might not be opened 
till the tollowing morning. The contents 
of the packet were no less interesting than 
surprising ; they consisted of various poems 
in manuscript, written during her solitary 
walks, and all of them referring to the 
bard to whom Newstead once belonged. 
A letter, addressed to Mrs. Wildman, was 
enclosed with the poetry, written with much 
elegance of language and native feeling ; it 
described her friendless situation, alluded 
to her pecuniary difficulties, thanked the 
family for their kind attention towards her, 
and stated the necessity she was under of 
removing for a short period from Newstead. 
It appeared from her statement, that she 
had connections in America, that her bro¬ 
ther had died there, leaving a widow and 
family, and she requested colonel Wild- 
man’s assistance to arrange certain matters, 
in which she was materially concerned. 
She concluded with declaring, that her only 
happiness in this world consisted in the 
piiviiege of being allowed to wander 
through the domain of Newstead, and to 
trace the various spots which had been 
consecrated by the genius of lord Byron. 
A most kind and compassionate note was 
conveyed to her immediately after the 
perusal of this letter, urging her, either to 
give up her journey, or to return to New¬ 
stead as quickly as possible. With the 
melancholy sequel the reader is acquainted. 
Colonel Wildman took upon himself the care 
of her interment, and she was buried in the 
church-yard of Hucknall, as near as pos¬ 
sible to the vault which contains the body 
of lord Byron. The last poem she com¬ 
posed was the following: it seems to have 
been dictated by a melancholy foreboding 
of her fate. 

My last Walk in the Gardens of 
Newstead Abbey. 

Here no longer shall I wander 
Lone, but in communion high. 

Kindred spirits greet nr.e—yonder 
Glows the form that’s ever nigh. 

Wrapt in blissful contemplation, 

From that hill no more I gaze 

On scenes as fair as when creation 
Rose—the theme of seraphs’ lays. 

And thou, fair sylph, that round its basis 
Driv’st thy car, with milk-white steed ; 

Oft I watch’d its gentle paces— 

Mark’d its track with curious heed. 

Why ? oh ! why thus interesting, 

Are forms and scenes to me unknown ? 

Oh you, the Muses’ power confessing. 

Define the charm your bosoms own. 


Whv love to gazer,*- playful fountain, 

Or lake, that bore him on its breast* 
Lonely to wander o’er each mountain. 

Grove, or plain, his feet have press’d t 

It is because the Muses hover. 

And all around, a halo shed; 

Ar.d still must every fond adorer 
Worship the shrine, the idol fled. 

But ’tis past; and now for ever 
Fancy’s vision’s bliss is o’er ; 

But to forget thee, Newstead—never, 

Though I shall haunt thy shades no more.* 


DUELS. 

Duelling in England was carried to its 
greatest possible excess in the reigns of 
James I. and of the two Charles’s. In the 
reign of the latter Charles, the seconds ' 
always fought as well as their principals ;i 
and as they were chosen for their couiage j 
and adroitness, their combats were gene¬ 
rally the most fatal. Lord Howard, of 
Carlisle, in the reign of Charles IL, gave a 
grand f£te champetre at Spring Gardens, 
near the village of Charing, the Vauxhall 
of that day. This fete was to facilitate an 
intrigue between lord Howard and the 
profligate duchess of Shrewsbury; but the 
gay and insinuating Sidney flirted with the 
duchess, abstracted her attention from 
Howard, and ridiculed the fete. The next 
day his lordship sent a challenge to Sidney, 
who chose as his second a tall, furious, 
adroit swordsman, named Dillon; Howard 
selected a young gentleman, named ltaw- 
lings, just come into possession of an 
estate of 10,000/. a year. Sidney was 
wounded in two or three places, whilst his 
second was run through the heart, and left 
dead on the field. The duke of Shrews¬ 
bury became afterwards so irritated as to 
challenge the infamous Buckingham for 
intriguing with his wife. The duchess of 
Shrewsbury, in the disguise of a page, 
attended Buckingham to the field, and held 
his horse whilst he fought and killed 
her husband. The profligate king, in 
spite of every remonstrance from the 
queen, received the duke of Buckingham 
with open arms, after this brutal murder. 

In 172 duels fought during the last sixty 
years, 69 persons were killed; (in three of 
these duels, neither of the combatants sur¬ 
vived ;) 96 persons were wounded, 48 
desperately and 48 slightly; and 188 
escaped unhurt. Thus, rather more than 
one-fifth lost their lives, and nearly one-halt 


* Nottingham Review^ 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


received the bullets of their antagonists. 
It appears also, that out of this number of 
duels, eighteen trials took place; six of 
the arraigned were acquitted, seven found 
guilty of manslaughter, and three of mur¬ 
der ; two were executed, and eight impri 
soned for different periods. 

About thirty years ago, there was a duel¬ 
ling society held in Charleston, South 
i Carolina, where each “gentleman” took 
precedence according to the numbers he 
had killed or wounded in duels. The pre¬ 
sident and deputy had killed many. It 
happened that an old weather-beaten lieu¬ 
tenant of the English navy arrived at 
Charleston, to see after some property 
which had devolved upon him, in right ot 
a Charleston lady, whom he had married ; 
and on going into a coffee-house, engaged 
in conversation with a native, whose in¬ 
sults against England were resented, and 
the English lieutenant received a chal¬ 
lenge. As soon as the affair was known, 
some gentlemen waited upon the stranger 
to inform him, that the man who had called 
him out was a duellist, a “ dead shot,” the 
president of the duellist club ; they added, 
that the society and all its members, 
though the wealthiest people of the place, 
were considered so infamous by really re¬ 
spectable persons, that he would not be 
held in disesteem by not meeting the chal¬ 
lenger. The lieutenant replied, that he was 
not afraid of any duellist; he had accepted 
the challenge, and would meet his man. 
They accordingly did meet, and at the first 
fire the lieutenant mortally wounded his 
antagonist. In great agony, and con¬ 
science-stricken, he invoked the aid of 
several divines, and calling the “duellist 
society ** to his bedside, lectured them 
upon the atrocity of their conduct, and 
begged, as his dying request, that the club 
might be broken up. The death of this 
ruffian suppressed a society which the 
counlvy did not possess sufficient morals or 
gentlemanly spirit to subdue. 

In Virginia, a Mr. Powell, a notorious 
duellist, purposely met and insulted an 
English traveller, for having said, that “the 
Virginians were of no use to the American 
Union, it requiring one half of the Vir¬ 
ginians to keep the other half in order; 
the newspapers took it up as a national 
quarrel, and anticipated the meeting, with¬ 
out the magistiacy having decency, monds, 
or public spirit sufficient to interfere. n 1 
Englishman, therefore, got an i 
duellist as his second, went into 
and practice, and met his adversary amidst 
i mob of many thousands to witness the 


The 
American 
training 


fight. Mr. Powell was killed on the first 
shot, and the Englishman remained unhurt. 

The brother of general Delancey, the late 
barrack-master general, having high words 
with a “ gentleman” in a coffee-house at 
New York, the American immediately 
called for pistols, and insisted upon fight¬ 
ing in the public coffee-room, across one of 
the tables. None of the “ gentlemen” pre¬ 
sent interfered ; they fought across the table, 
and the American dishonestly firing befoie 
his time, the Englishman was shot dead 
upon the spot. Lately, at Nashvillt, a 
gentleman was shot dead before his ov- n 
door, in a duel, in the principal square of 

the citv. 

* 

In 1763, the secretary of the English trea¬ 
sury, Mr. Martin, notoriously trained him¬ 
self as a duellist, for the avowed purpose of 
shooting Mr. Wilkes, whom he first insulted 
in the House of Commons, and afterwards 
wounded in the park. This gave rise to 
Churchill’s poem of “ The Duellistthe 
House of Commons ordered his majesty’s 
sergeant surgeon to attend Mr. Wilkes, and 
Mr. Martin was considered to “ have done 
the state some service.” 

At that period duels were frequent 
among clergymen. In 1764, the Rev. Mr. 
Hil! was killed in a duel by cornet Gar¬ 
dener, of the carabineer. The Reverend 
Mr. Hate fought two duels, and was subse¬ 
quently created a baronet, and preferred to 
a deanery after he had fought another duel. 
The Reverend Mr. Allen killed a Mr. Delany 
in a duel, in Hyde Park, without incurring 
any ecclesiastical censure, though judge 
Buffer, on account of his extremely bad 
conduct, strongly charged his guilt upon the 

j ur y- 

In 1765, occurred a celebrated duel be¬ 
tween the father of the late lord Byron and 
Mr. C-haworth, a famous duellist. They 
quarrelled at a club-dinner at the Star and 
Garter, Pall Mall, about game; Chawoith 
was a great game preserver, and lord Byron 
had argued upon the cruelty and impolicy 
of the game laws. They agreed to fight in 
an adjoining room, by the light of only one 
candle. Lord Byron entered first; and, 
as Chaworth was shutting the door, turning 
his head round, he beheld lord Byron’s 
sword half undrawn; he immediately 
whipped his own weapon out, and making 
a lunge at his lordship, ran it through his 
waistcoat, conceiving that his sword had 
gone through his body: lord Byron closed, 
and, shortening his sword, stabbed Mr. 
Chaworth in the belly. The challenge had 
proceeded from Chaworth. Lord Byron 
re;id his defence to the House of Lords. 


i i 


361 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


and was found guilty of manslaughter; and, 
upon the privilege of his peerage, was dis¬ 
charged on paying his fees. 

In 1772, a Mr. M‘Lean was challenged 
and killed by a Mr. Cameron; and the 
mother of Mr. M‘Lean, on hearing of the 
shocking event, instantly lost her senses, 
whilst a Miss M‘Leod, who was to have 
been married to the deceased, was seized 
with fits, and died in three days. 

In Mr. Sheridan’s duel with Mr. Ma¬ 
thews, the parties cut and slashed at each 
other, a la mode de theatre , until Mr. 
Mathews left a part of his sword sticking 
in Mr. Sheridan’s ear. 

In a famous duel in which Mr. Riddell 
was killed, and Mr. Cunningham very 
severely wounded, the challenge, by mis¬ 
take, had fallen in the first instance into 
the hands of sir James Riddell, father to 
Mr. Riddell, who, on having it delivered 
to him, did no more than provide surgeons 
for the event. 

In 1789, colonel Lennox conceived hint- 
self to have been insulted by the late duke 
of York having told him, before all the 
officers on the parade of St. James’s, “ that 
he desired to derive no protection from his 
rank of prince.” The colonel accordingly 
fought his royal highness, it was said, with 
cork bullets; but be that as it may, he 
contrived to disturb one of the huge rows 
of curls which it was then the fashion to 
wear on the side of the head. 

In 1790, a captain Macrae fought and 
killed sir George Ramsay, for refusing to 
dismiss a faithful old servant who had in¬ 
sulted captain Macrae. Sir George urged, 

; that even if the servant were guilty, he had 
been sufficiently punished by the cruel 
beating that captain Macrae had given him. 
As soon as the servant heard that his mas¬ 
ter had been killed on his account, he fell 
into strong convulsions, and died in a few 
hours. Captain Macrae fled, and was 
outlawed. 

In 1797, colonel Fitzgerald, a married 
man, eloped from Windsor with his cousin, 
the daughter of lord Kingston. Colonel 
King, the brother, fought colonel Fitzge¬ 
rald in Hyde Park. They fired six shots 
each without effect; and the powder being 
exhausted, colonel King called his opponent 
“ a villain,” and they resolved to fight again 
next day. They were, however, put under 
an arrest, when colonel Fitzgerald had the 
audacity to follow lord Kingston’s family 
to Ireland, to obtain the object of his seduc¬ 
tion from her parents. Colonel King 
nearing of this, repaired to the inn where 
colonel Fitzgerald put up. Col* #. J FUi 


gerald had locked himself in his room, and 
refused admission to colonel King, who 
broke open the door, and running to a case 
of pistols, seized one, and desired colonel 
Fitzgerald to take the other. The parties 
grappled, and were fighting, when lord 
Kingston entered the room; and perceiving, 
from the position of the parties, that his 
son must lose his life, instantly shot Fitz¬ 
gerald dead on the spot. 

In 1803, a very singular duel took place 
in Hyde Park, between a lieutenant YV., of 
the navy, and a captain I., of the army. 
Captain I. had seduced the lieutenant’s 
sister. Lieutenant W. seemed impressed 
with a deep sense of melancholy: he in¬ 
sisted that the distance should be only six 
paces. At this distance they fired, and the 
shot of captain I. struck the guard of lieu¬ 
tenant W.’s pistol, and tore off two fingers 
of his right hand. The lieutenant delibe¬ 
rately wrapped his handkerchief round the 
wound, and looking solemnly to heaven, 
exclaimed, “ I have a left hand, which 
never failed me.” They again took their 
ground. Lieutenant W. looked steadfastly 
at captain I., and casting his eyes up to 
heaven, was heard to utter “ forgive me.” 
They fired, and both fell. Captain I. re¬ 
ceived the ball in his head, and died in¬ 
stantly : the lieutenant was shot through 
the breast. He inquired if captain I.’s 
wound was mortal. Being answered in 
the affirmative, he thanked heaven that ht 
had lived so long. He then took his 
mourning ring off his finger, and said to 
his second, “ Give this to my sister, and 
tell her it is the happiest moment I ever 
knew.” He had scarcely uttered the last 
word, when a quantity of blood gushed 
from his wound, and he instantly expired. 

These are practices in a Christian country. 


ANSWER TO A CHALLENGE. 

At a late meeting under a commission ol 
bankruptcy, at Andover, between Mr. 
Fleet and Mr. Mann, both respectable 
solicitors of that town, some disagreement 
arose, which ended in the former sending 
the latter a challenge, to which the follow¬ 
ing answer was returned. 

To Kingston Fleet , Esq. 

I am honour’d this day, sir, with challenges two. 

The first from friend Langdon, the second from you ; 
As the one is to fight, and the other to dine , 

I accept his “ engagement,” and yours must decline. 
Now, in giving this preference, I trust you’ll admit 
I have acted with prudence, and done what was , 


362 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Since encountering him, and my weapon a knife. 

There is some little chance of preserving my life; 
Whilst a bullet from you, sir, might take it away, 

And the maxim, you know, is to live while you may. 

If, however, you still should suppose I ill-treat you, 

By sternly rejecting this challenge to meet you, 

Bear with me a moment, and I will adduce 
Three powerful reasons by way of excuse : 

In the first place, unless I am grossly deceiv’d, 

I myself am in conscience the party aggriev’d; 

And therefore, good sir, if a challenge must be. 

Pray wait till that challenge be tender'd by me. 

Again, sir, I think it by far the more sinful, 

To stand and be shot, than to sit for a skinful; 

From whence you’ll conclude (as I’d have you, indeed) 
That fighting composes not part of my creed— 

And my courage (which, though it was never disputed, 
Is not, I imagine, too, too deeply rooted) 

Would prefer that its fruit, sir, whate’er it may yield, 
Should appear at “ the table," and not in “ the yield." 
And, lastly, my life, be it never forgot. 

Possesses a value which yours, sir, does not ;* 

So I mean to preserve it as long as I can, 

Being justly entitled “ a family Man," 

With three or four children, (1 scarce know how many,) 
Whilst you, sir, have not, or ought not, to have any. 
Besides, that the contest wcu.d be too unequal, 

I doubt not will plainly appear by the sequel: 

For e’en you must acknowledge it would not be meet 
That one small “ Mann of war” should engage “ a 
whole Fleet." 

Andover, July 24, 1826. 


SIGNS OF LOVE, AT OXFORD. 

By an Inn -consolable Lover. 

She’s as light as the Greyhound, and fair as the Angel; 

Her looks than the Mitre more sanctified are ; 

But she flies like the Roebuck, and leaves me to 
range ill, 

Still looking to her as my true polar Star. 

New Inn-ve ntions I try, with new art to adore, 

But my fate is, alas 1 to be voted a Boar ; 

My Goats I forsook to contemplate her charms. 

And must own she is fit for our noble King's Arms. 
Now Cross'd, and now Jockey'd, now sad, now elate. 
The Chequers appear but a map of my fate ; 

I blush’d like a Blue-cur to send her a Pheasant, 

But she call’d me a Turk, and rejected my present; 

So I moped to the Barley-mow, griev’d in my mind. 
That the Ark from the flood ever rescu’d mankind I 
my dreams Lions roar, and the Green Dragon grins 
.nd fiends rise in shape of the Seven deadly sins. 

'hen I ogle the Bells, should I see her approach, 
skip like a Nag and jump into the Coach. 

She is crimson and white, like a Shoulder of Mutton, 
Not the red of the Ox was so bright, when first nut on • 
„ike the Hollybush prickles, she scratches my liver, 
IFhile I moan, and I die like the Swan by the river ! 

* Mr. Fleet is a batchelor. 


proltfir aHitterst. 

The copiousness and the multiplicity oi 
the writings of many authors, have shown 
that too many find a pleasure in the act of 
composition, which they do not communi¬ 
cate to others. Great erudition and every¬ 
day application is the calamity of that 
voluminous author, who, without good 
sense, and what is more rare, without that 
exquisite judgment which we call good taste 
is always prepared to write on any subject, 
but at the same time on no one reasonably 
We are astonished at the fertility and the 
size of our own writers of the seventeenth 
century, when the theological war of words 
raged, spoiling so many pages and brains. 
They produced folio after folio, like alma¬ 
nacks. The truth is, that it was then easier to 
write up to a folio, than in our days to 
write down to an octavo; for correction, 
selection, and rejection, were arts as yet 
unpractised. They went on with their 
work, sharply or bluntly, like witless mowers, 
without stopping to whet their scythes. They 
were inspired by the scribbling demon ot 
that rabbin, who, in his oriental style and 
mania of volume, exclaimed, that were 
“ the heavens formed of paper, and were 
the trees of the earth pens, and if the entire 
sea run ink, these only could suffice” for 
the monstrous genius he was about to dis¬ 
charge on the world. 


WILLIAM PRYNNE. 

Prynne seldom dined : every three or 
four hours he munched a manchet, and re¬ 
freshed his exhausted spirits with ale 
brought to him by his servant; and wher 
“ he was put into this road of writing,” as 
Anthony a Wood telleth, he fixed on “ a 
long quilted cap, which came an inch over 
his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend 
them from too much lightand then, 
hunger nor thirst did he experience, save 
that of his voluminous pages. Prynne has 
written a library, amounting, perhaps, to 
nearly two hundred books. Our unlucky 
author, whose life was involved in author¬ 
ship, and his happiness, no doubt, in the 
habitual exuberance of his pen, seems to 
have considered the being debarred from 
pen, ink, and books, during his imprison¬ 
ment, as an act more barbarous than the 
loss of his ears. The extraordinary perse¬ 
verance of Prynne in this fever of the pen 
appears in the following title of one of his 
extraordinary volumes, “ Comfortable Cor¬ 
dials against discomfortable Fears of Im- 
orisonment; containing some Latin Verses 


$63 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Sentences, and Texts of Scripture, written 
by Mr. IVm. Prynne on his Chamber IValls , 
in the Tower of London, during his Im¬ 
prisonment there ; translated by him into 
English Verse, 1641.” Prynne literally 
verified Pope’s description :— 

“Is there, who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls, 
W.th desperate charcoal round his darkened walls.” 

We have also a catalogue of printed 
b'<oks, written by Wm. Prynne, Esq., of 
Lincoln’s Inn, in these classes, 

Before, 

^ and^ ^ ^ lls imprisonment, 

Since J 

with this motto, “ Jucundi acti labores,” 
1643. The secret history of this volumi¬ 
nous author concludes with a characteristic 
event: a contemporary who saw Prynne in 
the pillory at Cheapside, informs us, that 
while he stood there they “ burnt his huge 
volumes under his nose, which had aimost 
suffocated him.” 


FRENCH PAMPHLETEER. 

One Catherinot all his life was printing 
a countless number of feuilles volantes in 
history and on antiquities; each consisting 
of about three or four leaves in quarto : 
Lenglet du Fresnoy calls him “ Grand au¬ 
teur des petits livres.” This gentleman 
liked to live among antiquaries and histo¬ 
rians ; but with a crooked head-piece, stuck 
with whims, and hard with knotty combi¬ 
nations, all overloaded with prodigious 
erudition, he could not ease it at a less rate 
than by an occasional dissertation of three 
or four quarto pages. He appears to have 
published about two hundred pieces of this 
sort, much sought after by the curious for 
their rarity: Brunet complains he could 
never discover a comp.ete collection. But 
Catherinot may escape “ the pains and 
penalties ” of our voluminous writers, for 
De Bure thinks he generously printed them 
to distribute among his friends. Such end¬ 
less writers, provided they do not print 
themselves into an alms-house, may be 
allowed to print themselves out; and we 
would accept the apology which Monsieur 
Catherinot has framed for himself, which 
is preserved in Beyeri Memories Libro- 
rum Rariorum. “ I must be allowed my 
freedom in my studies, for I substitute my 
writings for a game at the tennis-court, or a 
club at the tavern ; I never counted among 
my honours these opnscula of mine, but 



merely as harmless amusements. It is my 
partridge, as with St. John the Evangelist; 
my cat, as with Pope St. Gregory; my 
little dog, as with St. Dominick ; my lamb, 
as with St. Francis; my great black mastiff, 
as with Cornelius Agrippa; and my tame 
hare, as with Justus Lipsius.” Catherinot 
could never get a printer, and was rather 
compelled to study economy in his two 
hundred quartos of four or eight pages; 
his paper was of inferior quality, and 
when he could not get his dissertations into 
his prescribed number of pages, he used to 
promise the end at another time, which did 
not always happen. But his greatest anxiety 
was to publish and spread his works ; in 
despair he adopted an odd expedient 
Whenever Monsieur Catherinot came to 
Paris, he used to haunt the quaies where 
books are sold, and while he appeared to 
be looking over them, he adroitly slided 
one of his own dissertations among these 
old books. He began this mode of pub¬ 
lication early, and continued it to his last 
days. He d:ed with a perfect conviction 
that he had secured his immortality ; and 
in this manner he disposed of more than 
one edition of his unsaleable works.* 


LOVE’S PROGRESS OF A TOBAC¬ 
CONIST. 

For the Table Book . 

1 . 

When bless’d with Fanny’s rosy smiles, 

I thought myself in heaven; 

Far.ny is blooming twenty-two, 

A nd I am— thirty-seven. 

2 . 

I thought her deck’d with every grace. 

Without one vice to jar. 

Fresh as new carrot was her face 
And sweet as Macabar. 

3 . 

Besides a person fair to view 
She had a thousand pounds ; 

Not to be sneezed at —I had two. 

And credit without bounds, 

4 . 

Our courtship oft consisted in 
Slight taps and gentle knocks; 

And when I gave her a small pinch. 

She quick return’d a box. 

5 . 

Howe’er, one morning, in a rage, 

With me herself she put, 

She call’d me blackguard , and declar’d 
I was from thence short cut. 

• D’fsr&eu. 


364 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


6 . 

In rain I tried the cause to smoke. 

When she had ta’en offence ; 

In vain recall’d the words I spoke. 

That she had deem’d bad scents. 

7 . 

But soon a mutual friend contriv’d 
Our quarrel up to botch ; 

Fanny confess’d he temper warm— 

’T was natural—she was Scotch. 

8 . 

We married—snugly in my shop 
Fanny’s become a fixture. 

And all the neighbourhood declare, 

We’re quite a pleasant mixture. 

Sam Sam’s Son. 


THE LORD CHANCELLOR. 

The title of chancellor originated with 
the Romans. It was adopted by the church, 
and became a half ecclesiastic, and half lay 
office. The chancellor was intrusted with 
all public instruments which were authen¬ 
ticated ; and when seals came into use, the 
custody of them was confided to that officer. 
The mere delivery of the king’s great seal, 
or the taking it away, is all the ceremony 
that is used in creating or unmaking a 
chancellor, the officer of the greatest weight 
I and power subsisting ’n the kingdom. The 
: first chancellor in England was appointed 
in the reign of William the Conqueror, and 
with only one exception, it was enjoyed by 
ecclesiastics until the time of Elizabeth, 
v hen such officers were called keepers of 
the great seal. From the time of sir Tho¬ 
mas More’s appointment, which took place 
in the reign of Henry VIII., there is only 
cue instance of a clergyman having been 
elevated to the office—namely, Dr. N\ il- 
nams, dean of Westminster, in the time of 
James I.—The chancellor is a privy coun¬ 
sellor by office, and speaker of the house 
of lords by prescription. To him belongs 
the appointment of all justices of the peace 
throughout the kingdom. When the chan¬ 
cellor was an ecclesiastic, he became keeper 
, of the king’s conscience, and remained so. 

' He is also visitor of all hospitals and col¬ 
leges of the king’s foundation. He is 
patron of all livings under twenty pounds 
per annum in the king’s book. He is the 
general guardian of all infants, idiots, and 
lunatics, and has the superintendence of all 
charitable institutions in the kingdom. He 
takes precedent of every temporal lord, ex¬ 
cept the royal family, and of all others, 
except the archbishop of Canterbury. It 


is declared treason by statute of Edward 
III. to slay the chancellor in his place, and 
doing his office.—In the year 1689, there 
were commissioners appointed for execut¬ 
ing the office of lord chancellor. 


Snonpmtana. 

The great Lord Chancellor. 

Sir Thomas More, when at the bar, is 
said to have undertaken only such causes 
as appeared just to his conscience, and 
never to have accepted a fee from a widow, 
orphan, or poor person; yet he acquired 
by his practice the considerable sum, in 
those days, of four hundred pounds per 
annum. When he rose to the height of 
his profession, his diligence was so great, 
that one day being in court he called for 
the next cause, on which it was answered, 
that there were no more suits in chancety. 
This made a punning bard of that time thus 
express himself:— 

When More some years had chancellor been. 

No more suits did remain ; 

The same shall never more bo seen, 

Till More be there again. 

Cu ANC ERY. 

Cancelled are lattice-work, by which the 
chancels being formerly parted from the 
body of the church, they took their names 
from thence Hence, too, the court of 
chancery and the lord chancellor borrowed 
their names, that court being enclosed with 
open work of that kind. And, so, to cancel 
a writing is to cross it out with the pen, 
which naturally makes something like the 
figure of a lattice. 

Diligence and Delight. 

It is a common observation, that unless 
a man takes a delight in a thing, he will 
never pursue it with pleasure or assiduity. 
Diligentia , diligence, is from diligo f to 
love. 

Pamphlet, Palm, Palmistry. 

Pamphlet. —This word is ancient, see 
Lilye’s Euphnes, p. 5 ; Lambarde’s Per¬ 
ambulation of Kent, p. 188; Hearne’s Cur. 
Disc. p. 130 ; Hall’s Chronicle, in Edward 
V. f. 2 ; Richard lit. f. 32 ; Skelton, p. 47; 
Caxton’s Preface to his Virgil, where it is 
written paunflethis ; Oldys’s British Libra¬ 
rian, p. 128; Nash, p. 3, 64; and also kis 
preface, wherein he has the phrase, “ to 
pamphlet on a person ” and pumpheleter f p. 
30. 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The French have not the word pamphlet, 
and yet it seems to be of French extraction, 
and no other than palm-feuillet, a leaf to 
be held in the hand, a book being a thing 
of a greater weight. So the French call it 
now fenille volante, retaining one part of 
the compound. 

Palm is the old French word for hand , 
from whence we have palmistry , the palm 
of the hand, a palm or span, and to palm a 
card, and from thence the metaphor of 
palming any thing upon a person. 

Cambridge Wit. 

A gentleman of St. John’s College, Cam- 
)ridge, having a clubbed foot, which occa¬ 
sioned him to wear a shoe upon it of a 
particular make, and with a high heel, one 
of the college wits called him Bildad the 
shuhite. 

Gradual Reform. 

When lord Muskerry sailed to New¬ 
foundland, George Rooke went with him a 
volunteer : George was greatly addicted to 
ying; and my lord, being very sensible of 
it and very familiar with George, said to 


him one day, “ I wonder you will not leave 
off this abominable custom of lying, 
George.” “ I can't help it,” said the other. 
u Puh!” says my lord, “ it may be done by 
degrees ; suppose you were to begin with 
uttering one truth a day.” 

Private and Public. 

Charles II. spending a cheerful evening 
with a few friends, one of the company, 
seeing his majesty in good humour, thought 
it a fit time to ask him a favour, and was 
so absurd as to do so: after he had men¬ 
tioned his suit, Charles instantly and very 
acutely replied, “ Sir, you must ask your 
king for that.” 

A Hundred to One. 

u There were a hundred justices,” says 
one, “ at the monthly meeting.” “ A hun¬ 
dred,” says another. “ Yes/’ says he, “do 
you count, and I will name them. There 
was justice Balance, put down one; justice 
Hall, put down a cipher, he is nobody; 
justice House, you may put down another 
cipher for him —one and two ciphers are a 
hundred .” 


THE CHILD OF MIGHT 

For the Table Book. 

War was abroad, and the fleeting gale 
Loud, o’er the wife’s and the daughter’s wail, 

Brought the summoning sound of the clarion’s blast— 
Age and affection looked their last 
On the valour and youth that went forth to the tomb— 
Young eyes were bright at the nodding plume— 
Banner and spear gleam’d in the sun— 

And the laugh was loud as the day were won : 

But the sun shall set, and — ere ’lis night,— 

Woe to thee, Child of Pride and Might. 

’Tis the hour of battle, the hosts are met. 

Pierc’d is the hauberk, cleft the bass’net: 

Like a torrent the legions thunder’d on— 

Lo ! like its foam, they are vanish’d and gone 
Thou whom this day beauty’s arms cards’. 

The hoof of the fleeing spurns thy crest— 

Thy pride yet lives on thy dark brow’s height, 

But, where is thy power , Child of Migh ^ 3 


J. J. K. 


366 







r gg; • ■ ■ _ ____ 

THE TABLE BOOK. 





&f)t ofti ©Slater Carrier# 


“ Any New-River wafer here.” 


This :s another of the criers of a hundred 
years ago, and, it seems, he cried “ New- 
River water/’ The cry is scarce, though 
scarcely extinct, in the environs of London. 

I well remember the old prejudices of old- 
fashioned people in favour of water brought 
to the door, and their sympathy with the 
complaints of the water-bearer. “ Fresh 
and fair new River-water! none of your 
pipe sludge !” vociferated the water-bearer. 
u Ah dear!” cried his customers, “ Ah dear! 
Well, what’ll the world come to !—-they 
wo’n’t let poor people live at all by and 
by—here they’re breaking up the ground, 
and we shall be all under water some day 
cr other with their goings on—I’ll stick to 
the carrier as long as he has a pail-full and 
I’ve a penny, and when we haven’t we must 
all go to the workhouse together.” This 
was the talk and the reasoning of many 
nonest people within my recollection, who 
preferred taxing themselves to the daily 
Dayment of a penny and often twopence to 


the water-carrier, in preference to having 
“ Company’s-water ” at eighteen shillings 
per annum. Persons of this order of mind 
were neither political economists nor do¬ 
mestic economists : they were, for the most 
part, simple and kind-hearted souls, whi 
illustrated the ancient saying, that “ the 
destruction of the poor is their poverty ” 
—they have perished for “ lack of know¬ 
ledge.” 

The governing principle of Napoleon 
was, that “ every thing must be done for 
the people, and nothing by themthe 
ruling practice of the British people is to 
do every thing for themselves ; and by the 
maintenance of this good old custom they 
have preserved individual freedom, and 
attained to national greatness. All our 
beneficial national works have originated 
with ourselves—our roads, our bridges, our 
canals, our water-companies, have all beer 
constructed by our own enterprise, and in 
the order of our wants. 


2 B 


367 



















7 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


#am'tfc $l<ip$. 

No. XXI. 

[Fi om Sir Richard Fanshaw’s Transla¬ 
tion of “ Querer Por Solo Querer ”—“To 
love for love’s sake”—a Romantic Drama, 
written in Spanish by Mendoza: 1649.] 

Fe'isbravo, Prince of Persia, from a 
Picture sent him of the brave Amazonian 
Queen of Tartary, Zelidanra, becoming 
cnam wired, sets out for that realm ; in his 
way thither disenchants a Queen of Araby ; 
but frst, overcome by fatigue, falls asleep 
in th*} Enchanted Grove, where Zelidaura 
herse f coming by, steals the Picture from 
him. The passion of the Romance arises 
from his remorse at being taken so negli¬ 
gent and her disdain that he should sleep, 
having the company of her Picture. She 
here days upon him, who does not yet know 
her, i i the disguise of a Rustic. 

Fel. What a spanking Labradora! 

Zel. You, the unkent Knight, God ye gud mora !• 

Fel. The time of day thou dost mistake. 

Zel. — and joy — 

Fel. — of what ? 

Zel. That I discover. 

By a? * re sign, you are awake. 

Fel Awake? the sign — 

Zel. Your being a lover. 

Fel. In love am I ? 

Zel. — and very deep. 

Fel. Deep in love ! how is that seen ? 

Zel. Perfectly. You do not sleep. 

Fel. Rustic Excellence, unscreen, 

And d cover that sweet face, 

Whiel covers so much wit and grace. 

Zel. You but dream so : sleep again. 

And C get it. 

Fel. Why, now, Saint ? 

Zel. Why, the Lady, that went in.t 
Looks is if that she did paint. 

Fel What has that to do with sleeping ? 

She is ndeed angelical. 

Zel. That picture now’s well worth your keeping. 

For w y? ’tis an original. 

Fel Is this Shepherdess a Witch ? 

Or sa . the sleeping treason, which 
I com • .itted against Love 
Erst, i the Enchanted Grove ? 

Me ha t thou ever seen before ? 

Zel Seen ? aye, and know thee for a man 
That ill turn him, and sleep more 
Thau i dozen dunces can. 

Thou en’st little what sighs mean. 

Fel Unveil, by Jove, that face serene. 

Zel. What, to make thee sleep again ? 


* S.ie affects rusticity. 

t The Enchanted Queen of Araby, of whom Zeli- 
i^ura s jealous. 


Fel. Still in riddles ? 

Zel. Now he sees: 

This pinching wakes him by degrees. 

Fel. Art thou a Nymph? 

Zel. Of Pamass Green. 

Fel. Sleep I indeed, or am I mad ? 

Zel. None serve thee but the Enchanted Queen? 

I think what dull conceits ye have had 
Of the bird Phoenix, which no eye 
E'er saw ; an odoriferous Lye : 

How of her beauty’s spells she’s told ; 

That by her spirit thou art haunted; 

And, having slept away the old, 

With this new Mistress worse enchanted. 

Fel. I affect not. Shepherdess, 

Myself in such fine terms to express ; 

Sufficeth me an humble strain ; 

Too little happy to be vain.— 

Unveil! 

Zel. Sir Gallant, not so fast. 

Fel. See thee I will. 

Zel. See me you shall: 

But touch not fruit you must not taste. 

(She takes qff her veil.) 

What says it, now the leaf doth fall ? 

Fel. It says, ’tis worthy to comprize 
The kernel of so rare a wit: 

Nor, that it grows in Paradise ; 

But Paradise doth grow in it. 

The tall and slender trunk no less divine, 

Tho’ in a lowly Shepherdesses rine. 

(He begins to know her.) 

This should be that so famous Queen 
For unquell’d valour and disdain.— 

In these Enchanted Woods is se#D 
Nothing but illusions vain. 

Zel. What stares the man at ? 

Fel. I compare 

A Picture—I once mine did call— 

With the divine Original. 

Zel. Fall’n again asleep you are: 

We poor human Shepherd Lasses 
Nor are pictured, nor use glasses. 

Who skip their rank, themselves and betters wrong ; 
To our Dames, god bless ’em, such quaint things belong, 
Here a tiny brook alone, 

Which fringed with borrow’d flowers (he hag 
Gold and silver enough on his own) 

Is heaven’s proper looking-glass, 

Copies us : and its reflections. 

Shewing natural perfections, 

Free from soothing, free from error. 

Are our pencil, are our mirror. 

Fel. Art thou a Shepherdess ? 

Zel. — and bore 
On a mountain, called There. 

Fel. Wear’st thou ever heretofore 
Lady’s clothes ? 

Zel. I Lady’s gear ?— 

Yes—what a treacherous poll have I J— 

In a Country Comedy 
1 once enacted a main part ; 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


j SliH I cavt it half by heart: 

1 The famous History it was 
Of an Arabian—let me see— 

No, of a Queen of Tartary, 

Who all her sex did far surpass 
7 11 beauty, wit, and chivalry : 

Who with invincible disdain 
Would fool, when she was in the vein. 

Princes with all their wits about ’em ; 

But, an they slept, to death she’d flout 'em. 

And, by the mass, with such a mien 
My Majesty did play the Queen ; 

Our Curate had my Picture made, 

In the same robes in wiich I play’d. 

To my taste this is tine, elegant, Queen- 
iike raillery : a second part of Love’s La¬ 
bours Lost which title this extraordinary 
Play has still better pretensions than even 
Shakspeare’s: for after leading three pair 
of Royal Lovers thro’ endless mazes of 
doubts, difficulties ; oppositions of dead 
fathers’ wills; a labyrinth of losings and 
findings; jealousies; enchantments; con¬ 
flicts with giants, and single-handed against 
armies; to the exact state in which all the 
Lovers might with the greatest propriety 
indulge their reciprocal wishes—when, the 
deuce is in it, you think, but they must all 
be married now—suddenly the three Ladies 
turn upon their Lovers ; and, as an exem¬ 
plification of the moral of the Play, “Lov¬ 
ing for loving’s sake,” and a hyper-platonic, 
truly Spanish proof of their affections— 
demand that the Lovers shall consent to 
their mistresses’ taking upon them the vow 
of a single life; to which the Gallants with 
becoming refinement can do less than con¬ 
sent.—The fact is that it was a Court Play, 
in which the Characters; males, giants, and 
all; were played by females, and those of 
the highest order of Grandeeship. No 
nobleman might be permitted amongst 
them ; and it was against the forms, that a 
great Court Lady of Spain should consent 
to such an unrefined motion, as that of 
wedlock, though but in a play. 

Appended to the Drama, the length of 
which may be judged from its having taken 
nine days in the representation, and me 
three hours in the reading of it—hours well 
wasted—is a poetical account of a fire, 
which broke out in the Theatre on one of 
the nights of its acting, when the whole 
Dramatis Personae w r ere nearly burnt, be¬ 
cause the common people out of “ base 
fear,” and the Nobles out of “ pure re¬ 
spect,” could not think of laying hands 
upon such “ great Donnas ; ’ till the young 
King, breaking the etiquette, by snatching 
up his Queen, and bearing her through the 


flames upon his back, the Grandees, (dila? 
tory iEneases), followed his example, and 
each saved one (Anehises-fashion), till the 
whole Courtly Company of Comedians 
were got off in tolerable safety.—Imagine 
three or four stout London Firemen on such 
an occasion, standing off in mere respect! 

C. L. 


THE STUART PAPERS, 

In Possession of the King. 

In tne year 181/ tne public, or, more 
correctly speaking, the English public at 
Rome, were much excited by the repott of 
a very singular discovery. The largest and 
the most interesting collection of papers 
relating to the Stuart family, probably ex¬ 
isting, was suddenly recovered. The cir¬ 
cumstances connected with the discovery 
are curious. Dr. W., whose residence on 
the continent for many years had been 
unceasingly devoted to every species of 
research which could tend to throw light 
on the antiquities of his country and the 
history of her kings, had in the Scotch col¬ 
lege at Paris, after much patient investiga¬ 
tion, arrived at the knowledge of some 
Gaelic MSS., and, what may be perhaps 
deemed of more consequence, of several 
papers relating to the dethroned family. 
The Gaelic MSS., it was imagined, v culd 
throw some light on the quarrel de l-.na 
caprina of the Ossian “ remains,” a name 
which, as it has been given to the Iliad and 
Odyssey, cannot be considered as an insult 
to the claims of the Irish or Scottish phan¬ 
tom which has been conjured up under the 
name of Ossian: but the Journals, &c., 
though they added little to his actual infor¬ 
mation, and communicated few facts not 
hitherto before the public, had at least the 
merit of placing the end of the clue in his 
hand, and hinting first the probability of a 
more productive inquiry elsewhere. It 
occurred to him that after the demise of 
James II., as the majority of the family 
habitually resided at Rome, much the 
greater number of interesting documents 
ought still to be discoverable in that city, 
and, whatever facilities might originally 
have existed, they must have been increased 
considerably, and indeed enhanced by the 
late extinction of the direct line in the per¬ 
son of the cardinal de York.* His journey 


* His Royal Highness the Cardinal de York, or as he 
was sometimes called, “ Your Majesty,” reposes in the 
subterraneous church of St. Peter, under a plain sar 


S69 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


to Rome, and the results of his persever¬ 
ance fully justified these conjectures, 
'"'here was nc thing in Dr. W.’s appear¬ 
ance or manner, nothing in the circum¬ 
stances of his long absence from his coun¬ 
try, which could offer motives of encourage¬ 
ment; no man carried less before him, as 
far as externals were in question, that letter 
of recommendation to which the most un- 
courteous are compelled to yield. He was 
in bad odour with his own government, 
and consequently with every thing legiti¬ 
mate and subservient on the continent, and 
one of the worst calculated individuals that 
Providence could have selected, if not for 
a discovery, at least for its preservation. 
Dr. W. was known to few of his coun¬ 
trymen at Rome; and as well as I re¬ 
collect, they were exclusively Scotch, but 
his acquaintance amongst the natives was 
extensive and useful. He had been en¬ 
gaged in some cotton speculations in the 
Campagna, which had altogether failed ; 
more, I believe, from want of funds and 
public spirit, than from any error in the 
project or its execution. The soil was fa¬ 
vourable, the climate favourable, and the 
specimen [ saw scarcely inferior to the 
Asiatic. But whatever may have been the 
causes, the results were salutary, and pro¬ 
ductive at least of this advantage, that it 
served to introduce him to the “ mezzo 
ceto ” circles of the capital. A mercante 
di Campagna is a personage in nowise 
inferior to a lawyer, and Dr. VV. knew 
how to preserve his importance amongst 
his competitors. The information which he 
gained here was a new source of encou¬ 
ragement. After much sagacious and per¬ 
severing inquiry, and occasional but partial 
disappointments, 1m at last chanced in a 
happy hour on the great object of all his 
labours. He was informed in rather a 
circuitous manner, that a considerable por¬ 
tion of the late cardinal de York’s effects 


cophagus, which bears tlie name of Hen. IX. No one 
will dispute the title of a few handfuls of dust, but it 
is worth observing that something very similar reap¬ 
pears on the monument in St. Peter’s itself. This is 
consistent in a Roman : legitimacy, like the priesthood, 
is indelible, and cannot be rubbed out by misfortune or 
wrong. The sketch in Forsyth is interesting and deli¬ 
cate, though rather Jacobite and Scotch. I met many 
ersons who retained recollections of him at Rome, 
ut none of these recollections are worth noticing. He 
seems to have rendered himself more remarkable by 
petty peculiarities, than any great quality of heart or 
head. He was supposed to be the quickest driver for 
a cardinal of the whole college, and sometimes came in 
from Frascati, (his bishopric and habitual residence,) 
a distance of about fourteen miles, in an hour and a 
quarter. This was thought in the first instance mar¬ 
vellous, and in the next indecorous. The only honours 
\e retained were his titles great and little, and the 
irivilege of mounting the Vatican in a sedan-chair. 


lay still in the hands of the executors, but 
could not at first ascertain whether thev 
comprehended any large masses of his pa¬ 
pers. Enough, however, had been detected 
to lead him much farther: he seized the 
hint, profited by it, and in a few weeks 
satisfactorily assured himself that the papers 
were, as he suspected, included, and were 
at that very moment at Rome. He lost no 
time in addressing himself to the proper 

quarter, but monsignor- was out of 

town, (the acting executor of the cardinal,) , 
and it was very doubtful whether his agent, 
the abbate Lupi, was sufficiently authorized 
or empowered to dispose of them in his 
absence; the abbate Lupi, less scrupulous, 
or more ignorant than persons in situations 
of such high trust, smiled at the communi¬ 
cation, and conducted the doctor without 
delay to the premises where these cartacci, 
or paper-rubbish, as he termed them, were 
still lying in confusion. It was a dark and 
dreary garret or gallery, at the top of the 
house. The abbate pushed back a crazy 
door, and showed them heaped up, in large 
lots, in various parts of the chamber. The 
garret was crumbling, the wind and rain 
entered ad libitum through the broken tiles 
the rats prowled and plundered at full dis¬ 
cretion, like the followers of Omar, and 
had now lived for many years at free quar¬ 
ters on the spoils; but neither decay, nor 
the seasons and their ravages, nor the rats 
and their incursions, nor the appearance of 
daily loss, were sufficient to rouse the 
habitual indolence of the administrators to 
the least effort for the preservation of the 
remainder. There was a sufficient quantity, 
however, left to surpass the most ardent 
anticipations of the doctor: he gazed in 
silence and astonishment; it was a moment 
of true and unalloyed delight—an instant 
which, in the estimate of the enthusiast 
will outbalance the sufferings of months 
and years, like the “ Land ! land !” oi 
Columbus, or the eureka of Pythagoras. 
He hesitated, he doubted—he took up the 
paper that was nearest to him ; his warmest 
wishes were realized ; it was an autograph 
of James II. A glance over the rest was 
sufficient; it was with difficulty he could 
suppress the feeling of exultation which 
sh.vered and fled over his whole frame 
After an affected question or two, the ab. 
bate accepted his proposal, and very neat 
five hundred thousand documents, of un¬ 
questionable authenticity and of the first 
historic importance and authority, were 
knocked down to him for not more than 
three hundred Roman crowns. Dr. W 
still meditated, paused, appeared relucfcan; 


370 
















THE TABLE BOOK* 


inquired for the letter of attorney, examined 
it, and finding all in order, and powers as 
he imagined sufficiently full, the arrange¬ 
ment in a few moments was completed. 
Two carts were brought to the door, the 
papers were thrown into them confusedly, 
and so little did the abbate value their 
utility, that on two or three packets falling 
into the street, they undoubtedly would 
have lain there with other rubbish, had not 
the doctor immediately hastened to take 
them up uiwi carried them himself to his 
lodgings. 

The pri*e was now won, and a collection 
perhaps unrivalled in Europe, an El Dorado 
of imaginary wealth and glory, was safely 
lodged in the precincts of his own apart¬ 
ment. Joy is talkative, and for once the 
doctor altogether forgot his caution, and in 
the dangerous moment of a first triumph, 
rushed to his countrymen, and proclaimed 
his veni, vidi , vici to their envy and asto¬ 
nishment. They were invited to inspect 
them. Rome, the capital of a considerable 
state, is still a provincial town, and events 
of this kind hardly require newspapers. 
In a few days the news of all the poets 
and barbers was the singular good fortune 
of the doctor. What it was no one knew, 
except the duchess of D-. Her draw¬ 

ing-room was not only the rendezvous of 
every stranger, and particularly of every 
Englishman at Rome, but, what ought to 
have been considered as of infinitely more 
moment and indeed danger, was a sort of 
antechamber to the Vatican. Her acquaint¬ 
ance with the cardinal secretary intimately 
connected her with the Papal government; 
and, during her life and his administration, 
the English might almost be said to be, in 
the language of the modern city, the assist¬ 
ants of the pontifical throne. The duchess 
requested a cabinet peep. The doctor ex¬ 
postulated ;—he ought to have done so, 
but on the contrary he was gratified by the 
compliment, and a little conversazione 
packet was made up with expedition for 
her next evening party. The doctor had 
6me to judge of his acquisition, and EA8.de 
"a judicious selection, but so unfortunately 
inviting, that his noble patroness could 
with difficulty confine to her own breast 
the sentiments she felt of surprise and 
admiration. Besides, it would be selfish 
to conceal the gratification from her friends; 
the papers were of course in a few days to 
start for England. Who could tell when 
they were likely to be out? Then there 
was an enjoyment, not likely to be resisted 
by a duchess aod a protectress, of all that 
w as literary at Rome, in tumbling over an 


original MS.—and such a MS.—and reau 
ing and judging the important work, before 
it was even dreamt of by the rest of th 
world. She had been favoured, and could 
not be blamed for extending, like the doc¬ 
tor, the favour to others. She had two o. 
three very dear friends, and she could not 
reflect without pain on what they might 
say, and with so much justice, should they 
discover, some days afterwards, that she 
had been in possession of such a treasure, 
though for a few hours, without kindly 
participating her pleasures with her ac¬ 
quaintances. 

These leasons, cogerrt at any time, were 
altogether invincible under the circum¬ 
stances of the case. The duchess had many 
friends, but the most intimate of these 
many was the cardinal secretary. The 
practised eye of that statesmair could not 
be so easily seduced, lie was one of the 
chief invited of the evening, and as usual 
appeared amongst the earliest of the guests. 
The papers were on the table on his entry; 
they became the chief, the first, and soon 
the only topic of conversation. They were 
examined; the cardinal read, folded them 
up, and was silent; but ere daylight the 
next morning a guard of the pope’s 
carabiniers attacked Dr. W.’s apartment, 
which was not the castle of an English¬ 
man, and very important papers were irre¬ 
coverably lost to him, and perhaps to the 
public for ever. 

The next morning, all the valets de place 
in Rome knew, and took care to inform 
their masters, that during the night the 
abbate Lupi had been arrested, and lay 
actually in prison for a gross violation ol 
his trust; but it was not understood till 
much later in the day, that the moment the 
cardinal had left the apartments of the 
duchess, orders had been also given to 
have the papers immediately put under the 
seal and wardship of the state. The doctor 
was consequently awakened, as we have 
seen, rather earlier than usual, in the most 
unceremonious manner imaginable, and 
requested, in rather a peremptory manner, 
to point out the treasury room. Tortures 
were not used, but threats were. The 
sanctuary was easily discovered; the in¬ 
violable seal was fixed on the door; ar.d a 
guard put over the house, during the re¬ 
mainder of the day. 

The arrest of the abbate was followed up 
by a measure of more rigour, and of far 
greater importance. The contract itself 
was annulled on the ground of incompe¬ 
tence in the seller—the three hundred 
crowns were ordered to be paid back, and 


371 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Dr. W. permitted to appeal, and satisfy 
himself with civil answers as well as he 
could, and with what every jurisconsult of 
the Curia Innocenziana had decided, or 
would decide if called upon by the secre¬ 
tary, to be the ancient and existing law of 
Rome. 

The doctor made, through himself and 
others, the ordinary applications, each of 
which were received and answered in the 
ordinary manner. This was encouraging; 
and he vented his indignation amongst his 
acquaintances ; and, when the access and 
struggle was over, lay like Gulliver, fatigued 
on his back. 

In the mean time, a vessel arrived from 
England at Civita Vecchia, and a boat’s 
crew a little after from Fiumicino at Rome. 
The papers were released and embarked. 
The doctor expostulated, and the cardinal 
secretary received him with his usual urba¬ 
nity. His visit was quite as satisfactory as 
any of the preceding, and as conclusive as 
such visits generally are at Rome. The 
cardinal heard every thing with the most 
dignified composure, and simply replied, 
that any application to him personally was 
now unavailing, and that he could not do 
better than apply to the king of England, 
in whose hands the papers in question 
would probably be found in the course of 
another month. 

The doctor bowed and took the advice,— 
but, in leaving the room, it occurred to him 
that he might not meet a more favourable 
reception at Downing-street than at the 
Vatican. A friend at that time resident at 
Rome proposed to act as his representative 
to the minister, and acquitted himself in the 
sequel with a fidelity as rare amongst am¬ 
bassadors as attorneys. 

I never heard any thing decisive of the 
result of this interview ;—but I have no 
doubt the cardinal was in the right. No 
inquiries at all disquieting were made, or 
questions asked, of the keeper of the king’s 
conscience, on the adjudication of the court 
of Rome. The king of England, in right 
of his Stuart blood, keeps, and will leave 
to his descendants, probably, the care of 
publishing all the Stuart MSS. 

But in the momentous interval between 
the discovery of the papers, and their voyage 
to England, more eyes than those of an 
English duchess and a cardinal secretary 
of state contrived to glance over the trea¬ 
sure, For a day or two they were exposed 
i to the inspection of the privileged few, at 
! the head of whom was the late professor 

Playfair, lord S-, lord of session, &c.: 

to one of these favoured individuals I am 


indebted for most of the particulars which 
follow. 

On entering the chamber where they 
were arranged, which was a small room, on 
the first floor, of a small apartment in a 
secondary quarter of Rome, he found the 
walls to a great height literally covered 
with piles of paper of every size and 
quality. They were packed so close, had 
been so long unopened, and had so much 
suffered from the humidity, that each 
packet was found to contain, on examina¬ 
tion, a very much larger quantity than had 
at first been expected. They were ar¬ 
ranged in the most perfect order, and 
classed according to the age, country, or 
writer. Several were autographs, and 
copies, where they existed, were in the best 
preservation, and generally under the eye, 
and by the order of the first authority. The 
series commenced about the period of the 
king’s arrival in France, and were continued 
down, with scarcely any interruption or 
hiatus, to the demise of the last direct heir, 
the cardinal de York. Thev embraced not 
only every document connected with poli¬ 
tical matters, but entered into the most 
minute details on the domestic and personal 
affairs of the illustrious individuals, to 
whom they related, and threw a very sin¬ 
gular light on transactions which have beer 
long concealed, or viewed under very par¬ 
tial bearings, by the British public. Not 
only the private and confidential corres¬ 
pondence between the different members 
of the royal family, but references to the 
most trivial circumstances connected with 
the interior of the royal household, and 
various other matters of similar interest, 
were everywhere observable. The reve¬ 
nues, the expenditure, were regularly noted; 
a large volume or ledger, almost completely 
filled with items of this kind, gave no bad 
scale of the gradation or diminution of 
expense, calculated on country, time, and 
situation, and therefore a very fair estimate 
of their means under the successive fortunes 
to which they had been exposed. But by 
far the most interesting documents of the 
collection referred to the important political 
transactions of that memorable epoch. 
James II. occupies a considerable, and, 
indeed, a principal portion of this interest. 
His letters to his son, written and corrected 
in his own hand, give a very flattering 
portrait, and perhaps a very authentic one, 
of his character in almost all his domestic 
relations, without much claim, but also 
without much pretension, to style—the sin 
of that age, and not less of the succeeding 
they are not without a certain tinge of tl* 


372 




























» atT-l_ . . -- . . - i - < 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


elegance of manner, which, though by no 
means his apanage, had more or less been 
contracted in those dissolute circles which 
had inspired Hamilton. But there were 
other qualities with which they abounded, 
of much higher value and importance, 
greater depth of feeling than what usually 
exists in courts, paternal affection in all the 
bitterness of an unrequited fondness, and 
a settled and unavailing despair (he died, 
indeed, of a lethargy) of the future destinies 
of his house, grounded on the frail support 
he could anticipate from the depraved 
, habits of his son. The reproaches ad¬ 
dressed to him are frequent, and fraught 
with the overflowing waters of fatherly dis¬ 
appointment ; the brouillon, or rough draft 
of the letter, which was sometimes pre¬ 
set ved, was often blotted, and the wavering 
and agitation of his mind betrayed itself 
very visibly in his very hand. The general 
view which they give is favourable, and 
presents a kindlier aspect of his character 
than what we are habituated to meet with 
in the generality of the Whig writers.* 


THE PLANETS. 

Tiieir Comparative Sizes and Positions. 

To assist the mind in framing a con¬ 
ception of the magnitude and relative dis¬ 
tances of the primary planets, let us have 
recourse to the following method. The 
dome of St. Paul’s is 145 feet in diameter. 
Suppose a globe of this size to represent 
the Sun ; then a globe of 9 7 ’ ff inches will 
represent Mercury; one of 17 T 9 5 inches, 
Venus; one of 18 inches, the Earth; one 
of 5 inches diameter, the Moon, (whose 
distance from the earth is 240,000 miles ;) 
one of 10 inches, Mars; one of 15 feet, 
Jupiter; and one of ll£ feet, Saturn, with 
his ring four feet broad, and at the same 
distance from his body all round. 

In this proportion, suppose the Sun to 
be at St. Paul’s, then 

^ Mercury might be at the Tower of 
London, 

? Venus at St. James’s Palace, 

0 The Earth at Marylebone, 
d Mars at Kensington, 

Jupiter at Hampton Court, 

Saturn at Clifden ; 

all moving round the cupola of St. Paul s 
as O their common centre. 


New Monthly Magaaine. 


ACCOUNT OF THE BEE-EATI R 
Of Selborne , Hampshire. 

By the Rev. Gilbert White, 15 89. 

We had in this village, more than 1 wenty 
years ago, an idiot boy, whom I w< ll re¬ 
member, who, from a child, showed a trcng 
propensity to bees: they were his food, his 
amusement, his sole object; and at peo- 
pie of this cast have seldom more than one 
point in view, so this lad exerted all l.is few 
faculties on this one pursuit. In the.winter he 
dosed away his time,within his father’s house, 
by the tire-side, in a kind of torpid state, 
seldom departing from the chimney-corner; 
but in the summer he was all alert, and in 
quest of his game in the fields and on sunny 
banks. Honey-bees, humble-bees, and 
wasps, were his prey, wherever he found 
them : he had no apprehensions from their 
stings, but would seize them nndis multibus, 
and at once disarm them of their weapons, 
and suck their bodies for the sake of their 
honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his 
bosom between his shirt and his skin with 
a number of these captives ; and sometimes 
would confine them in bottles. lie was a 
very merops apiaster, or bee-bird, and very 
injurious to men that kept bees; for he 
would slide into their bee-gardens, and, 
sitting down before the stools, woulc "ap 
with his finger on the hives, and so take 
the bees as they came out. He has heen 
known to overturn hives for the sake ot 
honey, of which he was passionately fond. 
Where metheglin was making, he would 
linger round the tubs and vessels, begging j 
a draught of what he called bee-udne. As j 
he ran about, he used to make a humming 
noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing 
of bees. This lad was lean and sallow, 
and of a cadaverous complexion; and, 
except in his favourite pursuit, in which ho 
was wonderfully adroit, discovered no 
manner of understanding. Had his capa¬ 
city been better, and directed to the same 
object, he had perhaps abated much of our 
wonder at the feats of a more modern ex- 
hibiter of bees; and w 7 e may justly say of 
him now, 

“ Thou, 

Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 

Should’st Wxldman be.” 

When a tall youth, he was removed from 
hence to a distant village, where he d'cd, 
as I understand, before he arrived at rnan 
hood- 


373 



















$oorV35or in Catoston Cjfmrrb, J^crtolU. 


Before the Reformation, says Anthony 
a Wood, “ in every church was a poor 
man’s box, but I never remembered the 
use of it; nay, there was one at great inns, 
as 1 remember it was, before the wars.” 

Poor-boxes are often mentioned in the 
welfth century. At that period pope 
Innocent III. extended papal power to an 
inordinate height; absolved subjects from 
allegiance to their sovereigns; raised cru¬ 
sades throughout Europe tar the recovery 
of the holy sepulchre; laid France under an 
interdict; promised paradise to all who 
would slaughter the Albigenses; excommu¬ 
nicated John, king of England; and ordered 
hollow trunks to be placed in all the 
; churches, to receive alms for the remission 
of the sins of the donors.* 

A communication to the Antiquarian So¬ 
ciety, accompanied by drawings of the poor- 
boxes on this and the opposite page, briefly 
describes them f The common poor-box 
in the churches appears to have been a 
shaft of oak, hollowed out at the top, covered 


• Fosbroke’s Encyclopaedia of Antiquities. 

+ This communication from J. A. Repton, Esq., is 

S rinted, with engravings from his drawings, in the 
Archicologia,” 1821. 


by a hinged lid of iron, with a slit in it, 
for the money to fall through into the cavity, 
and secured by one or two iron locks. 

Perhaps the most curiously constructed 
of the ancient poor-boxes now remaining, 
is that in the church of Cawston, near 
Aylsham. The church was built between 
138.5 and 1414. The poor-box was pro¬ 
vided with three keys, two of which were 
for the chuichwardens, and the third was 
most probably for the clergyman, as one o! 
the key-holes is more ornamented than the 
others. The most singular part of this box 
is an inverted iron cup, for preventing the 
money from being taken out by means of 
any instrument through the holes on the 
top of the box. 

The engravings above represent—1. this 
poor-box, as it stands on an octangulai 
stone basement; 2. a perfect view of the 
lid ; 3. another of the interior, with the 
manner wherein the cup is suspended foi 
the security of the money; 4. a section of 
the box. 

In places where the presumed richness 
of the boxes rendered them liable to be 
plundered, they were strongly bound or 
clamped with iron plates, as shown in thf 
present engravings 


THE table v book: 


374 




























































































































































$oor’&$o]F tit 2-obiion Cfntrcf), fbnfoUu 


The church of Loddon, in the south¬ 
eastern angle of the county of Norfolk, 
about five miles from Bungay, was built 
about 1495, and contains a depository of 
this description, with two separate boxes, 
each of them secured by two padlocks : 
over one of these is a hole in the lid for the 
offerings. When a sufficient sum was col¬ 
lected, it was taken out and placed in the 
adjoining box in the presence of the two 
churchwardens. 

Ben Jonson, in his “ Masque of the 
Metamorphosed Gipsies, as it was thrice 
presented before king James, 1621, &c.” 
makes a gipsy tell Tom Ticklefoot, a rustic 
musician,— 

“ On Sundays you rob the poor’s-box with your tabor 
The collectors would do it, you save them a labour. 

Whereunto a countryman answers, 

« Faith, but a little : they’ll do it non-upstant."* 

• Non-upstant, notwithstanding. 


From this we gather that it was custo¬ 
mary at that time to put money in the 
parish poor’s-box on Sundays, and that the 
trustees of the poor were sometimes sus¬ 
pected of misapplying it. 

The neglect of this mode of public con¬ 
tribution is noted in Hogarth’s marriage 
scene of the “ Rake’s Progress,” by a cob¬ 
web covering the poor’s-box in the church. 
There is an intimation to the same effect in 
one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays, 
which further intimates that ^oor’s-boxes 
had posies— 

The poor man’s box is there too : if ye find any thing 
Besides the posy, and that half rubb’d out too. 

For fear it should awaken too much charity. 

Give it to pious uses : that is, spend it. 

Spanish Curate, 1647 

The posies or mottoes on poor’s-boxes 
were short sentences to incite benevolence 
— such as, “ lie that giveth to the poor 
lendeth to the Lord,” &c. 


THE TABLE BOOK. 




375 















































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


-r 


PoetiT? 

ANGEL HELP* 

This rare Tablet doth include 
Poverty with Sanctitude. 

Past midnight this poor Maid hath spun. 

And yet the work not half is done. 

Which must supply from earnings scant 
A feeble bed-rid parent’s want. 

Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask. 

And Holy hands take up the task; 

Unseen the rock and spindle ply, 

And do her earthly drudgery. 

Sleep, saintly Poor One, sleep, sleep on, 

And, waking, find thy labours done. 

Perchance she knows it by her dreams ; 

Her eye hath caught the golden gleams 
(Angelic Presence testifying,) 

That round her everywhere are flying ; 
Ostents from which she may presume 
That much of Heaven is in the room. 
Skirting her own bright hair they run. 

And to the Sunny add more Sun: 

Now on that aged face they fix, 

Streaming from the Crucifix , 

The flesh-clogg’d spirit disabusing, 
Death-disarming sleeps infirsing. 

Prelibations, foretastes high, 

And equal thoughts to live or die. 

Gardener bright from Eden’s bower. 

Tend with care that Lily Flower ; 

To its leaves and root infuse 
Heaven’s sunshine, Heaven’s dews; 

’Tis a type and ’tis a pledge 
Of a Crowning Privilege : 

Careful as that Lily Flower, 

This Maid must keep ner precious dower; 
Live a Sainted Maid, or die 
Martyr to Virginity. 

Virtuous Poor Ones, sleep, sleep on. 

And, waking, find your labours done. 

C. Lamb. 

New Monthly Magazine, 

June 1, 1827. 


* Suggested by a picture in the possession of Charles 
Aders, Esq. Euston-square, in which is represented the 
Legend of a poor female Saint, who, having spun past 
midnight to maintain a bed-rid mother, has fallen 
asleep from fatigue, and Angels are finishing her work. 
In another part of the chamber, an Angel is tending a 
lily, the emblem of her purity. 


COWPER. 

The poet of “ The Sofa,” when “ :u 
merry pin,” trifled pleasantly. As an in¬ 
stance of his manner, there remains the 
following 

Letter to the Rev. J. Newton. 

July 12, 1781. 

My very dear Friend,—I am going to 
send, what, when you have read, you may 
scratch your head, and say, I suppose 
there’s nobody knows, whether what 1 
have got, be verse or not; by the tune or 
the time, it ought to be rhyme ; but if it 
be, did you ever see, of late or of yore, such 
a ditty before ? 

I have writ Charity, not for popularity, 
but as well as I could, in hopes to do 
good ; and if the reviewers should say “ to 
be sure, the gentleman’s muse wears Me¬ 
thodist shoes; you may know by her pace, 
and talk about grace, that she and her bard, 
have little regard, for the taste and fashions, 
and ruling passions, and hoidening play, 
of the modern day : and though she assume 
a borrowed plume, and now and then wear 
a tittering air, ’tis only her plan, to catch if 
she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that 
way, by a production, on a new construc¬ 
tion ; she has baited her trap, in hopes to 
snap, all that may come, with a sugar 
plum.”—This opinion in this will not be 
amiss: ’tis what I intend, my principal 
end ; and if I succeed, and folks should 
read, till a few are brought, to a serious 
thought, I should think I am paid for all 1 
have said, and all I have done, though l 
have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as 
far from hence, to the end of my sense, and 
by hook or crook, write another book, if 1 
live and am here, another year. 

I have heard before, of a room with a 
floor, laid upon springs, and such like 
things, with so much art, in every part, 
that when you went in, you was forced to 
begin a minuet pace, with an air and a 
grace, swimming about, now in and now 
out, with a deal of state, in a figure of 
eight, without pipe or string, or any such 
thing. And now I have writ, in a rhyming 
fit, what will make you dance, and as you 
advance, will keep you still, though against 
your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till 
you come to an end of what I have pennedj 
which that you may do, ere madam and 
you are quite worn out, with jigging about, 
I take my leav% and here you receive a 


376 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


how profound, down to the ground, from 
your humble me— 

W. C. 


When prevented by rains and floods from 
visiting the lady who suggested “ The 
Task,” Cowper beguiled the time by writ¬ 
ing to her the following lines, and after¬ 
wards printing them with his own hand 
lie sent a copy of these verses, so printed, 
to his sister, accompanied by the subjoined 
note written upon his typographical labours. 

To watch the storms, and hear the sky 
Give all the almanacks the lie; 

To shake with cold, and see the plains 
In autumn drown’d with wintry rains : 

’ Tis thus I spend my moments here, 

And wish myself a Dutch mynheer ; 

I then should have no need of wit. 

For lumpish Hollander unfit; 

Nor should I then repine at mud. 

Or meadows delug’d with a flood ; 

But in a bog live well content. 

And find it just ir.y element; 

Should be a clod, and not a man, 

Nor wish in vain for sister Anne, 

With charitable aid to drag 
My mind out of its proper quag; 

Should have the genius of a boor, 

And no ambition to have more. 

My dear Sister,—You see my beginning; 
I do not know but in time I may proceed 
to the printing of halfpenny ballads. Ex¬ 
cuse the coarseness of my paper; I wasted 
so much before I could accomplish any 
thing legible, that I could not afford finer. 
I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic 
of this town to make me a longer case, for 
you may observe that my lines turn up 
their tails like Dutch mastiff's; so difficult 
do I find it to make the two halves exactly 
coincide with each other. 

We wait with impatience for the de¬ 
parture of this unseasonable flood. We 
think of you, and talk of you; but we can 
do no more till the waters subside. I do 
not think our correspondence should drop 
because we are within a mile of each other; 
it is but an imaginary approximation, the 
flood having in reality as effectually parted 
us, as if the British Channel rolled be¬ 
tween us. 

Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. U.’s 
best love, 

William Cowpfr. 

Monday, Aug. 12, 1782. 


HIGHLAND DEER AND SHEEP. 

“ The last Def.r of Beann Doran.” 

A note to a poem, with this title, by 
John Hay Allan, Esq., relates, that in for¬ 
mer times the barony of Glen Urcha was | 
celebrated for the number and the superior 
race of its deer. When the chieftains re¬ 
linquished their ancient character and their 
ancient sports, and sheep were introduced 
into the country, the want of protection, 
and the antipathy of the deer to the intrud¬ 
ing animals, gradually expelled the form ir 
from the face of the country, and obliged 
them to retire to the most remote recesses 
of the mountains. Contracted in their 
haunts from corrai to corrai, the deer of 
Glen Urcha at length wholly confined 
themselves to Beann Doran, a mountain 
near the solitary wilds of Glen Lyon, and 
the vast and desolate mosses which stretch 
from the Black Mount to Loch Ranach. In 
this retreat they continued for several years; 
their dwelling was in a lonely corrai at the 
back of the lull, and they were never seen 
in the surrounding country, except in the 
deepest severity of winter, when, forced by 
hunger and the snow, a straggler ventuied 
down into the straiths. But the hostility 
which had banished them from their ancient 
range, did not respect their last retreat. 
The sheep continually encroached upon 
their bounds, and contracted their resources 
of subsistence. Deprived of the protection 
of the laird, those which ventured from 
their haunt were cut off' without mercy or 
fair chase; while want of range, and he 
inroads of poachers, continually diminished 
their numbers, till at length the race became 
extinct. 

About the time of the disappearance of 
the deer from these wilds, an immense stag ' 
was one evening seen standing upon the 1 
side of Beann Donachan. He remained 
for some time quietly gazing towards the 
lake, and at length slowly descended the 
hill, and was crossing the road at Stronn- 
milchon, when he was discovered by some 
herdsmen of the hamlet. They immediately 
pursued him with their cooleys; and the 
alarm being given, the whole straith, men, 
women, and children, gathered out to the 
pursuit. The noble animal held them a 
severe chase till, as he passed through the j 
copse on the north side of Blairachuran, j 
his antlers were entangled in the boughs, 
he was overtaken by the pursuers, and 
barbarously slaughtered by the united on- j 
set, and assault of dogs, hay-foiks, and j 
“ Sgian an Dubh.” When divided, he j 


377 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


proved but a poor reward for the fatigue; 
for he was so old, that his flesh was scarcely 
datable. From that time the deer were 
teen no more in Beann Doran; and none 
now appear in Glen Urcha, except when, in 
a hard winter, a solitary stag wanders out 
of the forest of Dalness, and passes down 
Glen Strae or Corrai Fhuar. 

The same cause w r hich had extirpated 
the deer from Glen Urcha has equally acted 
in most part of the Highlands. Wherever 
the sheep appear, their numbers begin to 
decrease, and at length they become totally 
extinct. The reasons of this apparently 
singular consequence is, the closeness with 
which the sheep feed, and which, where 
they abound, so consumes the pasturage, as 
not to leave sufficient for the deer: still 
more is it owing to the unconquerable 
antipathy which these animals have for the 
former. This dislike is so great, that they 
cannot endure the smell of their wool, and 
never mix with them in the most remote 
situations, or where there is the most ample 
j pasturage for both. They have no abhor¬ 
rence of this kind to cattle, but, where large 
j nerds of these are kept, will feed and lie 
among the stirks and steers with the great¬ 
est familiarity. 


HIGHLAND MEALS. 

Among the peculiarities of highland 
manners is an avowed contempt for the 
luxuries of the table. A highland hunter 
will eat with a keen appetite and sufficient 
discrimination : but, were he to stop in any 
pursuit, because it was meal time, to growl 
over a bad dinner, or visibly exult over a 
good one, the manly dignity of his character 
would be considered as fallen for ever.* 


TREAD MILLS. 

At Lewes, each prisoner walks at, the 
rate of 6,600 feet in ascent per day; at 
Ipswich, 7,450 ; at St. Alban’s, 8,000 ; at 
■ Bury, 8,650; at Cambridge, 10,176; at 
Durham, 12,000; at Brixton, Guildford, 
and Reading, the summer rate exceeds 
13,000; while at Warwick, the summer 
rate is about 17,000 feet in ten hours, f 


• Mrs. Grant, 
t The Times 


Extraordinary 

ORAN-OUTANG, 

The Wild Man of the Woods. 

The largest and most remarkable oran- 
outang ever seen by Europeans, was dis¬ 
covered by an officer of the ship Mary 
Anne Sophia, in the year 1824, at a place 
called Ramboon, near Touromon, on the 
west coast of Sumatra. 

When the officer alluded to first saw the 
animal, he assembled his people, and fol¬ 
lowed him to a tree in a cultivated spot, on 
which he took refuge. His walk was erect 
and waddling, but not quick, and he was 
obliged occasionally to accelerate his motion 
with his hands ; but with a bough which 
he carried, he impelled himself forward 
with great rapidity. When he reached the 
trees his strength was shown in a high 
degree, for with one spring he gained a 
very lofty branch, and bounded from it 
with the ease of the smaller animals of his 
kind. Had the circumjacent land been 
covered with wood, he would certainly 
have escaped from his pursuers, for his 
mode of travelling by bough or tree was as 
lapid as the progress of a very fleet horse : 
but at Ramboon there are but few trees 
left in the midst of cultivated fields, and 
amongst these alone he jumped about to 
avoid being taken. He was first shot on a 
tree, and after having received five balls, 
his exertion was relaxed, owing, no doubt’ 
to loss of blood ; and the ammunition hav¬ 
ing been by that time expended, his pur¬ 
suers were obliged to have recourse to 
other measures for his destruction. One 
of the first balls probably penetrated his 
lungs, for immediately after the infliction 
of the wound, he slung himself by his feet 
from a branch with his head downwards, 
and allowed the blood to flow from his 
mouth. On receiving a wound, he always 
put his hand over the injured part, and the 
human-like agony of his expression had the 
natural effect of exciting painful feelings in 
his assailants. The peasantry seemed as 
amazed at the sight of him as the crew 
of the ship ; for they had never seen one 
before, although living within two days’ 
journey from the vast and impenetrable 
forests on the island. They cut down the 
tree on which he was reclining exhausted : 
but the moment he found it falling, he 
exerted his remaining strength, and gained 
another, and then a third, until he was 
finally brought to the ground, and forced to 
combat his unrelenting foes, who now 
gathered very thickly round, and discharged 


378 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


spears and other missiles against him. 
The first spear, made of a very strong sup¬ 
ple wood, which wo-uld have resisted the 
strength of the strongest man, was broken 
by him like a carrot; and had he not been 
in almost a dying state, it was feared that 
he would have severed the heads of some of 
!the party with equal ease. He fell, at 
length, under innumerable stabs inflicted 
by the peasantry. 

The animal is supposed to have travelled 
some distance from the place where he was 
killed, as his legs were covered with mud 
up to the knees. Ilis hands and feet had 
!great analogy to human hands and feet, 
only that the thumbs were smaller in pro¬ 
portion, and situated nearer the wrist-joint. 
His body was well proportioned ; he had a 
fine broad expanded chest and a narrow 
waist; but his legs were rather short, and his 
arms very long, though both possessed such 
sinew and muscle as left no doubt of their 
strength. Ilis head was well proportioned 
with his body, and the nose prominent; 
the eyes were large, and the mouth larger 
than the mouth in man. His chin was 
fringed, from the extremity of one ear to 
the other, with a shaggy beard, curling 
luxuriantly on each side, and forming alto¬ 
gether an ornamental, rather than a fright¬ 
ful appendage to his visage. When he 
was first killed, the hair of his coat was 
smooth and glossy, and his teeth and 
whole appearance indicated that he was 
young, and in the full possession of his 
; physical powers He was nearly eight 
feet high. 

The skin and fragments of this surprising 
Oran-outang were presented to the Asiatic 
Society at Calcutta; and on the 5th 
of January, 1825, Dr. Abel examined 
'them, and read the observations he had 
I made. The height already mentioned is 
according to the estimate of those who 
saw the animal alive, but the measure¬ 
ment of the skin went far to determine this 
question. The skin, dried and shrivelled 
as it was, in a straight line from the top of 
the shoulder to the point whence the ancle 
had been removed, measured five feet ten 
inches; the perpendicular length of the 
neck in the preparation, was three inches 
and a half; the length of the face, from the 
forehead to the chin, nine inches; and of 
the skin attached to the foot, from the. line 
of its separation from the body to the heel, 
eight inches. The measurements were 
made by Dr. Abel himself. Thus we have 
one foot eight inches and a half to be added 
to the five feet ten inches, in order to 
approximate his real stature, which would 


make seven feet six inches and a half; and 
allowing the six inches and a half for the 
shortening that would result from the 
folding of the skin over the shoulders, the 
height would then be full seven feet. This 
is the greatest ascertained height of any 
tail-less monkey mentioned in the several 
notices which Dr. Abel collected from 
different writers on man-like apes. 

The skin itself was of a dark leaden 
colour; the hair a brownish red, shaggy, 
and long over the shoulders and flanks. 

Dr. Abel remarked, that of the small 
animals more particularly known in Europe, ; 
under the designation of oran-outang, one 
was an inhabitant of Africa, and the other 
of the east. Several living specimens of 
both have been seen in Europe, but all 
were of small stature, and very young, 
never exceeding three feet in height, or as 
many years of age. These animals were 
long considered as varieties of the same 
species, although in point of fact they are 
very distinctly separated by external cha¬ 
racter and anatomical distinctions. The 
African animal being always black with 
large ears, the eastern specimens as inva¬ 
riably having reddish brown hair, and very 
small ears ; the former also are unprovided 
with the sacs communicating with the 
windpipe, which are always found in the 
latter.* 

Different naturalists have deemed the 
oran-outang to be the connecting link be¬ 
tween the brute and the human being. 


A LITTLE LEARNING 

-“ not a dangerous thing.” 

Mr. Thomas Campbell having been cho¬ 
sen lord rector of the university of Glasgow 
made his inaugural speech on the 12th of 
April, 1827, wherein are the following 
estimable remarks on desultory attain¬ 
ments :— 

“ In comparing small learned acquisi¬ 
tions with none at all, it appears to me to 
be equally absurd to consider a little learn¬ 
ing valueless, or even dangerous, as some 
will have it, as to talk of a little virtue, a 
little wealth, or health, or cheerfulness, or a 
little of any other blessing under heaven, 
being worthless or dangerous. 

u To abjure any degree of information, 
because we cannot grasp the whole circle 
of the sciences, or sound the depths of 
erudition, appears to be just about as sensi¬ 
ble as if we were to shut up our windows 


* Calcutta Government Gazette, Jan. 13, 1825. 


379 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


because they are too narrow, or because the 
glass has not the magnifying power of a 
telescope. 

“ For the smallest quantity of knowledge 
that a man can acquire, he is bound to be 
contentedly thankful, provided his fate 
shuts him out from the power of acquiring 
a larger portion—but whilst the possibility 
of farther advancement remains, be as 
proudly discontented as ye will with a little 
learning. For the value of knowledge is 
like that of a diamond, it increases accor¬ 
ding to its magnitude, even in much more 
than a geometrical ratio.—One science and 
literary pursuit throws light upon another, 
and there is a connection, as Cicero re¬ 
marks, among them all— 

“ ‘ Omnes Artes, quae ad humanitatem 
pertinent, habent quoddam commune vin¬ 
culum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter 
se continentur.* 

“ No doubt a man ought to devote him¬ 
self, in the main, to one department of 
knowledge, but still he will be all the better 
for making himself acquainted with studies 
which are kindred to and with that pursuit. 
—The principle of the extreme division of 
labour, so useful in a pin manufactory, if 
introduced into learning, may produce, in¬ 
deed, some minute and particular improve¬ 
ments, but, on the whole, it tends to cramp 
human intellect. 

“ That the mind may, and especially in 
early youth, be easily distracted by too 
many pursuits, must be readily admitted. 
But I now beg leave to consider myself 
addressing those among you, who are con¬ 
scious of great ambition, and of many 
faculties; and what I say, may regard 
rather the studies of your future than of 
your present years. 

“ To embrace different pursuits, diame¬ 
trically opposite, in the wide circle of human 
knowledge, must be pronounced to be al¬ 
most universally impossible for a single 
mind.—But I cannot believe that any strong 
mind weakens its strength, in any one 
branch of learning, by diverging into cog¬ 
nate studies; on the contrary, I believe 
that it will return home to the main object, 
jringing back illustrative treasures from all 
rts excursions into collateral pursuits.” 


FIGURES, AND NUMBERS. 

Respecting the origin of the numeral 
figures 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, there are 
various opinions, but the one most generally 
received is, that they were brought into 


Europe from Spain; that the Spaniards re¬ 
ceived them from the Moors, the Moors 
from the Arabians, and the Arabians from 
the Indians. 

Bishop Huet, however, thinks it impro¬ 
bable that the Arabians received figures 
from the Indians, but, on the contrary, that 
the Indians obtained them from the Ara¬ 
bians, and the Arabians from the Grecians; 
from whom, in fact, they acquired a know¬ 
ledge of every science they possessed. The 
shape of the figures they received under¬ 
went a great alteration ; yet if we examine 
them, divested of prejudice, we shall find 
very manifest traces of the Grecian figures, 
which were nothing more than letters of 
their alphabet. 

A small comma, or dot, was their mark 
for units. 

The letter (i (b) if its two extremities are 
erased, produces the figure 2. 

If we form the letter y (g) with more in¬ 
clination to the left than usual, shorten the 
foot, and give some rotundity to the left 
horns near the left side, we shall make the 
figure 3. 

The letter a (D) is the figure 4, as we 
should find on giving the left leg a perpen¬ 
dicular form, and lengthening it below the 
base, which also should be enlarged towards 
the left. 

From the t (e short) is formed the 5, by 
only bringing towards the right side the 
demicircle which is beneath inclining to the 
left. 

From the figure 5 they made the 6, by 
leaving out the foot, and rounding the 
body. 

Of the z (Z) they make the 7, by leaving 
out the base. 

If we turn the four corners of the h (e 
long) towards the inside, we shall make the 
figure 8. 

The S (th) was the figure 9 without any 
alteration. 

The nought was only a point which they 
added to their figures, to make them ten 
times more; it was necessary that this point 
should be made very distinctly, to which 
end they formed it like a circle, and filled 
it up; this method we have neglected. 

Theophanus, the Eastern chronologist, 
says in express terms, that the Arabians 
had retained the Grecian numbers, not 
having sufficient characters in their own 
language to mark them. 

Menage says, they were first employed 
in Europe in 1240, in the Alphonsian Ta¬ 
bles, made under the direction of Alphonso. 
son to king Ferdinand of Castile, by Isaac 
Uazan, a Jew of Toledo, and Abel Ragel. 


380 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


an Arabian. Dr. Wallis conceives they 
were generally used in England about the 
year 1130. 

In the indexes of some old French books 
these figures are called Arabic ciphers, to 
distinguish them from Roman numerals. 

NUMBER X, 10. 

It is observed by Huet as a remarkable 
circumstance, that for calculation and nu¬ 
merical increase the number 10 is always 
used, and that decimal progression is pre¬ 
ferred to every other. The cause of this 
preference arises from the number of our 
fingers, upon which men accustom them¬ 
selves to reckon from their infancy. First, 
they count the units on their fingers, and 
when the units exceed that number, they 
have recourse to another ten. If the num¬ 
ber of tens increase, they still reckon on 
their fingers; and if they surpass that num¬ 
ber, they then commence a different species 
of calculation by the same agents; as thus 
—reckoning each finger for tens, then for 
hundreds, thousands, &c. 

From this mode of reckoning by the 
fingers then, we have been led to prefer the 
number ten, though it is not so convenient 
and useful a number as twelve. Ten can 
only be divided by two and five, but twelve 
can be divided by two, three, four, and six. 

The Roman numbers are adduced in 
proof of the origin of reckoning by the 
number ten, viz.— 

The units are marked by the letter I, 
which represent a finger. 

The number five is marked by the letter 
V, which represents the first and last finger 
of a hand. 

Ten, by an X, which is two V’s joined 
it their points, and which two V’s represent 
the two hands. 

Five tens are marked by an L; that is 
half the letter E, which is the same as C, 
the mark for a hundred. 

Five hundred is marked by a D, half of 
the letter <r> , which is the same as M, the 
mark for a thousand. 

According to this, the calculation of the 
Roman numbers was from five to five, that 
is, from one hand to the other. Ovid makes 
mention of this mode, as also of the num¬ 
ber ten :— 

•* Hie numeris magao tunc in honore fuit. 

Seu quia totdigiti per quos numerare solemnus, 

Seu quia bis quino fetmna mense parit. 

Seu quod ad usque decern numero crescente venitur: 
Priiicipium spatiis sumitur inde novis.” 


Vitruvius also makes the same remam; 
he says, “ Ex manibus denarius digitorum 
numerus.” 

We have refined, however, upon the con¬ 
venience which nature has furnished us 
with to assist us in our calculations; for 
we not only use our fingers, but likewise 
various figures, which we place in different 
situations, and combine in certain ways, to 
express our ideas. 


Many unlettered nations, as the inhabit¬ 
ants of Guinea, Madagascar, ar.d of the 
interior parts of America, know not how 
to count farther than ten. The Brasilians 
and several others, cannot reckon beyond 
five; they multiply that number to express 
a greater, and in their calculations they use 
their fingers and toes. The natives of Peru 
use decimal progression; they count from 
one to ten; by tens to a hundred ; and by- 
hundreds to a thousand. Plutarch says, 
that decimal progression was not only used 
among the Grecians, but also by every un¬ 
civilized nation. 


#mmana. 

FOX, THE QUAKER. 

This individual, many years deceased, 
was a most remarkable man in his circle; 
a great natural genius, which employed 
itself upon trivial or not generally interest¬ 
ing matters. He deserved to have been 
known better than he was. The last yeras 
of his life he resided at Bristol. He was a 
great Persian scholar, and published some 
translations of the poets of that nation, 
which were well worthy perusal. He was 
self-taught, and had patience and persever¬ 
ance for any thing. He was somewhat 
eccentric, but had the quickest reasoning 
power, and consequently the greatest cool¬ 
ness, of any man of his day, who was able 
to reason His house took fire in the 
night; it was situated near the sea; it was 
uninsured, and the flames spread so rapidly 
nothing could be saved. He saw the con¬ 
sequences instantly, made up his mind to 
them as rapidly, and ascending a hill a. 
some distance in the rear of his dwelling, 
watched the picture and the reflection of | 
the flames on the sea, admiring its beauties, 
as if it were a holiday bonfire. 


381 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


DIVING-BELLS. 

The first diving-bell we read of was 
nothing but a very large kettle, suspended 
by ropes, with the mouth downwards, and 
planks to sit on fixed in the middle of its 
concavity. Two Greeks at Toledo, in 1588, 
made an experiment with it before the 
emperor Charles V. They descended in it, 
with a lighted candle, to a considerable 
depth. In 1683, William Phipps, the son 
of a blacksmith, formed a project for un¬ 
loading a rich Spanish ship sunk on the 
coast of Hispaniola. Charles II. gave him 
a ship with every thing necessary for his 
undertaking; but being unsuccessful, he 
returned in great poverty. He then en¬ 
deavoured to procure another vessel, but 
failing, he got a subscription, to which the 
duke of Albemarle contributed. In 1687, 
Phipps set sail in a ship of two hundred 
tons, having previously engaged to divide 
the profits according to the twenty shares 
of which the subscription consisted. At 
first all his labours proved fruitless; but at 
last, when he seemed almost to despair, he 
was fortunate enough to bring up so much 
treasure, that he returned to England with 
the value of 200,0007 sterling. Of this 
sum he got about 20,000/., and the duke 
90,000/. Phipps was knighted by the king, 
and laid the foundation of the fortunes of 
the present noble house of Mulgrave. 
Since that time diving-bells have been often 
employed. On occasion of the breaking 
in of the water of the Thames during the 
progress of the tunnel under the Thames, 
Mr. Brunei frequently descended in one to 
the bed of the river. 


GAMING. 

--“ The ruling passion strong in death.” 

In “ Arliquiniana” avarice, and love of 
gaming, are exemplified by the following 
anecdote:— 

A French woman, who resided on her 
estate in the country, falling ill, sent to the 
village curate, and offered to play with him. 
The curate being used to gaming, gladly 
entertained the proposal, and they played 
together till he lost all his money. She 
then offered to play with him for the ex¬ 
penses of her funeral, in case she should 
die. They played, and the curate losing 
these also, she obliged him to give her his 
note of hand for so much money lent, as 
her funeral expenses would amount to. 
‘he delivered the note to her son. and died 


within eight or ten days afterwards, and 
the curate was paid his fees in his own 
note of hand. 


THE TANNER. 

An Epigram. 

A Bermondsey tanner would often engage, 

In a long tete-a-tete with his dame. 

While trotting to town in the Kennington stage. 
About giving their villa a name. 

A neighbour, thus hearing the skin-dresser talk. 
Stole out, half an hour after dark, 

Pick’d up in the roadway a fragment of chalk, 
And wrote on the palings—“ Hide Park ! ”• 


FRIENDSHIP ON THE NAIL. 

When Marigny contracted a friendship 
with Menage, he told him he was “ upon 
his nail.” It was a method he had of 
speaking of all his friends; he also used it 
in his letters; one which he wrote to Me¬ 
nage begins thus : “ Oh ! illustrious of my 
nail .” 

When Marigny said, “ you are upon my 
nail” he meant two things—one, that the 
person was always present, nothing being 
more easy than to look at his nail; the 
other was, that good and real friends were 
so scarce, that even he who had the most, 
might write their names on his nail. 


Bo tire 

TO THE CHANCE CUSTOMERS 

OF THE 

COMPANY OF FLYING STATIONERS. 

Formerly there was a numerous class 
who believed every thing they saw in print. 
It is just possible that a few of these per¬ 
suadable persons may survive; I therefore 
venture to remark, that my name printed 
on the squibs now crying about the streets 
is a forgery. 

W. HONE. 

June 8, 1827. 


•New Monthly Magazine. 


382 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


The parish of Beckenham lends its 
name to the hundred, which is in the 
i latn ot Suiton-at-Hone. It is ten miles 
! from London, two miles north from Brom¬ 
ley, and, according to the last census, con¬ 
tains 1 houses and 1180 inhabitants. 
The living is a rectory valued in the king’s 
dooks at 61. 18^. 9 d. The church is dedi¬ 
cated to at. George. 

-Beyond u Chaffinch’s Tliver ” there 


is an enticing field-path to Beckenham, but 
occasional sights of noble trees kept us 
along the high road, till the ring of the 
blacksmith’s hammer signalled that we were 
close upon the village. We wound through 
it at a slow pace, vainly longing for some¬ 
thing to realize the expectations raised b\ i 
the prospect of it on our way. 

Beckenham consists of two or three old \ 
faim-like looking houses, rudely encroached ! 


35edunl)am Cfrurcl), Bent 


2 c 


383 






























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


upon by a number of irregularly built 
dwellings, and a couple of inns ; one of 
them of so much apparent consequence, as 
to dignify the place. We soon came to an 
edifice which, by its publicity, startles the 
feelings of the passenger in this, as in 
almost every other parish, and has perhaps 
greater tendency to harden than reform the 
rustic offender—the “ cage,” with its acces¬ 
sory, the “pound.” An angular turn in 
the road, from these lodgings for men and 
cattle when they go astray, afforded us a 
sadden and delightful view of 

“ The decent church that tops the neighboring hill.'* 

On the right, an old, broad, high wall, 
flanked with thick buttresses, and belted 
with magnificent trees, climbs the steep, to 
enclose the domain of I know not whom ; 
on the opposite side, the branches, from a 
plantation, arch beyond the footpath. At 
the summit of the ascent is the village 
church with its whitened spire, crowning 
and pinnacl’ing this pleasant grove, point¬ 
ing from amidst the graves—like man’s last 
only hope—towards heaven. 

This village spire is degradingly noticed 
in “ An accurate Description of Bromley 
and Five Miles round, by Thomas Wilson, 
1797.” He says, “ An extraordinary cir¬ 
cumstance happened here near Christmas, 
1791 ; the steeple of this church was de¬ 
stroyed by lightning, but a new one was 
put up in 1796, made of copper, in the 
form of an extinguisher.” The old spire, 
built of shingles, was fired on the morning 
of the 23d of December, in the year seven¬ 
teen hundred and ninety, in a dreadful 
storm. One of the effects of it in London I 
perfectly remember :—the copper roofing 
of the new “ Stone Buildings” in Lincoln’s 
Inn was stripped off by the wind, and vio¬ 
lently carried over the opposite range of 
high buildings, the Six Clerks’ offices, into 
Chancery Lane, where I saw the immense 
sheet of metal lying in the carriage way, 
exactly as it fell, rolled up, with as much 
neatness as if it had been executed by 
machinery. As regards the present spire 
| of Beckenham church, its “ form,’\in rela¬ 
tion to its place, is the most appropriate 
that could have been devised—a picturesque 
object, that marks the situation of the vil- 
; lage in the forest landscape many miles 
round, and indescribably graces the nearer 
view. 

We soon came up to the corpse-gate of 
■ the chuich-yard, and I left W. sketching it,* 

| whilst I retraced my steps into the village in 


• Mr. W.’s engraving of his sketch is on p. 715. 

I 


search of the church-keys at the parish-clerk's, 
from whence I was directed back again, to 
“ the woman who has the care of the church,” 
and lives in the furthest of three neat 
almshouses, built at the church-yard side, 
by the private benefaction of Anthony 
Rawlings, in 1694. She gladly accom- ; 
panied us, with the keys clinking, through 
the mournful yew-tree grove, and threw 
open the great south doors of the church 
It is an old edifice—despoiled of its ancient 
font—deprived, by former beautifyings, of 
carvings and tombs that in these times 
would have been remarkable. It has rem¬ 
nants of brasses over the burial places of 
deceased rectors and gentry, from whence 
dates have been wantonly erased, and 
monuments of more modern personages, 
which a few years may eaually deprave. 

There are numerous memorials of the 
late possessors of Langley, a predominant 
estate in Beckenham. One in particular 
to sir Humphry Style, records that he was of 
great fame, in his day and generation, in 
Beckenham : he was “ Owner of Langley in 
this parish, Knight and Baronet of England 
and Ireland, a gentleman of the privy 
chamber in ordinary to James I, one of 
the cupbearers in ordinary to King Charles, 
and by them boath intrusted with the 
weighty affairs of this countye: Hee was 
justice of peace and quorum, Deputy liefte- 
nant, and alsoe (an hono’r not formerly 
conferred upon any) made Coronell of all 
the trayned band horse thereof.” 

The possession of Langley may be traced, 
through the monuments, to its last herit¬ 
able occupant, commemorated by an in¬ 
scription ; “ Sacred to the Memory of 

Peter Burrell, Baron Gwydir, of Gwydir, 
Deputy Great Chamberlain of England, 
Born July 16, 1754; Died at Brighton, 
June 29th, 1820, aged 66 years.” After 
the death of this nobleman Langley was 
sold. The poor of Beckenham speak his 
praise, and lament that his charities died 
with him. The alienation of the estate de¬ 
prived them of a benevolent protector, and 
no one has arisen to succeed him in the 
character of a kind-hearted benefactor | 

A tablet in this church, to “ Harriet, wife , 
of (the present) J. G. Lambton, Esq. of | 
Lambton Hall, Durham,” relates that she 
died “ in her twenty-fifth year.” 

Within the church, fixed against tne 
northern corner of the west end, is a plate ! 
of copper, bearing an inscription to this 
import:—Mary Wragg, of St. John’s, West¬ 
minster, bequeathed 1 51. per annum for 
ever to the curate of Beckenham, in trus* 
for the following uses; viz. a guinea to 


3b4 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


himself for his trouble in taking care that 
her family vault should be kept in good 
1 repair ; a guinea to be expended in a dinner 
for himself, and the clerk, and parish offi¬ 
cers ; 12/. 10$. to defray the expenses of 
such repaid; if in any year the vault 
should not require repair, the money to be 
laid out in eighteen pennyworth of good 
beef, eighteen pennyworth of good bread, 
five shillings worth of coals, and 4$. 6 d. in 
money, to be given to each of twenty of 
the poorest inhabitants of the parish ; if 
repairs should be required, the money left 
to be laid out in like manner and quantity, 
with 4$. 6d. to as many as it will extend 
to; and the remaining 8.v. to be given to 
the clerk. In consequence of Mary Wragg’s 
bequest, her vault in the church-yard is 
properly maintained, and distribution made 
of beef, bread, and money, every 28th of 
January. On this occasion there is usually 
a large attendance of spectators ; as many 
as please go down into the vault, and the 
parochial authorities of Beckenham have a 
holiday, and “ keep wassel.’’ 

There is carefully kept in this church a 
small wooden hand-box, of remarkable 
shape, made in king William’s time, for the 
receipt of contributions from the congrega¬ 
tion when there are collections. As an 
ecclesiastical utensil with which I was un¬ 
acquainted, W. took a drawing, and has 
made an engraving of it. 



This collecting-box is still used. It is 
carried into the pews, and handed to the 
occupants, whc drop any thing or nothing, 
as they please, into the upper part. When 
money is received, it passes through an 


open slit left between the back and the top 
enclosure of the lower half; which part, thus 
shut up, forms a box, that conceals from 
both eye and hand the money deposited. 
The contrivance might be advantageously 
adopted in making collections at the doors 
of churches generally. It is a complete 1 
security against the possibility of money 
being withdrawn instead of given ; which, 
from the practice of holding open plates, 
and the ingenuity of sharpers, has some¬ 
times happened. 

In the middle of tw r o family pews of this 
church, which are as commodious as sitting 
parlours, there are two ancient reading 
desks like large music stands, with flaps 
and locks for holding and securing the ser¬ 
vice books when they are not in use. These 
pieces of furniture are either obsolete in 
churches, or peculiar to that of Beckenham; 
at least I never saw desks of the like in 
any other church. 

Not discovering any thing further to re¬ 
mark within the edifice, except its peal of 
five bells, we strolled among the tombs in 
the church-yard, which offers no inscrip¬ 
tions worth notice. From its solemn yew- 
tree grove we passed through the “Lich¬ 
gate,” already described. On our return 
to the road by which we had approached 
the church, and at a convenient spot, W 
sketched the view he so freely represents in 
the engraving. The melodists of the groves 
were in full song. As the note of the 
parish-clerk rises in the psalm above the 
common voice of the congregation, so the 
loud, confident note of the blackbird exceeds 
the united sound of the woodland choir : 
one of these birds, on a near tree, whistled 
with all his might, as if conscious of our 
listening, and desirous of particular dis¬ 
tinction. 

Wishing to reach home by a different 
route than that we had come, we desired 
to be acquainted with the way we should 
go, and went again to the almshouses which 
are occupied by three poor widows, of 
whom our attendant to the church was one 
She was alone in her humble habitation 
making tea, with the tokens of her office¬ 
bearing, the church keys, on the table 
before her. In addition to the required 
information, we elicited that she was the 
widow of Benjamin Wood, the late parish- 
clerk. His brother, a respectable trades¬ 
man in London, had raised an excellent 
business, “ Wood's eating-house,” at the 
corner of Seething-lane, Tower-street, and 
at his decease was enabled to provide com¬ 
fortably for his family. W 7 ood, the parish- 
clerk, had served Beckenham in that c»pb- 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 



Cfte oIU Jfont of SSerfemliam Cftutrft. 


A font often denotes the antiquity, and 
frequently determines the former import¬ 
ance of the church, and is so essential a 
part of the edifice, that it is incomplete 
without one. According to the rubrick, a 
church may be without a pulpit, but not 
without a font; hence, almost the first 
thing I look for in an old church is its old 
stone font. Instead thereof, at Beckenham, 
is a thick wooden baluster, with an un¬ 
seemly circular flat lid, covering a sort ot 
wash-hand-basin, and this the “ gentlemen 


of the parish ” call a “ font !” The odd¬ 
looking thing was “ a present ” from a 
parishioner, in lieu of the ancient stone 
font which, when the church was repaired 
after the lightning-storm, was carried away 
by Mr. churchwarden Bassett, and placed 
in his yard. It was afterwards sold to 
Mr. Henry Holland, the former landlord of 
the “ Old Crooked Billet,” on Penge Com¬ 
mon, who used it for several years as a 
cistern, and the present landlord has it now 
in his garden, where it appears as repre- 


city many years till his death, which left 
his widow indigent, and threw her on the 
cold charity of a careless world. She 
seems to have outlived the recollection of 
her husband’s relatives. After his death 
she struggled her way into this alms¬ 
house, and gained an allowance of two 
shillings a week; and on this, with the 
trifle allowed for her services in keeping 
clean the church, at past threescore years 
and ten, she somehow or other contrives to 
exist 


We led dame Wood to talk ot her “ do 
mestic management,” and finding she 
brewed her own beer with the common 
utensils and fire-place of her little room, 
we asked her to describe her method : a 
tin kettle is her boiler, she mashes in 
common butter-firkin, runs off the liquo 
in a “ crock,” and tuns it in a small-beer 
barrel. She is of opinion that “ poor peo¬ 
ple might do a great deal for themselves if 1 
they knew how : but," says she, “ where 
there’s a will, there’s a way" * 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


rented in the engraving. Mr. liaraing 
expresses an intention of making a table of 
it, and placing it at the front of his house: 
in the interim it is depicted here, as a hint, 
to induce some regard in Beckenham 
people, and save the venerable font from 
an exposure, which, however intended as a 
private respect to it by the host of the 
“ Crooked Billet,” would be a public 
shame to Beckenham parish. 

For the Table Book. 

GONE or GOING. 

1 . 

Fine merry franions, 

Wanton companions, 

My days are ev’n banyans 

With thinking upon ye ; 

How Death, that last stringer, 

Finis-writer, end-bringer. 

Has laid his chill finger. 

Or is laying, on ye. 

2 . 

There’s rich Kitty Wheatley, 

With footing it featly 
That took me completely. 

She sleeps in the Kirk-hoosa; 

And poor Polly Peckm, 

Whose Dad was still ferking 
The jolly ale firkin— 

She’s gone to the Work-feoua*: 

3. 

Fine gard’ner, Ben Carter 
(In ten counties no smarter) 

Has ta’en his departure 

For Proserpine’s orchards; 

And lily, postillion. 

With cheeks of vermilion. 

Is one of a million 

That fill up the church-yards. 

4. 

And, lusty as Dido, 

Fat Clemitson’s widow 
Flits now a small shadow 

By Stygian hid ford ; 

And good Master Clapton 
Has thirty years nap’t on 
The ground he last hap’t on ; 

Intomb’d by fair Widford ; 

5. 

And gallant Tom Docwra, 

Of Nature’s finest crockery. 

Now but thin air and mockery. 

Lurks by Avernus; 

Whose honest grasp of hand. 

Still, while his life did stand. 

At friend’s or foe’s command. 

Almost did burn us. 


6. 

(Roger de Coverly 
Not more good man than he). 

Yet is he equally 

Push’d for Cocytus, 

With cuckoldy Worral, 

And wicked old Dorrel, 

Gainst whom I’ve a quarrel— 

His death might affright ut* 

7. 

Had he mended in right time, 

He need not in night time, 

(That black hour, and fright-time,) 

Till sexton interr’d him. 

Have groan’d in his coffin, 

While demons stood scoffing— 

You’d ha’ thought him a coughing— 

My own father* heard him 1 

8 . 

Could gain so importune. 

With occasion opportune. 

That for a poor Fortune, 

That should have been our*,t 
In soul he should venture 
To pierce the dim center. 

Where will-forgers enter. 

Amid the dark Powers ?— 

9. 

Kindly hearts I have known ; 

Kindly hearts, they are flown ; 

Here and there if but one 

Linger, yet uneffaced,— 

Imbecile, tottering elves. 

Soon to be wreck’d on shelves. 

These scarce are half themselves. 

With age and care crazed. 

10 . 

But this day, Fanny Hutton 
Her last dress has put on ; 

Her fine lessons forgotten. 

She died, as the dunce died ; 

And prim Betsey Chambers, 

Decay’d in her members. 

No longer remembers 

Things, as she once did i 

11 . 

And prudent Miss Wither 
Not in jest now doth wither , 

And soon must go — whither 

Nor I, well, nor you know; 

And flaunting Miss Waller — 

That soon must befal her. 

Which makes folks seem taller, |— 

Though proud, once, as Juno I 

Elia, 


• Who sat up with him. 

+ I have this fact from Parental tradition only. 
$ Death lengthens people to the ey«. 


387 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


^cotti'Sl) 3trgenl)£f. 

HIGHLAND SCENERY. 

The scenery and legend of Mr. James 
Hay Allan’s poem, “ The Bridal of Cadl- 
chairn,” are derived from the vicinity of 
Cruachan, (or Cruachan-Beinn,) a moun¬ 
tain 3390 feet above the level of the sea, 
situated at the head of Loch Awe, a lake in 
Argyleshire. The poem commences with 
the following lines: the prose illustrations 
are from Mr. Allan’s descriptive notes. 

Grey Spirit of the Lake, who sit’st at eve 
At mighty Crukchan’s gigantic feet; 

And lov’st to watch thy gentle waters heave 
The silvery ripple down their glassy sheet; 

How oft I’ve wandered by thy margin sweet, 

And stood beside the wide and silent bay, 

I Where the broad Urcha’s stream thy breast doth meet, 

I And Cablchairn’s forsaken Donjon grey 
Looks from its narrow rock upon thy watery way. 

L 

Maid of the waters ! in the days of yore 
What sight yon setting sun has seen to smile 
Along thy spreading bound, on tide, and shore, 

* When in its pride the fortress reared its pile, 

And stood the abbey on “ the lovely isle 
And Frabch Elan’s refuge tower grey 
Looked down the mighty gulf’s profound defile. 

Alas I that Scottish eye should see the day. 

When bower, and bield, and hall, in shattered ruin lay. 

What deeds have past upon thy mountain shore; 

What sights have been reflected in thy tide; 

But dark and dim their tales have sunk from lore ; 
Scarce is it now remembered on thy side 
Where fought Mao Colda, or Mac Phadian died. 

But lend me, for a while, thy silver shell, 

’Tis long since breath has waked its echo wide ; 

Then list, while once again I raise its swell, 

And of thy olden day a fearful legend tell— 

INISHAIL. 

I 

“-the convent on the lovely isle." 

Inishail, the name of one of the islands 
in Loch Awe, signifies in Gaelic “ the 
ovely isle.” It is not at present so worthy 
of this appellation as the neighbouring 
u Fraoch Elan,” isle of heather, not having 
a tree or shrub upon its whole extent. At 
the period when it received its name, it 
might, however, have been better clothed ; 
and still it has a fair and pleasant aspect: 
its extent is larger than that of any other 
island in the lake, and it is covered with a 
green turf, which, in spring, sends forth an 
abundant growth of brackens. 

; There foimerly existed here a convent of 
Cistercian nuns; of whom it is said, that 
they were memorable for the sanctity of 


Inir lives and the purity of their manners 
at the Reformation, when the innocent 
weie involved with the guilty in the suffer¬ 
ings of the times, their house was supprest, 
and the temporalities granted to Hay, the 
abbot of Inchaffrey, who, abjuring his for¬ 
mer tenets of religion, embraced the cause 
of the reformers.”* Public worship was 
performed in the chapel of the convent till 
the year 1736: but a more commodious 
building having been erected on the south 
side of the lake, it has since been entirely 
forsaken ; nothing now remains of its ruin 
but a small part of the shell, of which only 
a few feet are standing above the founda¬ 
tion. Of the remaining buildings of the 
order there exists no trace, except in some 
loose heaps of stones, and an almost ob' 
literated mound, which marks the founda¬ 
tion of the outer wall. But the veneration 
that renders sacred to a Highlander the 
tombs of his ancestors, has yet preserved 
to the burying-ground its ancient sanctity. 
It is still used as a place of interment, and 
the dead are often brought from a distanct 
to rest there among their kindred. 

In older times the isle was the principal 
burying-place of many of the most con¬ 
siderable neighbouring families : among 
the tombstones are many shaped in the 
ancient form, like the lid of a coffin, and 
ornamented with carvings of fret-work, 
running figures, flowers, and the forms of 
warriors and two-handed swords. They 
are universally destitute of the trace of an 
inscription. 

Among the chief families buried in In¬ 
ishail were the Mac Nauchtans of Fraoch 
Elan, and the Campbells of Inbherau. Mr. 
Allan could not discover the spot appro¬ 
priated to the former, nor any evidence of 
the gravestones which must have covered 
their tombs. The place of the Campbells, 
however, is yet pointed out. It lies on the 
south side of the chapel, and its site is 
marked by a large flat stone, ornamented 
with the arms of the family in high relief. 
The shield is supported by two warriors, 
and surmounted by a diadem, the significa¬ 
tion and exact form of which it is difficult 
to decide ; but the style of the carving and 
the costume of the figures do not appear to 
be iater than the middle of the fifteenth 
century. 

On the top of the distant hill over which 
the road from Inverara descends toCladieh 
there formerly stood a stone cross, erected 
on the spot where Inishail first became 
visible to the traveller. These crosses were 


* Statistical Account, vol. yin. p. 347. 


388 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


general at such stations in monastic times, 
and upon arriving at their foot the pilgrims 
knelt and performed their reverence to the 
saint, whose order they were approaching. 
From this ceremony, the spot on the lull 
bove-mentioned was and is yet called 
the cross of bending.’' 

FRAOCH ELAN. 

“ The refuge tower grey 

Looked down the mighty gulf’s profound defile.” 

I The little castellated isle of tf Fr&och 
Elan” lies at a short distance from Inishail, 
and was the refuge hold of the Mac Nauch- 
tans. It was given to the chief, Gilbert 
Mac Nauchtan, by Alexander III. in the 
year 1276, and was held by the tenure of 
entertaining the king whenever he should 
pass Loch Awe. The original charter of 
the grant was lately in possession of Mr. 
Campbell of Auchlian, and a copy is to be 
found in “ Sir James Balfour’s Collection 
of Scottish Charters.” The islet of “ Fr&och 
Elan” is in summer the most beautiful in 
Scotland. On one side the rock rises al¬ 
most perpendicular from the water. The 
lower part and the shore is embowered in 
tangled shrubs and old writhing trees. 
Above, the broken wall and only remaining 
gable of the castle looks out over the 
boughs; and on the north side a large ash¬ 
free grows from the foundation of what was 
once the hall, and overshadows the ruin 
with its branches. Some of the window- 
niches are yet entire in the keep, and one 
of these peeping through the tops of the 
trees, shows a view of fairie beautv over 
the waters of the lake, and the woody 
banks of the opposite coast. In the sum¬ 
mer, Fraoch Elan, like most of the islands 
in Loch Awe, is the haunt of a variety of 
gulls and wild fowl. They come from the 
sea-coast, a distance of twenty-four miles, 
to build and hatch their young. At this 
season, sheldrakes, grey gulls, kitaweaks, 
white ducks, teal, widgeon, and divers, 
abound in the Loch. Fraoch Elan is chiefly 
visited by the gulls, which hold the isle in 
joint tenure with a water-eagle who builds 
annually upon the top of the remaining 
chimney. 

It is not very long since this beautiful 
isle has been delivered over to these inha¬ 
bitants ; for a great aunt of a neighbouring 
gentleman was born in the castle, and in 
i “the forty-five,” preparations were privately 
’ made there for entertaining the prince had 
ne passed by Loch Awe. 
j From the name of Fr&och Elan some 

- : ■ - - --= 


have erroneously, and without any authority 
of tradition, assigned it as the dragon’s 
isle,* in the ancient Gaelic legend of 
“ Fraoch and the daughter of Mey.” There 
is, in truth, no farther relation between one 
and the other, than in a resemblance of 
name between the island and the warrior 
The island of the tale was called “ Elan na 
Bheast,” the Monster’s Isle, and the lake in 
which it lay was named Loch Luina. This 
is still remembered to have been the ancient 
appellation of Loch Avich, a small lake 
about two miles north of Loch Awe. There 
is here a small islet yet called “ Elan na 
Bheast,” and the tradition of the neigh¬ 
bourhood universally affirms, that it was 
the island of the legend. 

RIVAL CHIEFS. 

“ Where fought Mac Colda, and Mac Phadian died.” 

“ Alaister Mac Coll Cedach.” Alexan¬ 
der, the son of left-handed Coll, was a Mac 
Donald, who made a considerable figure in 
the great civil war: he brought two thou¬ 
sand men to the assistance of Montrose, 
and received from him a commission of 
lieutenancy in the royal service. He is 
mentioned by contemporary writers, under 
the corrupted name of Kolkitto; but time 
has now drawn such a veil over his history, 
that it is difficult to ascertain with any de¬ 
gree of certainty from what family of the 
Mac Donalds he came. By some it is 
asserted, that he was an islesman ; but by 
the most minute and seemingly authentic 
tradition, he is positively declared to have 
been an Irishman, and the son of the earl 
of Antrim. 

Of his father there is nothing preserved 
but his name, his fate, and his animosity to 
the Campbells, with whom, during his life, 
he maintained with deadly assiduity the 
feud of his clan. It was his piper who was 
hanged at Dunavaig in Ceantir, and in his 
last hour saved the life of his chieftain by 
composing and playing the inexpressibly 
pathetic pibroch, “ Colda mo Roon.” But 
though he escaped at this juncture, Colda 
was afterwards taken by the Campbells, 
and hung in chains at Dunstaffnage. His 
death was the chief ground of that insatiate 
vengeance with which his son ever after 
pursued the followers of Aigyle. Long 
after the death of his father, Alaister 
chanced to pass by Dunstaffnage in return 
from a descent which he had made in the 
Campbell’s country. As he sailed near the 


* Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 346; 
and Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, 1774, p. 217. 
















TlIX TABLE BOOK. 


Castle, he saw the bones of his father still 
hanging at the place where he had suffered, 
and swinging in the sea-breeze. He was 
so affected at the sight of the lamentable 
remains, that he solemnly vowed to revenge 
ihem by a fearful retribution, and hastening 
his return to Ireland gathered what force 
he was able, and sailing back to Scotland 
offered his services to Montrose. He was 
gladly accepted; and during the various 
adventures of the marquis in the Hielands, 
Alaister Mac Colda was one of the most 
valuable of his adherents; and his follow¬ 
ers were accounted among the bravest and 
best experienced in the royal army. Some 
of their exploits are recorded in the “ Le- 
obhair Dearg,” or “ Red Book of Clanra- 
nald,” and fully justify the fame which they 
received. 

Alaister was present at the battle of 
Inbherlochie, and after the action he was 
sent with his followers to the country of 
Argyle. He entered the Campbell lands 
by Glen Eitive, and wherever he came put 
all who bore the name of that clan to fire 
and sword. As he marched down Glen 
Eitive, he crossed the bounds of the Mac 
Intires in Glen O, and in passing the house 
of their chieftain, a circumstance occurred, 
which gives a lively picture of the extent 
of the ancient respect paid by a clansman 
to the ties of his blood. The Mac Intires 
were originally descended from the Mac 
Donalds, and lived from time immemorial 
upon the border of the Campbells, between 
that race and the south-east march of the 
Clan Donald in Glen Coe. Upon the de¬ 
cline of the vast power of this sept after 
the fatal battle of Harlow, and upon the 
subsequent increase of power to the Camp¬ 
bells, the Mac Intires placed themselves 
under the latter clan, and lived with them 
as the most powerful of their followers. 
When Alaister Mac Colda passed through 
Glen O, he was not acquainted with the 
name of the place nor the race of its inha¬ 
bitants ; but knowing that he was within 
the bounds of the Campbells, he supposed 
that all whom he met were of that clan. 
Glen O was deserted at his approach, and 
it is probable that the men were even then 
in service with Argyle. Alaister, in his 
usual plan of vengeance, ordered fire to the 
house of the chieftain. A coal was in¬ 
stantly set in the roof, and the heather of 
which it was made was quickly in a blaze. 
Before, however, the flames had made much 
progress, Alaister was told that the house 
which he was burning was that of the 
chieftain of Mac Intire. The man of Mac 
FVnald immediately commanded his people 


to do their endeavour to extinguish the fire; 
“ for,” said he, “ it is the house of our own 
blood.”* The flames were soon overcome, 
and Colda passed through the glen of the 
Mac Intires in peace into Glen Urcha, J 
where he burnt and destroyed all within 
his reach. From hence he marched en¬ 
tirely round Loch Awe, carrying devasta- ' 
tion through the ancient and original patri¬ 
mony of the Campbells. As he passed by 
the Loch of Ballemor, the inhabitants (a 
small race named Mac Chorchadell, and 
dependant upon the former clan) retired 
from their huts into the little castle of their 
chieftain, which is situated in the midst of 
the Loch. Being in no way connected with 
his enemies by blood, Alaister did not con¬ 
ceive that with them he held any feud, and 
quietly marched past their deserted habita¬ 
tions, without laying a hand upon their j 
property. But as his men were drawing 
from the lake, one of the Mac Chorchadells 
fired upon their rear, and wounded a Mac I 
Donald. Alaister instantly turned : “ Poor 
little Mac Chorchadell,” said he in Gaelic, 

“ I beg your pardon for my want of respect 
in passing you without stopping to pay my 
compliments; but since you will have it so, 

I will not leave you without notice.”—He 
returned, and burnt every house in Balle¬ 
mor. 

The power of the Campbells had been 
so broken at Inbherlochie, that it was not 
until Mac Colda had arrived near the west 
coast of their country, that they were again 
in a condition to meet him in a pitched 
fight. At length they encountered him on 
the skirt of the moss of Crenan, at the foot 
of a hill not far from Auchandaroch. The 
battle was fought with all the fury of indi- , 
vidual and deadly hatred, but at last the 
fortune of Alaister prevailed, and the 
Campbells were entirely routed, and pur¬ 
sued with great slaughter off the field of 
battle. Some time afterwards they again 
collected what numbers they could gather, 
and once more offered battle to Alaister, as 
he was returning to Loch Awe. The con¬ 
flict was fought at the ford of Ederline, the ! 
eastern extremity of the lake ; but here the , 
success of the Mac Donalds forsook them.! 
They were entirely beaten and scattered, 1 
so that not six men were left together; and 
those who escaped from the field were cut 
off by their enemies, as they endeavoured 


* When the chieftain retained to his house, the coal 
which had so near proved its destruction, was found in j 
the roof; it was taken out by order of Mac Intire, and 
preserved with great care by his descendants, till the 
late Glen O was driven to America by the misfortune* 
of the Highlands and the oppression of his superior. 


3 ( J0 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


to lurk out of their country. Of Alaister’s 
fate each clan and each district has a dif¬ 
ferent story. The Argyle Campbells say 
that he was killed at the ford, and a broad¬ 
sword said to have been his, and to have 
been found on the field of battle, is at this 
day in the possession of Peter Mac Lellich 
(smith), at the croft of Dalmallie. The 
Louden Campbells, on the contrary, assert, 
that Alaister escaped from the overthrow, 
and wandering into Ayrshire, was slain by 
them while endeavouring to find a passage 
into Ireland. The Mac Donalds do not 
acknowledge either of these stories to be 
true, but relate that their chieftain not onl) 
escaped from the battle, but (though with 
much difficulty) effected his flight to Ire¬ 
land, where a reward being set upon his 
head, he was at length, in an unguarded 
moment, when divested of his arms, slain 
i by one of the republican troopers, by whom 
he was sought out. 

The fate of Alaister Mac Colda is said to 
have been governed by that fatality, and 
predicted by that inspiration, which were 
mce so firmly believed among the High¬ 
landers. Ills foster-mother, says tradition, 
was gifted with the second sight; and, pre¬ 
vious to his departure from Ireland, the 
chieftain consulted her upon the success of 
his expedition. “ You will be victorious 
over all born of woman,” replied the seer, 
‘ till you arrive at Goch*dum Gho; but 
when you come to that spot, your fortune 
shall depart for ever .’’—“ Let it be so/’ said 
Alaister, “ I shall receive my glory.” He 
departed and the spirit of his adventure 
and the hurry of enterprise, perhaps, 
banished from his mind the name of the 
fatal place. It was indeed one so insigni¬ 
ficant and remote, that its knowledge was 
most probably confined to the circle of a 
few miles, and not likely to be restored 
to the notice of Mac Colda, by mention or 
inquiry. It was on the eve of his last 
battle, as his “ bratach” was setting up at 
the ford of Ederline, that his attention was 
caught by a mill at a little distance; for 
some accidental reason he inquired its 
name:—“Mullian Goch-dum Gho,” re¬ 
plied one of his men. The prediction was 
at once remembered. The enemy were at 
hand, and Alaister knew that he should 
fall. Convinced of the fatality of the pro¬ 
phecy, he sought not to retreat from the 
evil spot: the bourne of his fortune was 
past, and he only thought of dying as be¬ 
came him in the last of his fields. He made 
no comment upon the name of the place ; 
but, concealing from his followers the con¬ 
nection which it bore with his fate, gave 


directions for the proceedings of the ap¬ 
proaching morning. In the battle he be. 
haved as he was wont, and in the close of 
the day was seen fighting furiously with 
two of the Campbells, who appeared unable 
to overcome him. Nothing more was heard 
of him : his body was never discovered ; 
but when the slain were buried by the con¬ 
querors, his claidh-mhr was found beneath 
a heap of dead. 


Mac Phadian was an Irish captain, who, 
with a considerable body of his country¬ 
men, assisted Edward I. of England in his 
war to subvert the independence of Scot¬ 
land ; but though he took a very active part 
in the turbulent period in which he lived, 
and possessed sufficient courage and talents 
to raise himself from obscurity to power, 
yet we have nothing left of his history but 
the account of his last enormities, and the 
overthrow and death which they finally 
brought. It is probable, that we are even 
indebted for this information to the cele¬ 
brity of the man by whom he fell, and 
which in preserving the victory of the con¬ 
queror, has also perpetuated the memory 
of the vanquished. 

The scene of the last actions of Mac 
Phadian lay in Lorn and Argyle ; and the 
old people in the neighbourhood of Loch 
Awe still retain a tradition, which marks 
out the spot where he fell. Time, however, 
and the decay of recitation during the last 
century, have so injured all which remained 
of oral record, that the legend of Mac Pha¬ 
dian is now confined to a very few of the 
elder fox-hunters and shepherds of the 
country, and will soon pass into oblivion 
with those by whom it is retained- 

Some time in the latter end of the year 
1297, or the beginning of the year 1298, 
Edward made a grant to Mac Phadian of 
the lordships of Argyle and Lorn. The 
first belonged to sir Niel Campbell, knight, 
of Loch Awe, and chief of his clan; the 
second was the hereditary patrimony of 
John, chief of Mac Dougall. Sir Niel did 
his endeavour to resist the usurpation of 
his lands, and though fiercely beset by th? 
traitor lords, Buchan, Athol, and Mentieth. 
he for some time maintained his independ. 
ence against all their united attempts. Bui 
John of Lorn, who was himself in the in. 
terest and service of the English, and at 
that time in London, concurred with king 
Edward in the disponing of his territories, 
and received in remuneration a more con¬ 
siderable lordship. Mac Phadian did not, 
however, remain in quiet possession of his 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


ill-acquired domains ; he was strongly 
opposed by Duncan of Lorn, uncle to the 
lord; but joining with Buchan, Athol, and 
Mentieth, he at length drove out his enemy, 
and compelled him to seek shelter with sir 
Niel Campbell. L^pon this success the 
above-mentioned allies, at the head of a 
mixed and disorderly force gathered from 
all parts, and from all descriptions, Irish 
and Scots, to the amount of fifteen thousand 
men, made a barbarous inroad into Argyle, 
and suddenly penetrating into the district 
of Nether Loch Awe, wasted the country 
wherever they came, and destroyed the in¬ 
habitants without regard to age or sex. In 
this exigency the Campbell displayed that 
constancy and experience which had ren¬ 
dered his name celebrated among his coun¬ 
trymen. Unable to resist the intoxicated 
multitude of his enemies, with Duncan of 
Lorn, and three hundred of his veteran 
clansmen, he retired by the head of Loch 
Awe and the difficult pass of Brandir to 
the inaccessible heights of Craiganuni, and 
breaking down the bridge over the Awe 
below, prevented the pursuit of the enemy 
to his position. Nothing could be more 
masterly than the plan of this retreat. 

Mac Phadian, thurs baffled and outma¬ 
noeuvred, not only failed in his object of 
offence, but found himself drawn into an 
intricate and desolate labyrinth, where his 
multitude encumbered themselves: the want 
of subsistence prevented him from remain¬ 
ing to blockade sir Niel, and his ignorance 
of the clues of the place made it difficult to 
extricate himself by a retreat. In this exi¬ 
gence he was desirous of returning to 
Nether Loch Awe, where there was abun¬ 
dance of cattle and game for the support of 
his men. At length he discovered a pas¬ 
sage between the rocks and the water ; the 
way was only wide enough for four persons 
to pass abreast ; yet, as they were not in 
danger of pursuit, they retired in safety, 
and effected their march to the south side 
of the lake. 

! The measures employed by Wallace to 
relieve the Campbell, and to reach the 
fastness wherein Mac Phadian had posted 
himself, were romantic and daring- 

Mac Phadian’s followers were completely 
surprised and taken at disarray. They 
i snatched their arms, and rushed to defend 
the pass with the boldest resolution. At 
I the first onset the Scots bore back their 
! enemies over five acres of ground ; and 
I Wallace, with his iron mace, made fearful 
havoc among the enemy. Encouraged, 
however, by Mac Phadian, the Irish came 
*o the rescue; the battle tHdkened with 


more stubborn fury; and for two hours 
was maintained with such obstinate eager¬ 
ness on both sides, that neither party had 
any apparent advantage. At length the 
Cause and valour of Wallace prevailed. The 
Irish gave way and fled, and the Scots of 
their party threw down their arms, and 
kneeled for mercy. Wallace commanded 
them to be spared for their birth sake, but 
urged forward the pursuit upon the Irish. 
Pent in by the rocks and the water, the 
latter had but little hope in flight. Many 
were overtaken and slain as they endea¬ 
voured to climb the crags, and two thou¬ 
sand were driven into the lake and drowned. 
Mac Phadian, with fifteen men, fled to a 
cave, and hoped to have concealed himself 
till the pursuit was over; but Duncan of 
Lorn having discovered his retreat, pursued 
and slew him with his companions; and 
having cut off the head of the leader, 
brought it to Wallace, and set it upon a 
stone high in one of the crags as a trophy 
of the victory. 

In one of the steeps of Cru'achan, nearly 
opposite the rock of Brandir, there is a 
secret cave, now only known to a very few 
of the old fox-hunters and shepherds : it is 
still called “ Uagh Phadian,” Mac Pha- 
dian’s cave ; and is asserted by tradition to 
be the place in which Mac Phadian died. 
The remembrance of the battle is nearly 
worn away, and the knowledge of the real 
cave confined to so few, that the den in 
which Mac Phadian was killed is generally 
believed to be in the cliffs of Craiganuni: 
this is merely owing to the appearance of a 
black chasm in the face of that height, and 
to a confusion between the action of Mac 
Phadian with Wallace, and his pursuit of 
sir Niel Campbell. But the chasm in 
Craiganuni, though at a distance it appears 
like the mouth of a cave, is but a cleft in 
the rock; and the few who retain the 
memory of the genuine tradition of the 
battle of the Wallace, universally agree 
that the cave in the side of Cruachan was 
that in which Mac Phadian was killed. 


The “ Bridal of Cablchairn” is a legen¬ 
dary poem, founded upon a very slight 
tradition, concerning events which are re¬ 
lated to have occurred during the absence 
of sir Colin Campbell on his expedition to 
Rome and Arragon. It is said by the tale, 
that the chieftain was gone ten years, and 
that his wife having received no intelligence 
of his existence in that time, she accepted 
the addresses of one of her husband’s vas¬ 
sals, Mac Nab of Barachastailan. The 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


bridal was fixed; but on the day when it 
was to have been solemnized, the secret 
was imparted to sir Colin in Spain, by a 
spirit of the nether world. When the 
<night received the intelligence, he bitterly 
.amented the distance which prevented him 
from wreaking vengeance upon his pre¬ 
sumptuous follower. The communicat¬ 
ing spirit, either out of love for mischief, 
or from a private familiarity with sir Colin, 
promised to obviate this obstacle ; and on 
the same day, before the bridal was cele¬ 
brated, transported the chieftain in a blast 
of wind from Arragon to Glen Urcha. In 
what manner sir Colin proceeded, tradition 
does not say ; it simply records, that the 
bridal was broken, but is silent upon the 
nature of the catastrophe. The legend is 
now almost entirely forgotten in the neigh¬ 
bourhood where its events are said to have 
taken place. ‘ As far as I know,” says 
Mr. Allan, “ it is confined to one old man, 
named Malcolm Mac Nab, who lives upon 
the hill of Barachastailan ; he is between 
I eighty and ninety years of age, and the last 
of the race of ancient smiths, who remains 
in the place of his ancestors. A few yards 
from his cottage there is the foundation of 
one of those ancient circular forts built by 
the Celts, and so frequently to be met 
in the Highlands : these structures are 
usually ascribed by the vulgar to lion and 
his heroes. In a neighbouring field, called 
‘ Larich nam Fion,’ there were formerly 
two others of these buildings; their walls 
of uncemented stone were not many years 
since entire, to the height of eight or nine 
feet; but they have since been pulled down 
and carried away to repair the neighbour¬ 
ing cottages : it is from these buildings that 
the hill received its name ot ‘ Bar-a-chas- 
tailan,’ the ‘ eminence of the castles.’ ” 

The tide of centuries bas rolled away 
O’er Innishail’s solitaiy isle, 

The wind of ages and the world’s decay 
Has swept upon the Campbells’ fortress pile : 

And far from what they were is changed the while 
The monks’ grey cloistei, and the baron s keep. 

I’ve seen the sun within the dungeon smile, 

And in the bridal bower the ivy creep. 

I’ve 6tood upon the fane’s foundation stone, 

Heard the grass sigh upon the cloister’s heap. 

And sat upon the holy cross o’erthrown, 

And marked within the cell where warriors sleep. 
Beneath the broad grey stone the timorous rabbit peep 

The legend of the dead is past away 
As the dim eve amid the night doth fail. 

The memorie of the fearful bridal day 
Is parted from the people of the vale; 

| And none are left to tell the weary tale, 

!■ Save on yon lone green hill by b ion’s tower 

i __ 


Yet lives a man bowed dowm with age and ail: 

Still tells he of the fearful legend’s hour— 

It was his father fell within the bridal bower. 

But though with man there is a weary waste. 

It is not so beyond the mortal way ; 

With the unbodied spirits nought is spaced; 

But when the aged world has worn away. 

They look on earth where once their dwelling lay, 

And to their never-closing eye doth show 
All that has been—a fairie work of day; 

And all which here their mortal life did show, 

Yet lives in that which never may decay ; 

When thought, and life, and memorie below 
Has sunk with all it bore of gladness or of woe. 

At even time On green Inchail’s isle 
A dim grey form doth sit upon the hill: 

No shadow casts it in the moonshine smile. 

And in its folded mantle bowed and still 
No feature e’er it showed the twilight chill. 

But seems beneath its hood a void grey. 

The owlet, when it comes, cries wild and shrill ; 

The moon grows dim when shows it in its ray. 

None saw it e’er departbut it is not at day. 

By CaOlchairn at night when all is still. 

And the black otter issues from his lair. 

He hears a voice along the water chill, 

It seems to speak amid the cloudy air ; 

But some have seen beyond the Donjon stair 
Where now the floor from the wall is gone, 

A form dim standing ’mid the ether fair, 

No light upon its fixed eye there shone. 

And yet the blood seems wet upon its bosom wan. 

MY ARM-CHAIR. 

For the Tattle Book. 

In my humble opinion an arm-chair is 
far superior to a sofa; for although I buvv 
to Cowper’s judgment, (who assigned the 
superiority to the sofa,) yet we must recol¬ 
lect that it was in compliance with the le- 
quest of a fair lady that he chose that 
subject for praise : he might have eulogized 
in equal terms an arm-chair, had he con¬ 
sulted his own feelings and appreciation of 
comfort. I acknowledge the “ soft recum¬ 
bency of outstretched limbs,” so peculiar 
to the sofa—the opportunity afforded the 
fair sex of displaying grace and elegance 
of form, while reposing in easy negligence 
on a Grecian couch—but then think of the 
snug comfort of an easy-chair. Its very 
name conveys a multitude of soothing 
ideas: its commodious repose for your 
back ; its generous and unwearied support 
of your head ; its outstretched arms wooing 
you to its embraces: — think on these 
things, and ask yourself if it be possible to 
withstand its affectionate and disinteiested 
advances. 


393 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


On entering a room where there is an 
easy-chair, you are struck by the look of 
conscious self-importance which seems to 
distinguish it as the monarch of all the 

f ^ a 

surrounding chairs ; there is an appearance 
1 of regal superiority about it, blended, how¬ 
ever, with such a charming condescension, 
that you immediately avail yourself of its 
gracious inclination to receive the burden 
of your homage. 

There is one kind of arm-chair for which 
I entertain a very resentful feeling, it 
assumes the title of an easy-chair to induce 
you to believe it one of that amiable frater¬ 
nity, whereas it only claims kindred on 
account of its shape, and is in reality the 
complete antipodes of ease—I mean the 
horse-hair arm-chair. Its arms, like those 
of its brethren, invite you to repose; but, 
if you attempt it, you are repulsed by an 
ambush of sharp shooting prickles. It is 
like a person who has a desire to please 
and obtain you for his friend, but who is of 
so incorrigibly bad a temper that attach¬ 
ment is impossible. If you try to com- 
! pose yourself with one of these pretenders, 

| by endeavouring to protect the back of 
your head with your pocket-handkerchief 
for a pillow, you either dream that you are 
under the hands of a surgeon who is cup¬ 
ping you on the cheek, or that you are 
transformed into your cousin Lucy, and 
struggling to avoid being kissed by old Mr. 

D-, who does not shave above once a 

week. When you awake, you discover 
that your face has slipped off the handker¬ 
chief, and come immediately in contact 
with the chevaux de frise of bristles. 

As an excellent specimen of an easy- 
chair, I select the one I at present occupy. 
Its ancient magnificence of red damask 
silk—embossed in wavy flowers and curved 
arabesques, surrounded by massive gilt 
carving—is now shrouded with an unosten¬ 
tatious covering of white dimity. This, 
however, does not compromise its dignity 
—it is rather a resignation of fatiguing 
splendour, and the assumption of the ease 
suitable to retirement in old age. Perhaps 
a happy father once sat in it surrounded by 
his smiling offspring: some climbing up 
the arms; others peeping over the lofty 
back, aiming to cling round his neck; his 
favourite little girl insinuating herself be¬ 
hind him, while he gazes with affectionate 
Out anxious thoughts on the countenance of 
iis eldest son, standing between his knees. 
Perhaps two lovers once sat in it together , 
although there were plenty of other chairs 
in the room. (For fear some of my fair 
readers should be incredulous, I beg leave 


to assure them that it is quite possible fo- 
two people to sit together in an arm-chair, 
if they choose to be accommodating; there¬ 
fore I would not have them dislike an easy- 
chair on the plea of its being unsocial.) 
Perhaps it may have been the means of 
concealment—in a similar way with the arm- ! 
chair in “ Le Nozze di Figaro. Often have 
I when a child curled myself round in it, 
and listened to my old nurse’s wonderful 
stories, till I have fallen fast asleep. Often 
have I since enjoyed many a delightful 
book, while lolling indolently enclosed in 
its soft, warm, cushioned sides— 

M. H. 


(garnrft plaps. 

No. XXII. 

[From “ Querer Por Solo Querer : v 
concluded from last Number.] 

Address to Solitude. 

Sweet Solitude ! still Mirth ! that fear’st no wrong. 
Because thou dost none : Morning all day long ! 
Truth’s sanctuary 1 Innocency’s spring 1 
Inventions Limbeck 1 Contemplation’s wing t 
Peace of my soul, which I too late pursued ; 

That know’st not the world’s vain inquietude . 

Where friends, the thieves of time, let us alone 
Whole days, and a man’s hours are all his own 

Song in praise of the Same 

Solitude, of friends the best. 

And the best companion ; 

Mother of truths, and brought at least 
Every day to bed of one : 

In this flowery mansion 
I contemplate how the rose 
Stands upon thorns, how quickly goes 
The dismaying jessamine : 

Only the soul, which is divine. 

No decay of beauty knows. 

The World is Beauty’s Mirror. Flowers, 

In their first virgin purity, 

Flatt’rers both of the nose and eye.— 

To be cropt by paramours 
Is their best 6f destiny : 

And those nice darlings of the land. 

Which seem’d heav’n’s painted bow to scorn. 

And bloom’d the envy of the morn. 

Are the gay trophy of a hand. 

Unicilling to love again. 

— sadly I do live in fear. 

For, though I would not fair appear. 

And though in truth I am not fair. 

Haunted I am like those that are 


394 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


And here, among these rustling leaves. 

With which the wanton wind must play, 

Inspired by it, my sense perceives 
This snowy Jasmin whispering say. 

How much more frolic, white, and fair 
In her green lattice she doth stand. 

To enjoy the free and cooler air. 

Than in the prison of a hand.* 

Loving without hope. 

I look’d if underneath the cope 
Were one that loved, and did not hope ; 

But from his nobler soul remove 
That modern heresy in love • 

When, hearing a shrill voice, I turn, 

And lo ! a sweeMongued Nightingale, 

Tender adorer of the Morn,— 

In him I found that One and All. 

For that same faithful bird and true, 

Sweet and kind and constant lover, 

Wond’rous passion did discover, 

From the terrace of an eugh. 

And tho’ ungrateful she appear’d 
Unmoved with all she saw and heard; 

Every day, before ’twas day. 

More and kinder things he’d say. 

Courteous, and never to be lost, 

Return’d not with complaints, but praise 
Loving, and all at his own cost; 

Suffering, and without hope of ease: 

For with a sad and trembling throat 
He breathes into her breast this note : 

“ I love thee not, to make thee mine ; 

But love thee, ’cause thy form’s divine.” 

The True Absence in Love. 

Zelidaura, star divine, 

That do’st in highest orb of beauty shine; 
Pardon’d Murd’ress, by that heart 
Itself, which thou dost kill, and coveted smart t 
Though my walk so distant lies 
From the sunshine of thine eyes; 

Into sullen shadows hurl’d, 

To lie here buried from the world 
’ Tis the least reason of my moan. 

That so much earth is ’twixt us thrown. 

’ Tis absence of another kind, 

Grieves me; for where you are present too, 

Love’s Geometry does find, 

I have ten thousand miles to you. 

* Tis not absence to be far, 

But to abhor i9 to absent; 

To those who in disfavour are, 

Sight itself is banishment. * 

To a Warrioress. 

Heav’n, that created thee thus warlike, stole 
Into a woman’s body a man’s soul. 

But nature’s law in vain dost thou gainsay , 

The woman’s valour lies another way. 

* Claridiana, the Enchanted Queen, speaks this, and 
the following speech. 

t Claridoro, rival to Felisbravo, speaks this. 


The dress, the tear, the blush, the witching eye. 
More witching tongue, are beauty’s armoury ; 

To railly; to discourse m companies. 

Who’s fine, who courtly, who a wit, who wise ; 

And with the awing sweetness of a Dame, 

As conscious of a face can tigers tame. 

By tasks and circumstances to discover, 

Amongst the best of Princes, the best Lover; 

(The fruit of all those flowers) who serves with most 
Self diffidence, who with the greatest boast; 

Who twists an eye of Hope in braids of Fear; 

Who silent (made for nothing but to bear 
Sweet scorn and injuries of love) envies 
Unto his tongue the treasure of his eyes: 

Who, without vaunting shape, hath only wit; 

Nor knows to hope reward, tho’ merit it: 

Then, out of all, to make a choice so rare, 

So lucky-wise, as if thou wert not fair.* 

All mischiefs reparable but a lost Love , 

1 . 

A second Argo, freighted 
With fear and avarice. 

Between the sea and skies 

Hath penetrated 

To the new world, unworn 

With the red footsteps of the snowy morn, 

2 . 

Thirsty of mines; 

She comes rich back; and (the curl’d ram pi re past 
Of watry mountains, cast 
Up by the winds) 

Ungrateful shelf near home 

Gives her usurped gold a silver home. 

3. 

A devout Pilgrim, who 
To foreign temple bare 
Good pattern, fervent prayer, 

Spurr’d by a pious vow ; 

Measuring so large a space. 

That earth lack’d regioLs for his plantsT to trace 

4. 

Joyful returns, tho’ poor 
And, just by his abode. 

Falling into a road 
Which laws did ill secure, 

Sees plunder’d by a thief 

(0 happier man than I I for ’tis) his life. 

5. 

Conspicuous grows a Tree, 

Which wanton did appear. 

First fondling of the year. 

With smiling bravery, 

And in his blooming pride 

The Lower House of Flowers did deride : 


• Addressed to Zelida’ira. 
t Soles of his feet. 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


«. 

Wien bis silk robes and fair 
(Hss youth’s embroidery. 

The crownet of a spring, 

Narcissus of the air) 

Rough Boreas doth confound. 

And with his trophies strews the scorned ground. 

7. 

Trusted to tedious hope 
So many months the Corn ; 

Which now begins to turn 
Into a golden crop : 

The lusty grapes, (which plump 

Are the last farewell of the summer’s pomp) 

8 . 

How spacious spreads the vine !— 

Nursed up with how much care. 

She lives, she thrives, grows fair ; 

’Bout her loved Elm doth twine : — 

Comes a cold cloud ; and lays. 

In one, the fabric of 60 many days. 

9 . 

A silver River small 
In sweet accents 
His music vents, 

(The warbling virginal, 

To which the merry birds do sing— 

Timed with stops of gold* the silver string); 

10 . ' 

He steals by a greenwood 
With fugitive feet; 

Gay, jolly, sweet: 

Comes me a troubled flood; 

And scarcely one sand stays. 

To be a witness of his golden days.— 

11 . 

The Ship’s upweigh’d ; 

The Pilgrim made a Saint; 

Next spring re-crowns the Plant; 

Winds raise the Corn, was laid; 

The Vine is pruned ; 

The Rivulet new tuned;— 

But in the Ill i have 

I'm left alive only to dig my grave. 

12 . 

Lost Beauty, I will die, 

Bnt I will thee recover ; 

And that! die not instantly. 

Shews me more perfect Lover: 

For (my Soul gone before) 

I lire aot now to live, but to deplore. 

C. L. 


• Allusion to the Tagus, and golden sands. 


WELSH WEDDINGS. 

From a Lady—To the Editor. 

Sir,—If a brief account of the manner 
of celebrating marriage in some parts of 
Wales should afford entertainment to your 
readers, I shall feel gratified. 

The early part of my life was spent at a 
village in the mountainous part of Gla¬ 
morganshire, called Myrther Tidvel. Since 
then it has become a considerable piece for 
the manufactory of iron, and I expect both 
the manners and inhabitants are much 
changed: the remembrance of its rural 
and lovely situation, and of the simplicity 
of its humble villagers, when I lived 
amongst them, often produces in my mind 
the most pleasing sensations. 

Some weeks previous to a wedding taking 
place, a person, well-known in the parish, 
went round and invited all, without limita¬ 
tion or distinction, to attend. As the cere¬ 
monies were similar I shall select one, as 
an illustration, in which I took part as 
bride’s-maid to a much valued servant. 

On the evening previous to the marriage, 
a considerable company assembled at the 
bride’s father’s, and in a short time the 
sound of music proclaimed the approach 
of the bridegroom. The bride and her 
company were then shut up in a room, and 
the house-doors locked; great and loud 
was the cry for admittance from without, 
till I was directed, as bride’s-maid, by an 
elderly matron, to open the window, and 
assist tne bridegroom to enter, which being 
done the doors were set open, and his party 
admitted. A room was set apart for the 
young people to dance in, which continued 
for about an hour, and having partaken of 
a common kind of cake and warm ale, 
spiced and sweetened with sugar, the com¬ 
pany dispersed. 

At eight, next morning, I repaired to the 
house of the bridegroom, where there had 
assembled in the course of an hour about 
one hundred and fifty persons : he was a 
relation to the dissenting minister, a man 
highly esteemed; and he was much re¬ 
spected on that as well as his own account. 
The procession set out, preceded by a cele¬ 
brated harper playing “ Come, haste to the 
weddingthe bridegroom and I came 
next, and were followed by the large com¬ 
pany. At the door of the bride's father we 
were met by the bride, led by her brother, 
who took their station behind the bride¬ 
groom and me ; her company joining, and 
adding nearly as many again to the pro¬ 
cession ; we then proceeded to the church, 
the music playing as before. After the 


396 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


1 ceremony the great door of the church was 
opened, and the bride and her maid having 
i changed their partners were met at it by 
1 the harper, who struck up “ Joy to the 
bridegroom,” and led the w'ay to a part of 
the church-yard never used as a burial- 
ground ; there placing himself under a large 
yew-tree the dancers immediately formed, 
the bride and bridegroom leading off the 
two first dances,—“ The beginning of the 
world,” and “ My wife shall have her 
way these are never danced but on like 
occasions, and then invariably. 

By this time it was twelve o’clock, and 
the bride and bridegroom, followed by a 
i certain number, went into the house, where 
a long table was tastefully set out with 
bread of two kinds, one plain and the other 
with currants and seeds in it; plates of 
ornamented butter; cold and toasted cheese; 
with ale, some warmed and sweetened. 
The bride and her maid were placed at the 
head of the table, and the bridegroom and 
her brother at the bottom. After the com¬ 
pany had taken what they liked, a plate 
was set down, which went round, each 
person giving what they chose, from two to 
five shillings; this being done, the money 
was given to the bride, and the company 
resigned their places to others; and so on 
in succession till all had partaken and given 
what they pleased. Dancing was kept up 
till seven, and then all dispersed. At this 
wedding upwards of thirty pounds was 
collected. 

In an adjoining parish it was the custom 
for the older people to go the evening be¬ 
fore, and take presents of wheat, meal, 
cheese, tea, sugar, &c., and the young peo¬ 
ple attended next day, when the wedding 
was conducted much in the way I have 
described, but smaller sums of money were 
given. 

This method of forwarding young people 
has always appeared to me a pleasing trait 
in the Welsh character ; but it only prevails 
amongst the labouring classes. 

When a farmer’s daughter, or some 
young woman, with a fortune of from one 
hundred to two hundred pounds, marries, 
it is generally very privately, and she re¬ 
turns to her father’s house for a few weeks, 
where her friends and neighbours go to see 
her, but none go empty-handed. When 
the appointed time arrives for the young 
man to take home his wife, the elderly 
women are invited to attend the starald , 
that is, the furniture which the young 
woman provides; in general it is rather 
considerable. It is conveyed in great 
order, there being fixed rules as to the arti¬ 


cles to be moved off first, and those which 
are to follow. I have thought this a pleas j 
ing sight, the company being all on horse¬ 
back, and each matron in her appointed 
station, the nearest relations going first; all 
have their allotted basket or piece of small 
furniture, a horse and car following after- i 
wards with the heavier articles. The next 
day the young couple are attended by the 
younger part of their friends, and this is 
called a turrnant , and is frequently pre¬ 
ceded by music. Tne derivation of starald 
and turrnant I never could learn, though I 
have frequently made the inquiry. 

I am, sir, &c. &c. 

A. B. 


CUMBERLAND WEDDINGS. 

In Cumberland, and some other parts of 
the north of England, they have a custom 
called a “ bridewain,” or the public celebra¬ 
tion of a wedding. A short time after a match 
is entered into, the parties give notice of it; 
in consequence of which the whole neigh¬ 
bourhood, for several miles round, assemble 
at the bridegroom’s house, and join in 
various pastimes of the county. This 
meeting resembles the wakes or revels cele¬ 
brated in other places ; and a plate or bowl 
is fixed in a convenient place, where each 
of the company contributes in proportion to 
his inclination and ability, and according 
to the degree of respect the parties are held 
in ; by which laudable custom a worthy 
couple have frequently been benefited with 
a supply of money, from fifty to a hundred 
pounds. The following advertisements are 
from Cumberland newspapers :— 

Invitation. 

Suspend for one day your careB and your labours, 

And come to this wedding, kind friends and good neigh¬ 
bours. 

Notice is hereby given, that the mar¬ 
riage of Isaac Pearson with Frances Atkin¬ 
son, will be solemnized in due form in the 
parish church of Lamplugh, in Cumberland, 
on Tuesday next, the 30 th of May inst. 
( 1786 ); immediately after which the bride 
and bridegroom, with their attendants, will 
proceed to Lonefoot, in the said parish, j 
where the nuptials will be celebrated by a 
variety of rural entertainments. 

Then come one and all 
At Hymen’s soft call, 

From Whitehaven, Workington, Haringfon Dean 
Hail, Ponsonby, Blaing, and all places between; 

From Egremont, Cockermouth, Barton, St. Bee a, / 

Cint, Kinnyside, Calder, and parts such as these; 

And the country at large may flock in if they plcaae. 


307 




















THE TABLE BOOK. 


isuch sports there will be as nave seldom been seen, 
Such wrestling and fencing, and dancing between, 

And races for prizes, for frolic and fun. 

By horses and asses, and dogs, will be run, 

That you’ll go home happy—as sure as a gun. 

In a word, such a wedding can ne’er fail to please ; 

For the sports of Olyospus were trifles to these. 

Nota Bene —You’ll please to observe that the day 
Of this grand bridal pomp is the thirtieth of May, 
When ’tis hop’d that the sun, to enliven the sight, 

Like the flambeau of Hymen, will deign to burn bright. 

Another Advertisement. 

Bridewain. 

There let Hymen oft appear, 

In saffron robe and taper clear. 

And pomp and feast and revelry. 

With mask and antic pageantry ; 

Such sights as youthful poets dream. 

On summer eves by haunted stream. 

George Hayto, who married .Anne, the 
daughter of Joseph and Dinah Colin, of 
Crosby mill, purposes having a Bridewain 
at his house at Crosby, near Maryport, on 
j Thursday, the 7th day of May next, (1 7 89), 
where he will be happy to see his friends 
and well-wishers; for whose amusement 
there will be a variety of racer., wrestling- 
matches, &c. &c. The prizes will be—a 
saddle, two bridles, a pair of gands d'amour, 
gloves, which, whoever wins, is sure to be 
married within the twelvemonths ; a girdle 
(ceinture de Venus ) possessing qualities not 
to be described ; and many other articles, 
sports, and pastimes, too numerous to men¬ 
tion, but which can never prove tedious in 
the exhibition. 

From fashion’s laws and customs free. 

We welcome sweet variety ; 

By turns we laugh, and dance, and sing ; 

Time’s for ever on the wing ; 

And nymphs and swains on Cumbria’s plain. 
Present the golden age again. 


A GOOD EXCUSE. 

Tn the Court of Session in Scotland, the 
judges who do not attend, or give a proper 
excuse for their absence, are, by law, liable 
to a fine ; but it is common, on the first day 
of the session, for the absentee to send an 
excuse to the lord president. Lord Stone- 
field having sent such an excuse, on the 
president mentioning it, the late lord jus¬ 
tice clerk Braxfield said, in his broad dia¬ 
lect, “ What excuse can a stout fallow like 
him hae ?” “ My lord,” said the president, 

'* he has lost his wife.” The justice, who 
was fitted with a Xanthippe, replied, “ Has 
:ie? that is a gude excuse indeed ; I wish 
we had a" the same ” 


EARLY RISING. 

Buffon rose always with the sun, and he 
used often to tell by what means he had 
accustomed himself to get out of bed so 
early. “ In my youth,” said he, “ I was 
very fond of sleep; it robbed me of a great 
deal of my time; but my poor Joseph (hi«j 
domestic) was of great service in enabling 
me to overcome it. I promised to give 
Joseph a crown every time that he could 
make me get up at six. The next morning 
he did not fail to awake and torment me , 
but he received only abuse. The day aftei 
he did the same, with no better success, 
and I was obliged at noon to confess that 
I had lost my time. I told him, that he 
did not know how to manage his business; 
that he ought to think of my promise, and 
not to mind my threats. The day follow¬ 
ing he employed force; I begged for in¬ 
dulgence, I bid him begone, I stormed, but 
Joseph persisted. I was therefore obliged 
to comply, and he was rewarded every day | 
for the abuse which he suffered at ihe mo¬ 
ment when I awoke, by thanks accom¬ 
panied with a crown, which he received 
about an hour after. Yes, I am indebted 
to poor Joseph for ten or a dozen of tltf 
volumes of my work. ” 


PUNCTUALITY 
“ A Quarter before.” 


Industry is of little avail, without a habit 
of very easy acquirement—punctuality : on 
this jewel the whole machinery of success¬ 
ful industry may be said to turn. 

When lord Nelson was leaving London 
on his last, but glorious, expedition against 
the enemy, a quantity of cabin furniture 
was ordered to be sent on board his ship. 
He had a farewell dinner party at his 
house ; and the upholsterer having waited 
upon his lordship, with an account of the 
completion of the goods, he was brought into 
the dining-room, in a corner of which his 
lordship spoke with him. The upholsterer 
stated to his noble employer, that every 
thing was finished, and packed, and would 
go in the waggon, from a certain inn, at six 
o'clock. “ And you go to the inn, Mr. A , 
and see them off.” “ I shall, my lord ; 1 
shall be there punctually at six.'* “ A 
quarter before six, Mr. A.,” returned lord 
Nelson; “ be there a quarter before : to 
that quarter of an hour I owe every thing 
in life.” 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 



Bratring the ^etosfpaprr. 

The folio of four pages, happy work ! 
Which not even critics criticize.— Coivper . 


A venerable old man is, as the reader 
of a newspaper, still more venerable ; for 
his employment implies that nature yet 
lives in him; — that he is anxious to 
learn how much better the world is on his 
leaving it, than it was when he came into 
it. When he reads of the meddlings of over¬ 
legislation, he thinks of “ good old times,” 
and feels with the poet— 

But times are alter’d; trade’s unfeeling train 
Usurj) the land and dispossess the swain ; 

Along the lawn where scatter’d hamlets rose. 
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose ; 

And ev’ry want to luxury ally’d, 

And ev’ry pang that folly pays to pride. 

Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 

Those calm desires that ask’d but little room : 

Those healthful sports that grac’d the peaceful scenft 
Liv’d in ea^h look, and brighten’i all the green; 


These, far departing, seek a kinder shore. 

And rural mirth and manners are no more. 

lie reads of proposals for extending the 
poor-laws to one part of the United King¬ 
dom not yet cursed with that sure and cer¬ 
tain means of increasing the growth of 
poverty—he reads of schemes of emigration 
for an alleged surplus of human beings 
from all parts of the empire—he reads of 
the abundance of public wealth, and of the 
increase of private distress—and he remem 
bers, that 

A time there was, ere England’s griefs began. 

When ev’ry rood of ground maintain’d its man ; 

For him light labour spread her wholesome store. 
Just gave what life requir’d, but gave ro more : 

His best companions, innocence and health ; 

And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 


I 
















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The old man, who thus reads and recol- 
ects, has seen too much of factions to be a 
partisan. His only earthly interest is the 
good of his country. A change in the 
administration is to hirr of no import, if it 
bhng not blessings to the prest it genera¬ 
tion that entail a debt of grat-ude upon 
posterity. Alterations in public affairs, if 
violently effected, he scarcely expects will be 
lasting, and loves human nature too well 
to desire them ; yet he does not despair of 
private undertakings on account of their 
novelty or vastness; and therefore he was 
among the earliest promoters of vaccination, 
and of Winsor’s plan for lighting the streets 
with gas. He was a proprietor of the first 
vessel navigated by steam, and would rather 
fail with Brunei than succeed at court. 

The old man’s days are few. He has 
discovered that the essential requisites of 
human existence are small in number; and 
that in strength itself there is weakness. 
He speculates upon ruling mankind by the 
law of kindness ; and, as a specimen of the 
possibility, he kindles good-will with the 
I materials of strife. 

« 


igarrtrk fllaps. 

No. XXIII. 

From the “ Downfall of Robert, Earl of 
Huntingdon,” an Historical Play, by T. 
Hey wood, 1601 ] 

Chorus ; Skelton , the Poet. 

Shelton, (to the Audience'). The Youth that lead* 
yon virgin by the hand 
As doth the Sun the Morning richly clad. 

Is ntir Earl Robert—or your Robin Hood— 

That in those days was Earl of Huntingdon. 

Robin recounts to Marian the pleasures 
of a forest life. 

Rubin. Marian, thou see’st, tho’ courtly pleasures 
want, 

Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant: 

For the soul-ravishing delicious mnd 
Of instrumental music, we have found 
The winged quiristers, with divers notes 
Sent from their quaint recording pretty throat*, 

On every branch that compasseth our bower. 

Without command contenting us each hour. * 

For arras hangings and rich tapestry, 

We have sweet Nature’s best embroidery. 

For thy steel glass, wherein Chou wont’st to look. 

Thy chrystal eves gaze in a chrystal brook. 

At Court a flower or two did deck thy head ; 

New with whole garlands it is circled : 


For what we want in wealtl, we have in flowers ; 

And what we lose in halls, we find in bowers. 

Marian. Marian hath all, sweet Robert, having 
thee ; 

And guesses thee as rich in having me. 

Scarlet recounts to Scathlock the plea¬ 
sures of an Outlaw's life. 

Scarlet It’s full seven years since we were outlaw' 
first. 

And wealthy Sherwood was our heritage. 

For all those years we reigned uncontroll’d, 

From Barnsdale shrogs to Nottingham’s red cliffs. 

At Blithe and Tickhiil were we welcome guests ; 

Good George-a-green at Bradford was our friena, 

And wanton Wakefield’s Pinner loved us well. 

At Barnsley dwells a Potter tough and strong, 

That never brook’d we brethren should have wrong. 
The Nuns of Farnsfieli, pretty Nuns they be. 

Gave napkins, shirts, and oands, to him aud me. 
Bateman of Kendal gave us Ken lal green. 

And Sharpe of Leeds sharp arrows for us made. 

At Rotherham dwelt our Bowyer, God him bliss ; 
Jackson he hight- his bows did never miss 

Fitzwater , banished , seeking his daughter 
Matilda (Robin s Marian) in the forest of 
Sherwood, makes hie complaint. 

Fitz Well did lie write, and mickle did he know. 
That said “ This world’s felicity was woe. 

Which greatest states can hardly undergo.” 

Whilom Fitzwater in fair England’s Court 
Possest felicity and happy state. 

And in his hall blithe Fortune kept her sport; 

Which glee one hour of woe did ruinate. 

Fitzwater once had castles, towns, and towers; 

Fair gardens, orchards, and delightful bowers ; 

But now nor garden, orchard, town, nor tower 
Hath poor Fitzwater left within his power. 

Only wide walks are left me in the world. 

Which these stiff limbs will hardly let me tread : 

And when I sleep, heavn’s glorious canopy 
Me and my mossy couch doth overspread. 

He discovers Robin Hood sleeping; 
Marian strewing flowers over him. 

Fitz. — in good time see where my comfort stands, 
And by her lies dejected Huntingdon. 

Look how my Flower holds flowers in her hands. 

And flings those 6weets upon my sleeping son. 

Feigns himself blind, to try if she tcil ! 
know him. 

Marian. What aged man art thou? cr bv what 
chance 

Camest thou thus far into the wayless wood ? 

Fitz. Widow, or wife, or maiden, if thou he ; 

Lend me thy hand: thou see’st I caiiuot see. 

Blessing betide thee ! little feel’st thou want; 

With me, good child, food is both hard and scant. 

These smooth even veins assure me. He is kind, 
Whate’er he be, my girl, that thee doth find. 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


I poor and old am reft of all earth’s pood ; 

And desperately am crept iDto this wood. 

To seek the poor man’s patron, Robin Hood. 

Marian. And thou art welcome, welcome, aged man, 
Aye ten times welcome to Maid Marian. 

Here’s wine to cheer thy heart; drink, aged man. 
j 1 here’s venison, and a knife; here’s mauchettine.— 
My Robin stirs: I must sing him asleep. 

A Judgment. 

A Wicked Prior. Servingrnan. 

Prior. What news with you, Sir ? 

Serv. Ev’n heavy news, my Lord; for tne light fire, 
Falling in manner of a fire-drake 
Upon a barn of yours, hath burnt six barns. 

And not a strike of corn reserv’d from dust. 

No hand could save it; yet ten thousand hands 
Labour’d their best, though none for love of you • 

For every tongue with bitter cursing bann’d 
Your Lordship, as the viper of the land. 

Prior. What meant the villains ? 

Serv. Thus and thus they cried : 

“ Upon this churl, this hoarder up of corn. 

This spoiler of the Earl of Huntingdon, 

This lust-defiled, merciless, false Prior, 

Heav’n raineth judgment down in shape of fire.” 

Old wives that scarce could with their crutches creep, 
And little babes that newly learn’d to speak, 

J Men masterless that thorough want did weep, 

All in one voice with a confused cry 
In execrations bann’d you bitterly. 

Plague follow plague,” they cried ; “ he hath undone 
The good Lord Robert, Earl of Huntingdon.” 


[From “ Phillis of Scyros/’ a Dramatic 
Pastoral, Author Unknown, 1655.] 

True Love irremovable by Death. 

Serpilla. Phillis. 

Serpilla. Thyrsis believes thee dead, and justly may 
Within his youthful breast then entertain 
New flames of love, and yet therein be free 
From the least show of doing injury 
To that rich beauty which he thinks extinct. 

And happily hath mourn’d for long ago : 

But when he shall perceive thee here alive. 

His old lost love will then with thee revive. 

Phillis. That love, Serpilla, which can be removed 
With the light breath of an imagined death, 

! Is but a faint weak love; nor care I much 
Whether it live within, or still lie dead. 

Ev’n I myself believ’d him long ago 
Dead, and enclosed within an earthen urn ; 

And yet, abhorring any other love, 

I only loved that pale-faced beauty still; 

And those dry bones, dissolved into dust: 

And underneath their ashes kept alive 
The lively flames of my still-burning fire. 

Celia y being put to sleep by an ineffectual 
poison , ivaking believes herself to be among 
\ the dead. The old Shepherd Narete finds 


her , and re-assnres her of her sHU being 
alive. 

Shepherd. Celia, thou talkest idly; call again 
Thy wandering senses; thou art yet alive. 

And, if thou wilt not credit what I say, 

T-ook up, and see the heavens turning round ; 

Tho sun descending down into the west, 

Which not long since thou savv’st rise in the east; 
Observe, that with the motion of the air 
These fading leaves do fall;— 

In the infernal region of the deep 
The sun doth never rise, nor ever set; 

Nor doth a falling leaf there e’er adorn 
Those black eternal plants. 

Thou still art on the earth ’mongst mortal men, 

And still thou livest. I am Narete. These 
Are the sweet fiords of Scyros. Know’st thou not 
The meadow where the fountain springs? this wood 1 
Euro’s great mountain, and Ormino’s hill; 
ihe hill where thou vvert born ? 

Thyrsis, upbraided by Phillis for loving 
another, while he supposed her dead , re 
plies — 

Thirsis. O do not turn thy face another way. 

Perhaps thou thinkest, by denying thus 
That lovely visage to these eyes of mine. 

To punish my misdeeds ; but think not so. 

Look on me still, and mark me what 1 say, 

(For, if thou know’st it not. I’ll tell thee then), 

A more severe revenger of thy wrongs 
Thou canst not have than those fair eyes of thine. 
Which by those shining beams that wound my heart 
Punish me more than all the world can do. 

What greater pain canst thou inflict on me, 

Than still to keep as fire before my face 
That lovely beauty, which I have betray’d ; 

That beauty, I have lost? 

Night breaks off her speech. 

Nioht.—B ut stay I for there methinks 1 see th< j 
Sun, 

Eternal Painter, now begin to rise, 

And limn the heavens in vermilion dye , 

And having dipt his pencil, aptly framed, 

Already in the colour of the morn, 

With various temper he doth mix in one 
Darkness and Light: and drawing curiously 
Strait golden lines quite thro’ the dusky sky, 

A rough draught of the day he seems to yield. 

With red and tawny in an azure field.— 

Already, by the clattering of their bits, 

Their gingli-ng harness, and their neighing sounds. 

I hear Eous and fierce Pirous 

Come panting on my back; and therefore l 

Must fly away. And yet I do not fly. 

But follow on my regulated course. 

And those eternal Orders I received 
From the First Mover of the Universe. 

c. L. 


401 












































THE TABLE BOOK. 


€i)t JBratna. 

Tl.e following communication from u a- 
matter-of-fact” correspondent, controverts 
an old dramatist’s authority on an historical 
point. It should be recollected, however, 
that poets have large license, and that few 
playwrights strictly adhere to facts without 
injury to poetical character and feeling. 
The letter is curious, and might suggest 
an amusing parallel in the manner of Plu¬ 
tarch, between the straightforward cha¬ 
racter and the poetical one. 

KING JOHN AND MATILDA. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Having been in the country during 
the publication of the first parts of the 
Table Book , I have but now just bought 
them; and on perusing them, I find in 
part 1, col. 112 et infra, Mr. C. Lamb’s 
first specimen of the Garrick Plays, called 
“ King John and Matilda;” w'herein the 
said Matilda, the daughter of the old baron 
Fitzwater* is supposed to be poisoned by 
King John’s order, in a nunnery. She is 
especially entitled therein as “ immaculate” 
—“ Virtue’s white virgin ,”—and “ maid and 
martyr.” Now, sir, I presume it to be well 
known, that in the best legends extant of 
the times of Richard I. and John, this iden¬ 
tical Matilda, or Maud Fitzwater, is chro¬ 
nicled as the chere amie and companion of 
the outlawed Robert Fitzooth, earl of Hunt¬ 
ingdon, whom, as “ Robin Hood,” she fol¬ 
lowed as “ Maid Marianand with whom, 
on his restoration to his honours by king 
Richard, (to his earldom and estates,) she 
intermarried, and became countess of Hunt¬ 
ingdon, and was in every respect a wife, 
though we have no records whether she 
ever became a mother; and that when by 
king John the earl was again outlawed, 
and driven to the wilds of Sherwood forest, 
lis countess also again shared his misfor- 
unes, and a second time took the name of 
“ Maid Marian,” (then rather a misnomer,) 
as he did that of “ Robin Hood.” 

During the outlawry of Robin Hood, 
and while Marian, or more properly Ma¬ 
tilda, was yet a maid, John (then prince 
John, Richard being in Palestine) made 
overtures to the old baron Fitzwalter for 
his daughter as a mistress, and being re¬ 
fused, and finding she was in the society of 
Robin Hood and his merry men, attacked 
them, and a bloody fray ensued; during 


I • This is an enor of the poet’s. His real name was 
i Kits-Walter, i. c. the son of IValter. 


which, John and Matilda (in the male cos¬ 
tume of foiest green) met, and fought: 
John required her to yield, and she as 
resolutely desired him, in a reproachful 
taunt, to win her first; and so stoutly did 
she belabour him, as the rest of the foresters j 
did his party also, that he was constrained 
to yield, and to withdraw from a contest in 
which nothing was to be got but blows. 

We hear nothing more of any attempts of 
John’s to molest her or her party till after 
the death of Richard, and his own accession 
to the throne, when he spitefully ousted 
the earl and countess from their honours 
and possessions, and confiscated all to his 
own use; and thus this unfortunate pair 
as I have above stated, were again con¬ 
strained to quit the castle for the forest. 

But it is certain, that long before John 
became king, Matilda, alias Maud, alias 
Marian, had ceased to be a maid; and we 
have no account of any attempts whatsoever 
made by king John upon or against the 
quondam Matilda Fitzwalter, afterwards 
alternately Maid Marian and countess of 
Huntingdon. Indeed all the legends of 
Robin Hood’s life present “ Maid Marian” i 
as having lived with him unmolested by any i 
such attempts during the whole of his second 
outlawry, and as having survived Robin’s 
tragical end ; though of her subsequent fate 
they are all silent, expressing themselves 
indeed ignorant of what was her destiny. 
Certainly she may then have retired into a 
nunnery, but at all events not as Matilda 
Fitzwalter; for she had been legally mar¬ 
ried and formally acknowledged by Rich¬ 
ard I. as countess of Huntingdon ; and as 
she spent the last part of her fellowship I 
with her husband in Sherwood forest under 
her romantic forest appellation, it is scarcely 
probable that she would resume her title 
on entering into a nunnery. I vvo,uld pre¬ 
sume, therefore, that however and wher¬ 
ever she ended her days, it must have been 
under the cognomen of “ Maid Marian.” 
And as her husband lived for some years 
in the forest after the accession of John, I 
should think it scarcely likely that after 
such a great lapse of time, and after the 
change which had taken place in Matilda 
both as regards her worldly station and 
age, and I should presume person, (from 
such a continued exposure to the air and 
weather,) John should renew any attempt 
upon her. 1 should therefore feel exceed¬ 
ingly gratified if either yourself or Mr. C 
Lamb could adduce any historical facts to 
reconcile all these discrepancies, and to 
show how the facts, as supposed in the 
play of “ King John and Matilda,” could. 


402 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


! jii the natural course of events, and in the 
very teeth of the declarations made in the 
history of Robin IIoc4 and his consort, 
ha^e taken place. 

Mark this also ;—the historians of Robin 
Mood and Maid Marian (and their history 
was written, if not by contemporaries, yet in 
the next generation ; nor is it likely that 
ft*oh a renowned personage should be un¬ 
noticed in chronicles for any space of time) 
all declare that they could not ascertain the 
fate of Marian after the death of Robin. 
His death and burial are well known, and 
the inscription to his memory is still extant; 
but she was lost sight of fiom the time of 
his decease. How comes it then that 
Robert Davenport, in the 17th century, 
should be so well informed, as to know that 
Matilda ended her days in a nunnery by 
poison administered by order of king John, 
when there is no tradition extant of the 
time or manner of her decease? We have 
no other authority than this of Davenport’s 
tragedy on the subject; and I should there¬ 
fore be inclined to think that he was mis¬ 
informed, and that the event recorded by 
him never happened. As to its being ano¬ 
ther Matilda Fitzwalter, it is highly pre¬ 
posterous to imagine. Is it likely that at 
the same time there should be two barons 
of that name and title, each having a daugh¬ 
ter named Matilda or Maud ? Davenport 
calls his baron the old baron Fitzwater; 
and the father of Maid Marian is described 
as the old baron : both must therefore have 
lived in the reign of Richard I., and also in 
that f- John till their death. Indeed we 
have proof that the baron was alive in 
John’s reign, because Richard I. having 
restored him at the same time that he par¬ 
doned Fitzooth, John dispossessed them both 
on his accession. 

I think it therefore highly improbable 
that there should have been so remarkable 
a coincidence as tivo baruns Fitzwalter, and 
tiro Matildas at the same time, and both 
the latter subject to the unwelcome ad¬ 
dresses of John : consequently I cannot 
give credence, without proofs , to the inci¬ 
dent in Davenport's play. 

I am, Sir, 

respectfully yours, 

“ The Veiled Spirit.” 

May 17, 1827. 

P. S.—Since writing the above, my friend 
F. C. N. suggests to me, that there was a 
baron Fitzwalter in John’s reign, proprietor 
of Castle Baynard, whose daughter Matilda 
r ^hn saw at a tourney, and being smitten 


with her charms, proposed to her father tor 
uer as his mistress, (precisely the events 
connected with Maid Marian ;) and being 
refused, he attacked Castle Baynard, and 
ultimately destroyed it. However,* for the 
reasons I have before stated, I am decidedly 
ol opinion, that if such a baron was pro¬ 
prietor of Castle Baynard, it must have 
been the father of Maid Marian, as I can¬ 
not suppose that there were two. I cannot 
precisely remember, nor have I any thing 
at hand to refer to, but I believe it was at a 
tourney somewhere that prince John first 
saw Maud. 


For the Table Book. 

TIIE PHANTOM LIGHT 

What phantom light from yonder lonely tower. 
Glimmers yet paler than the pale moon beam ;— 

Breaking the darkness of the midnight hour,— 

What bodes its dismal, melancholy gleam ? 

‘Tis not the brightness of that glorious light. 

That bursts in splendour from the hoary north • 

•Tis not the pharos of the dangerous night. 

Mid storms and winds benignly shining forth. 

Still are the waves that wash this desert shore. 

No breath is there to fill the fisher’s sail; 

Yet round yon isle is heard the distant roar 
Of billows writhing in a tempest’s gale. 

Doomed are the mariners that rashly seek 
To land in safety on that dreadful shore; 

For once engulfed in the forbidden creek. 

Their fate is sealed—they’re never heard of more. 

For spirits there exert unholy sway— 

When favoured by the night’s portentous gloom— 

Seduce the sailor from his trackless way, 

And lure the wretch to an untimely doom. 

A demon tenant’s yonder lonely tower, 

A dreadful compound of hell, earth, and air ; 

To-night he visits not his favourite bower, 

-So pale the light that faintly glimmers there. 

In storms he seeks that solitary haunt. 

And, with their lord, a grim unearthly crew ; 

Who, while they join in wild discordant chant, 

The mystic revels of their race pursue. 

But when the fiends have gained their horrid lair, 

The light then bursts forth with a blood-red glare • 

And phantom forms will flit along the wave 

Whose corses long had tenanted the grave 


403 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


A GROVE 

The Formation of one with a View 
to the Picturesque. 

The prevailing character of a grove is 
beauty; fine trees are lovely objects; a 
grove is an assemblage of them ; in which 
1 every individual retains much of its own 
peculiar elegance; and whatever it loses is 
transferred to the superior beauty of the 
whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits 
of endless variety in the disppsition of the 
trees, differences in their shapes and their 
greens are seldom very important, and 
sometimes they are detrimental. Strong 
contrasts scatter trees which are thinly 
planted, and which have not the connection 
of underwood; they no longer form one 
plantation ; they are a number of single 
trees. A thick grove is not indeed ex¬ 
posed to this mischief, and certain situa¬ 
tions may recommend different shapes and 
different greens for their effects upon the 
surface ; but in the outline they are seldom 
much regarded. The eye attracted into 
the depth of the grove passes by little cir¬ 
cumstances at the entrance ; even varieties 
in the form of the line do not always en¬ 
gage the attention : they are not so appa¬ 
rent as in a continued thicket, and are 
scarcely seen, if they are not considerable. 

But the surface and the outline are not 
the only circumstances to be attended to. 
Though a grove be beautiful as an object, 
it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or 
to sit in ; and the choice and the disposi¬ 
tion of the trees for effects within are there¬ 
fore a principal consideration. Mere ir¬ 
regularity alone will not please: strict 
order is there more agreeable than absolute 
confusion ; and some meaning better than 
none. A regular plantation has a degree 
of beauty ; but it gives no satisfaction, 
because we know that the same number of 
trees might be more beautifully arranged. 
A disposition, however, in which the lines 
only are broken, without varying the dis¬ 
tances, is less natural than any ; for though 
we cannot find straight lines in a forest, we 
are habituated to them in the hedge-rows 
of fields ; but neither in wild nor in culti¬ 
vated nature do we ever see trees equidis¬ 
tant from each other: that regularity belongs 
to art alone. The distances therefore should 
be strikingly different; the trees should 
gather into groups, or stand in various ir¬ 
regular lines, and describe several figures : 
ihe intervals between them should be con¬ 
trasted both in shape and in dimensions : a 
large space should in some places be quite 
open ; in others the trees should be so close 


together, as hardlj to leave a passage be- i 
tween them; and in others as far apart as 
the connection will allow. In the forms 
and the varieties of these groups, these 
lines, and these openings, principally con¬ 
sists the interior beauty of a grove. 

The consequence of variety in the dis¬ 
position, is variety in the light and shade 
of the grove; which may be improved by 
the choice of the trees. Some are impene¬ 
trable to the fiercest sunbeam ; others let 
in here and there a ray between the large 
masses of their foliage ; and others, thin 
both of boughs and of leaves, only checker 
the ground. Every degree of light and 
shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be 
managed, partly by the number, and partly 
by the texture of the trees. Differences 
only in the manner of their growths have 
also corresponding effects ; there is a close¬ 
ness under those whose branches descend 
low and spread wide, a space and liberty 
where the arch above is high, and frequent 
transitions from the one to the other are 
very pleasing. These still are not all the 
varieties of which the interior of a grove is 
capable; trees, indeed, whose branches 
nearly reach the ground, being each a sort 
of thicket, are inconsistent with an open 
plantation ; but though some of the cha¬ 
racteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, 
other varieties more minute succeed in their 
place ; for the freedom of passage through¬ 
out brings every tree in its turn near to the 
eye, and subjects even differences in foliage 
to observation. These, slight as they may 
seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is 
true they are not regretted when wanting, 
but a defect of ornament is not necessarily 
a blemish. 


For the Table Book. 

GROVES AND HIGH PLACES. 

The heathens considered it unlawful to 
build temples, because they thought no 
temple spacious enough for the sun. Hence 
the saying, Mandus universus est tetnplum 
solis, “ The whole world is a temple of 
the sun.” Thus their god Terminus, and 
others, were worshipped in temples open- 
roofed. Hills and mountains became the 
fittest places for their idolatry ; and these 
consecrated hills are the “ high places” so 
often forbidden in the sacred writings. As 
the number of their gods increased, so the 
number of their consecrated hills multiplied ; 
and from them their gods and goddesses 
took names, as Mercurius Cyllenius, Venus 
Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus. To beautify 
these holy hills, the places of their idola- 


404 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


trous worship, they beset them with trees; 
and thence arose the consecration of groves 
and woods, from whence also their idols 
were often named. At length certain 
choice and select trees began to be conse¬ 
crated. The French magi, termed Dryadae, 
worshipped the oak; the Etrurians wor¬ 
shipped an elm-tree; and amongst the 
Celtae, a tall oak was the very idol of 
Jupiter. 

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began 
under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and 
became so common, that they had peculiar 
priests, whom they termed the prophets of 
the grove and idols of the grove. 

Christians, in the consecration of their 
churches, make special choice of peculiar 
saints, by whose name they are called. The 
heathens consecrated their groves to pecu¬ 
liar idols ; whence in profane authors we 
read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Ardu- 
enna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their 
names from the groves in which they were 
worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes 
called a grove—“ Josiah brought out the 
grove from the house of the Lord.” It is 
probable, that in this idol was portraited 
the form and similitude of a grove, and 
that from thence it was called a grove, as 
those similitudes of Diana’s temple, made 
by Demetrius, were termed temples of 
Diana. 

| These customs appear exemplified by 
inscriptions on coins, medals, in church¬ 
yards, and the various buildings commemo¬ 
rated by marble, flowers, and durable and 
perishing substances. J. R. P. 

i *** The groves round London within a 
few' years have been nearly destroyed by 
the speculating builders. 

J. R. P.’s note may be an excuse for 
observing, that the “ grove’ best known, 
perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is 
that at Camberwell—a spacious roadway 
and fine walks, above half a mile in length, 
between rows of stately trees, from the 
beginning of the village and ascending the 
hill to its summit, from whence there is, or 
rather was, the finest burst of scenery the 
eye can look upon within the same dis¬ 
tance from London. The view is partially 
obstructed by new buildings, and the cha¬ 
racter of the “ grove ” itself has been gia- 
dually injured by the breaking up of the 
adjacent grounds and meadows into brick¬ 
fields, and the flanking of its sides with 
town-like houses. This grove has been the 
theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first 
gave celebrity to it by his writings, and 
pleasant residence on its eastern extremity ; 

I 


and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice 
in an elegant poem, with delightful en¬ 
gravings on wood. After the death of the 
benevolent physician, and before the de¬ 
cease of the illustrator of “Indian Anti¬ 
quities,” much of the earth, consecrated by 
their iove and praise, “ passed through the 
fire*’ in sacrifice to the Moloch of improve¬ 
ment. In a year or two “ Grove Ilill’’ may 
be properly named “ Grove Street.” 

Hampstead, however, is the “ place of 
groves —how' long it may remain so is a se¬ 
cret in thebosom of speculators and builders. 
Its first grove, townward, is the noble private 
avenue from the Hampstead-road to Bel- 
size-house, in the valley between Primrose 
hill and the hill whereon the church stands, 
with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson’s re¬ 
markable house and lodge at the corner of 
the pleasant highway to the little village of 
West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hamp¬ 
stead church, and between that edifice 
and the heath, there are several old groves. 
Winding southwardly from the heath, 
theie is a charming little grove in Well 
Walk, with a bench at the end ; where¬ 
on I last saw poor Keats, the poet of 
the “ Pot of Basil,” sitting and sobbing 
his dying breath into a handkerchief,— 
gleaning parting looks towards the quiet 
landscape he had delighted in—musing, as 
in his Ode to a Nightingale. 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 
My Sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, 

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : 

Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 

But being too happy in thine happiness,— 

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees. 

In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 

O, for a draught of vintage ! that hath been 
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country green. 

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth I 
O for a beaker full of the warm south, 

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 

With headed bubbles winking at the brim, 

And purple-stained mouth ; 

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 

What thou among the leaves hast never known. 
The weariness, the fever, and the fret 

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; 
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs. 
Where youth grows pale,and spectre-thin, and dies 
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden-eyed despairs, 

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eye3. 

Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow 


40o 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


i 



SMesst ®ltrkl)am Cburri), Jttnt. 


-From Beckenham church we walked 

about two miles along a nearly straight 
road, fenced off’ from the adjoining lands, 
till we reached West Wickham. It was 
from a painted window in this church that 
t I made the tracing of St. Catherine engraved 
in the Every-Day Book , where some men¬ 
tion is made of the retired situation of this 
village. 

“ Wickham Court,” the ancient manor- 
house adjacent to the church, was formerly 
the residence of Gilbert West, the transla¬ 
tor of Pindar, and author of the “ Obser¬ 
vations on the Resurrection of Christ/' for 
which the university of Oxford conferred 
on him the degree of doctor of laws. “ He 
was very often visited by Lyttelton and 
Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction 
and debates, used, at Wickham, to find 
books and quiet, a decent table, and lite¬ 
rary conversation.”* It was in West’s 

# Dr. Johnson 


society, at Wickham, that lord Lyttelton 
was convinced of the truth of Christianity. 
Under that conviction he wrote his cele¬ 
brated “ Dissertation on the Conversion 
and Apostleship of St. Paul,” which, until 
the appearance of Paley’s “ Horae Paulina,” 
was an unrivalled treatise. Mr. Pitt, (the 
great earl of Chatham,) during his intimacy 
with West, formed a walk at Wickham 
Court. In a summer-house of the grounds, 
Mr. West inscribed the following lines, in 
imitation of Ausonius, a Latin poet of the 
fourth century, “ Ad Viliam — 

Not wrapt in smoky London’s sulphurous clouds. 
And not far distant stands my rural cot; 

Neither obnoxious to intruding crowds. 

Nor for the good and friendly too remote. 

And when too much repose brings on the spleen. 

Or the gay city’s idle pleasures cloy ; 

Swift as my changing wish I change the scene. 

And now the country, now the town enjoy. 


406 















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The ancient manor of West Wickham 
was vested in sir Samuel Lennard, bart., 
from whom it passed to his daughter 
Mary, the present dowager lady Farnaby, 
who resides in the manor-house, and with 
vhose permission we were permitted a 
took at the hall of the mansion, w'hieh 
contains in the windows some painted re¬ 
mains of armorial bearings on glass, removed 
"Tom the windows of the church. A view 
in Hasted’s “ History of Kent” represents 
the towers of this mansion to have been 
surmounted by sextagon cones, terminated 
at the top with the fleur de lis, a bearing in 
the family arms; these pinnacles have been 
taken down, the roofs of the towers flat¬ 
tened, and the walls castellated. By a 
charter of free warren, in the eleventh year 
of Edward II., a weekly market was grant¬ 
ed to West Wickham, but it is no longer 
held, and Wickham, as a town, has lost its 
importance. 

The manor-house and church are dis¬ 
tant from the village about half a mile, 
with an intervening valley beautifully 
pleasant, in which is a road from Hayes 
Common to Addington and Croydon. The 
church is on a hill, with an old lich-gate, 
like that at Beckenham, though not so large. 
x4t this spot W. sat down, and made the 
sketch here represented by his graver. Al¬ 
though I had been in the edifice before, I 
could not avoid another visit to it. At the 
north-east corner, near the communion 
table, are many ancient figured tiles sadly 
neglected, loose in the pavement; some 
displaced and lying one upon the other. 
Worst of all,—and 1 mean offence to no one, 
but surely there is blame somewhere,—the 
ancient stone font, which is in all respects 
perfect, has been removed from its original 
situation, and is thrown into a corner. In 
its place, at the west end, from a nick (not 
a niche) between the seats, a little trivet- 
like iron bracket swings in and out, and 
upon it is a wooden hand-bowl, such as 
scullions use in a kitchen sink ; and in this 
hand-bowl, of about twelve inches diame¬ 
ter, called a font, I found a common blue- 
and-white Staffordshire-ware halfpint basin. 
It might be there still; but, while inveigh¬ 
ing to my friend W. against the deprava¬ 
tion of the fine old font, and the substitu¬ 
tion of such a paltry modicum, in my 
vehemence I fractured the crockery. I felt 
that I was angry, and, perhaps, I sinned ; 
but I made restitution beyond the extent 
that would replace the baptismal sic-p* 
basin. 

The fragments of old painted glass in 
the windows of this church are really fine. 


The best are, St. Anne leacmng the virgin 
to read; whole lengths of St. Christopher 
wading, with the infant Saviour bearing 
the globe in his hand; an elderly female 
saint, very good ; and a skeleton with armour 
before him. Some years ago, collectors of 
curiosities paid their attentions to these win¬ 
dows, and carried oft’ specimens: since 
then wires have been put up on the out¬ 
side. On the walls are hung pennons, with 
an iron helmet, sword, spurs, gloves, and 
other remains of a funereal pageant. A 
small organ stands on the floor: the parti¬ 
tions of some of the pewings are very 
ancient 


Copngrapbp. 

GODSTOW NUNNERY, 

Near Oxford. 

The wild-flower waves, in lonely bloom. 

On Godstow’s desolated wall: 

There thin shades flit through twilight gloom. 
And murmured accents feeo.y fall. 

The aged hazel nurtures there 
Its hollow fruit, so seeming fair. 

And lightly throws its humble shade. 

Where Rosamonda’s form is laid. 

The rose of earth, the sweetest flower 
That ever graced a monarch’s breast. 

In vernal beauty’s loveliest hour. 

Beneath that sod was laid to rest. 

In vain the bower of love around 
The Daedalean path was wound : 

Alas ! that jealous hate should find 
The clue for love alone designed! 

* 

The venomed bowl,—the mandate dire,— 

The menaced steel’s uplifted glare,— 

The tear, that quenched the blue eye’s fire,— 
The humble, ineffectual prayer:— 

All these shall live, recorded long 
In tragic and romantic song. 

And long a moral charm impart. 

To melt and purify the heart. 

A nation’s gem, a monarch’s pride. 

In youth, in loveliness, she died: 

The morning sun’s ascending ray 
Saw none so fair, so blest, so gay: 

Ere evening came, her funeral knell 
Was tolled by Godstow’s convent belL 

The marble tomb, the illumined shrine. 

Their ineffectual splendour gave : 

Where slept in earth the maid divine. 

The votive silk was seen to wave. 

To her, as to a martyred saint. 

His vows the weeping pilgrim poured 


407 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Th? drooping traveller, sad and faint. 

Knelt there, and found his strength restored: 

To that fair shrine, in solemn hour. 

Fend youths and blushing maidens came. 

And gathered from its mystic power 
A brighter, purer, holier flame : 

The lightest heart with awe could feel 
The charm her hovering spirit shed 
But superstition’s impious zeal 
Distilled its venom on the dead 

The illumined shrine has passed away ; 

The sculptured stone’in dust is laid. 

But when the midnight breezes play 
Amid the barren hazel’s shade, 

The lone enthusiast, lingering near. 

The youth, whom slighted passion grieves, 
Through fancy’s magic spell may hear 
A spirit in the whispering leaves; 

And dimly see, while mortals sleep, 

Sad forms of cloistered maidens move. 

The transient dreams of life to weep, 

The fading flowers of youth and love I 

Note. 

! 

A small chapel, and a wall, enclosing an 
ample space, are all now remaining of the 
Benedictine nunnery at Godstow. A hazel 
grows near the chapel, the fruit of which is 
always apparently perfect, but is invariably 
found to be hollow. 

This nunnery derives its chief interest 
from having been the burial-place of Rosa¬ 
mond. The principal circumstances of her 
story are thus related by Stowe : “ Rosa¬ 
mond, the fair daughter of Walter lord 
Clifford,concubine to Henry II., ^poisoned 
by queen Eleanor, as some thought,) died 
at Woodstock, (a. d. 1177,) where king 
Henry had made for her a house of wonder¬ 
ful working; so that no man or woman 
might come to her, but he that was in¬ 
structed by the king, or such as were right 
secret with him touching the matter. This 
house, after some, was named Labyrinthus, 
or Daedalus work, which was wrought like 
unto a knot in a garden, called a maze : 
but it was commonly sail, that lastly the 
queen came to her by a clue of thread, or 
silk, and so dealt with her, that she lived 
not long after: but when she was dead, she 
was buried at Godstow, in a house of nuns, 
beside Oxford, with these verses upon her 
tomb : 

Hie jacet in tumba, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda ; 
Non redolet, sed olet, qum redolere solet.” 

After her death, she appears to have 
been considered as a saint, from the follow¬ 
ing inscription on a stone cross, which, 
j Leland says, was erected near the nunnery : 



Qui meat hue, orei, signumqne saliitu aaoret, 
Utque sibi detur ventam, Rosamunda precetur. 

A fanatical priest, Hugh, bishop of Lin¬ 
coln, visiting he nunnery at Godstow, and 
observing a tomb covered with silk, and 
splendidly illuminated, which he found, on 
inquiry, to be the tomb of Rosamond, 
commanded her to be taken up, and buried 
without the church, lest the Christian reli¬ 
gion should grow into contempt. This 
brutal order was instantly obeyed : but “ the 
chaste sisters,” says Speed, “ gathered her 
bones, and put them in a perfumed bag, 
enclosing them so in lead, and laid them 
again in the church, under a fair large 
grave-stone, about whose edges a fillet of 
brass was inlaid, and thereon written her 
name and praise: these bones were at the 
suppression of the nunnery so found.”* 


ST. MARY MAGDALEN, BERMOND¬ 
SEY, SURREY. 

In the parish register of this church is 
the following very singular entry : 


“ The forme of a solemn vowe made 
betwixt a man and his wife, having been 
long absent, through which occasion the 
woman being married to another man, took 
her again as followeth : 

The Man’s Speech. 

“ Elizabeth, my beloved wife, I am right 
sorie that I have so long absented myself 
from thee, whereby thou shouldst be occa¬ 
sioned to take another man to be thy hus¬ 
band. Therefore I do now vowe and pro¬ 
mise, in the sight of God and this company, 
to take thee again as mine owne; and will 
not onlie forgive thee, but also dwell with 
thee, and do all other duties unto thee, as 
I promised at our marriage.” 

The Woman’s Speech. 

“ Raphe, my beloved husband, I am 
righte sorie that I have in thy absence 
taken another man to be my husband ; but 
here, before God and this companie, I do 
renounce and forsake him, and do promise 
to keep mysealfe only to thee duringe life, 
and to performe all the duties which I first 
promised to thee in our marriage.” 


Then follows a short occasional prayer, 
and the entry concludes thus :— 


* From the “ Genius of the Thames, a Lvrical Poem, 
with Notes, by Ihomas Love Peacock,” lsio. 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


“ The first day of August, 1604, Raphe 
Goodchilde, of the parish of Barking, in 
Thaines-street, and Elizabeth, his wife, 
were agreed to live together, and thereupon 
gave their hands one to another, making 
either of them a solemn vow so to do 
the presence of us. 


in 


“ William Stf.re, — Parson. 
“ Edward Coker; and 
“ Richard Evers, — Clerk.'* 


Tnere is also in the same register the 
lollowing entry :— 

“ James Herriot, Esq. and Elizabeth 
Josey, gent, were married June 4th, 1624- 
<5-— N. B. This James Herriott was one of 
the forty children of his father, a Scotch¬ 
man.” 

Query. —Was this James Herriot related 
to George Heriot, the munificent founder 
of the hospital at Edinburgh, who died at 
London in January of the same year? 


BROUGH, WESTMORELAND. 

The church at Brough is a pretty large 
handsome building. The steeple is not so 
old; having been built about the year 1513, 
under the direction of Thomas Blenkinsop, 
of Helbeck, Esq. There are in it four ex¬ 
cellent bells, by much the largest in the 
county, except the great bell at Kirkby 
Thore. Concerning these bells at Brough, 
there is a tradition that they were given by 
one Brunskill, who lived upon Stanemore, 
in the remotest part of the parish, and had 
a great many cattle. One time it happened 
that his bull fell a bellowing, which, in the 
dialect of the country, is called cruning, 
(this being the Saxon word to denote that 
vociferation.) Whereupon he said to one 
of his neighbours, “ Ilearest thou how loud 
this bull crunes? If these cattle should all 
crune together, might they not be heard 
from Brough hither ?” He answered, 
“ Yea.” “ Well, then,” says Brunskill , 
“ I’ll make them all crune together.” And 
he sold them all ; and with the price thereof 
he bought the said bells, (or pernaps he 
might get the old bells new cast and made 
larger.) — There is a monument in the 
church, in the south wall, between the 
highest and second windows, under which, 
it is said, the said Brunskill was the last 
that was inteired. 


The pulpit is of stone. There was here¬ 
tofore a handsome reading desk, given by 
sir Cuthbert Buckle , knight, vintner in 
London, who was born upon Stanemore in 
this parish, and was lord mayor of London 
in the year 1593. His name was upon the 
desk thus “ By Cuthbert Buckle, Anno 
Domini 1576.” He built also a bridge 
upon Stanemore, which still bears the name 
of Buckle's Bridge ; and gave eight pounds 
a year to a school udou Stanemore. 


For the Table Book. 

TO MY PSEUDO-MUSE. 

Hence, thou tormenting; wayward Being ' 
For ever courting, trifling, spreeing 
Thou Erysipelas of thrall. 

For ever, with thine addled hatch. 

I’ll shun thee as an arrant Scratch, 
Unworthy to be scratch’d at all. 

Thy Sonnets,staves, and stanzas rhyming 
To every key, to every chiming, 

St, Vitus’ Dance is ease to Thee : 

Thou shalt no more provoke my Quill 
To deeds of labour, or of skill. 

Thou cacocthes mise-re. 

Promethean fire—Parnassus smiling, 
Helicon’s spirituous drops beguiling,— 
Where’er thou com’st—whate’er thou be 
The Vagrant Act may take thee in ; 

I’ll drive thee out as Satan’s sin 
Thou worse than ft re of Anthony. 

Hence Jade ! tormentress of the feelings ;— 
Thou Witch of F.nd-or like revealing^:— 
Go—haunt the brains, not frenzy past: 

I’ll haste to Monmouth Street and buy 
A suit of Prose—then joyful cry 
Ecce Stultus I grown wise at last. 

If thou shou’d’st to my brain-door, knocking, 
Come with thy wheedling-pamby, mocking. 
I’ll catch thee vi et armis: —then 
By Habeas Corpus to the Pleas — 

— Sure I will rob thee of degrees. 

And scare thee from my Smithfield Pen , 

If I’m asleep—then thou art waiting. 
Angler-like, with thy couplets baiting, 

To drag my crazy thought to light: 
Awake! thy float, with stanza-hook, 

Is ever dipping in Mal-Brook — 

I’ll brook no more—if sense is right. 


> » 1 


419 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


BATHING. 

1 do not know any author who has 
reckoned man among the amphibious race 
of animals; neither do I know any animal 
that better deserves it. Man is lord of the 
little ball on which he treads, one half of 
which, at least, is water. If we do not 
allow him to be amphibious, we deprive 
him of half his sovereignty. He justly 
bears that name, who can live in the water. 
Many of the disorders incident to the hu¬ 
man frame are prevented, and others cured, 
both by fresh and salt bathing ; so that we 
may properly remark, “ He lives in the 
water who can find life, nay, even health in 
that friendly element.’' 

The greatest treasure on earth is health ; 
but a treasure, of all others, the least valued 
by the owner. Other property is best rated 
when in possession, but this can only be 
rated when lost. We sometimes observe a 
man, who, having lost this inestimable 
jewel, seeks it with an ardour equal to its 
worth; but when every research by land is 
eluded, he fortunately finds it in the water. 
Like the fish, he pines away upon shore, 
but, like that, recovers again in the deep. 

) The cure of disease among the Romans, 
by bathing, is supported by many authori¬ 
ties ; among others, by the number of baths 
frequently discovered, in which pleasure, 
in that warm climate, bore a part. But 
this practice seemed to decline with Roman 
freedom, and never after held the eminence 
it deserved. Can we suppose the physician 
slept between the disease and the bath to 
hinder their junction; or, that he lawfully 
holds by prescription the tenure of sickness 
in fee f* 


Ktttal Sports. 

ANGLING. 

When genial spring a living warmth bestows, 

And o’er the year her verdant mantle throws. 

No swelling inundation hides the grounds, 

But crystal currents glide within their bounds ; 

The finny brood their wonted haunts forsake. 

Float in the sun, and skim along the lake, 

With frequent leap they range the shallow streams, 
Their silver coats reflect the dazzling beams. 

Now let the fisherman his toils prepare. 

And arm himself with every wat’ry snare ; 

His hooks, his lines peruse with careful eye, 
Increase his tackle, and his rode retie. 


* W. Hutton. 


When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain 
Troubling the streams with swift-descending ran* 

And waters tumbling down the mountain’s side, 

Bear the loose soil into the swelling tide ; 

Then, soon as vernal gales begin to rise. 

And drive the liquid burthen thro’ the skies, 

The fisher to the neighbouring current speeds, 

Whose rapid surface purls., unknown to weeds ; 

Upon a rising border of the brook 

He sits him down, and ties the treach’rous hook; 

Now expectation cheers his eager thought. 

His bosom glows with treasures yet uncaught; 

Before his eyes a banquet seems to stand. 

Where every guest applauds his skilful hand. 

Far up the stream the twisted hair he throws, 

Which down the murm’ring current gently flows, 
When if or chance, or hunger’s pow’rful sway. 

Directs t’ne roving trout this fatal way, 

He greedily sucks in the twining bait. 

And tugs and nibbles the fallacious meat; 

Now, happy fisherman, now twitch the line ! 

How thy rod bends! behold, the prize is thine 
Cast on the bank, he dies with gasping pains. 

And trickling blood his silver mail distains. 

You must not ev’ry worm promiscuous use. 
Judgment will tell thee proper bait to choose ; 

The worm that draws a long immod’rate size 
The trout abhors, and the rank morsel flies ; 

And if too small, the naked fraud’s in sight. 

And fear forbids, while hunger does invite. 

Those baits will best reward the fisher’s pains, 

Whose polish’d tails a shining yellow stains: 

Cleanse them from filth, to give a tempting gloss. 
Cherish the sully’d reptile race with moss; 

Amid the verdant bed they twine, they toil 
And from their bodies wipe their native soi 

But when the sun displays his glorious beams, 

And shallow rivers flow with silver streams, 

Then the deceit the scaly breed survey, 

Bask in the sun, and look into the day. 

You now a more delusive art must try, 

/,.nd tempt their hunger with the curious fly. 

To frame the little animal, provide 
All the gay hues that wait on female pride: 

Let nature guide thee ; sometimes golden wire 
The shining bellies of the fly require ; 

The peacock’s plumes thy tackle must not fail, 

Nor the dear purchase of the sable’s tail. 

Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings. 

And lends the growing insect proper wings : 

Silks of all colours must their aid impart, 

And ev’ry fur promote the fisher’s art. 

So the gay lady, with expensive care. 

Borrows the pride of land, of sea, and air; 

Furs, pearls, and plumes, the glittering thing displays. 
Dazzles our eyes, and easy hearts betrays. 

Mark well the various seasons of the year. 

How the succeeding insect race appear ; 

In this revolving moon one colour reigns. 

Which in the next the fickle trout disdain* 


410 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Oft, have I seen a skilful angler try 
The various colours of the treach’rous fly; 

When he with fruitless pain hath skimm’d the brook, 
And the coy fish rejects the skipping hook, 

He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow, 

Which o’er the stream a waving forest throw ; 

When if an insect fall, (his certain guide) 

He gently takes him from the whirling tide ; 
Examines well his form with curious eves. 

His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, and size. 

Then round liis hook the chosen fur he winds, 

And on the back a speckled feather binds ; 

So just the colours shine thro’ every part, 

That Nature seems to live again in art, 

Let not thy wary steps advance too near. 

While all thy hope hangs on a single hair : 

The new-form’d insect on the water moves, 

The speckled trout the curious snare approves ; 

Upon the curling surface let it glide. 

With nat’ral motion from thy hand supply’d, 

I Against the stream now gently let it play, 

J Now in the rapid eddy roll away. 

The scaly shoals float by, and seiz’d with fear. 

Behold their fellows toss’d in thinner air ; 

But soon they leap, and catch the swimming bait, 
i Plunge on the hook, and share an equal fate. 

When a brisk gale against the current blows, 

And all the wat’ry plain in wrinkles flows. 

Then let the fisherman his art repeat, 

Where bubbling eddies favour the deceit. 

If an enormous salmon chance to spy 
The wanton errors of the floating fly. 

He lifts his silver gills above the flood. 

And greedily sucks in th’ unfaithful food ; 

Then downward plunges with the fraudful prey. 

And bears with joy the little spoil avr ay. 

Soon in smart pain he feels the dire mistake. 

Lashes the wave, and beats the foamy lake: 

With sudden rage he now aloft appears. 

And in his eye convulsive anguish bears ; 

And now again, impatient ot the wound, 

He rolls and wreaths his shining body round ; 

Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, 

The trembling tins the boiling wave divide ; 

Now hope exalts the fisher’s beating heart, 

Now he turns pale, and fears his dubious art; 

He views trie tumbling fish with longing eyes ; 

While the line stretches with th’ unwieldy prize ; 
Each motion humours ivith his steady hands. 

And one slight hair the mighty bulk commands : 

Till tir’d at last, despoil’d of all his strength, 

The game athwart the stream unfolds his lengi'n. 

He now. witn pleasure, views the gasping prize 
Gnash his sharp teeth, and roll his blood shot eyi 
Then draws him to the shore, with artful care, 

And lifts his nostrils in the sick’ning air: 

Upon the burthen’d stream he floating lies, 
Stretching his quivering fins, and gasping dies. 

Would you preserve a num’rous fanny race i 
Let your fierce dogs the rav’nous otter chase ; 

Th’ amphibious monster ranges all the shores. 

Darts through the waves, and ev’ry haunt exolores • 


Or let the gin his roving steps betray. 

And save from hostile jaws the scaly prey. 

I never wander where the bordering reeds 
O’erlook the muddy stream, wnosc tangling weeds 
Perplex the fisher; I, nor choose to bear 
The thievish nightly net, nor barbed spear ; 

Nor drain I ponds the golden carp to take. 

Nor troll for pikes, dispeoplers of the lake. 

Around the steel no tortur’d worm shall twine, 

No blood of living insect stain my line ; 

Let me, less cruel, cast the feather’d hook. 

With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, 

Silent along the mazy margin stray. 

And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey. 

Oat/. 

GOOD-LIVING. 

A Domestic Scene. 

Gent. I wish, my dear, you would not 
keep the carriage an hour always at the 
door, when we go to a party. 

Lady. Surely, my dear, it could not have 
waited half so long ; and that was owing 
to the unusual length of our rubber. 

Gent. I feel exceedingly unwell this even¬ 
ing, my head aches confoundedly, and my 
stomach is very uneasy. 

Lady. You know, my dear, Mr. Aber- 
nethy told you, that after such a severe tit 
you ought to be very careful and moderate 
in your living. 

Gent. Mr. Abernethy is a fool. Can 
any body be more moderate than I am ? 
you would have me live upon water-gruel, 
I suppose. The rich pudding, indeed, that 
Mrs. Belcour made me eat, might possibly 
not have sat quite easy on the soup, and 
the salmon, and the chicken and ham, and 
the harrico, and the turkey and sausages ; 
or, it is possible, the patties I eat before 
dinner might not perfectly agree with me, 
for I had by no means a good appetite 
when I sat down to dinner. 

Lady. And then, you know, you eat so 
many cakes, and such a quantity of al¬ 
monds and raisins, and oranges after din¬ 
ner. 

Gent. How could I have got down Bel- 
cour’s insufferable wine, that tasted of the 
cork, like the fag bottle at a tavern dinner, 
without eating something ? 

Lady. And I am sure you drank a glass 
of Madeira with every mouthful almost at 
dinner; for l observed you. 

Gent. Why how could one swallow such 
ill-dressed things, half cold too, without 
drinking? I can’t conceive what makes 
me feel so unwell this evening; these flatu- 


411 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


lencies will certainly kill me. It must be 
the easterly wind we have had for these 
three days that affects me: indeed, most of 
my acquaintance are complaining, and the 
doctors say, disorders are very prevalent 

now.-What can I have ? John, make 

me a tumbler of brandy and water—make 
it strong, and put ginger enough in it. I 
h ive not the least appetite—what can I 
have ? 

Lady. There is ham, and, I believe, 
some chicken— 

Gent. Why, do you think I have the 
stomach of a ploughman, that I can eat 
such insipid things! Is there nothing 
else. 

Lady. There is a loin of pork—perhaps 
y u could relish a chop, nicely done ? 

Gent. fVhy, if it teas nicely done, very 
nicely, perhaps I could; I’ll try —but re¬ 
member it must be done to a moment , or I 
shan’t be able to touch it—and made hot — 
and some nice gravy. Confound these 
parties !—could any thing be more stupid. 
While Martin was sleeping on one side of 
me, there was Bernard on the other did 
nothing but bore me about his horses, and 
his wines, and his pictures, till I wished 
them all at old Harry—I think I shall have 
done with parties. 

Lady. I am sure, my dear, they are no 
pleasure to me; and, if they were, I pay 
dear enough for it: for you generally come 
home in an ill humour—and your health 
and your pocket too suffer for it. Your 
last bill came to more than ninety pounds, 
besides your expenses at Cheltenham—and 
the next thing, I suppose, will be a voyage 
to Madeira, or Lisbon—and then what will 
become of us ? 

Gen\ What, do you grudge me the ne- 
| cessaries of life ? It is I that am the suf¬ 
ferer— 

Lad i. Not entirely so: I am sure I feel 
the effects of it, and so do the servants. 
Your temper is so entirely changed, that 
the po >r children are afraid to go near you 
—you make every body about you miser¬ 
able, and you know Smith lost his cause 
from your not being able to attend at the 
last assizes, which will be nearly the ruin 
of him and his family. Two days before 
you were tolerably well, but after you had 
dined at-’s, you were laid up. 

Gent. Nay, I was as much concerned at 
it as any body could be; and I think I had 
reason to be so, for I lost three hundred 
pounds myself—but who can help illness? 
iIs it not a visitation of Providence? I am 
sure nobody can live more temperately 
than I do— do you ever see me drunk ? 


A’n’t I as regular as clockwork ? Indeed, 
my dear, if you cannot talk more rationally 
you had better go to bed. John! why 
don’t you bring the brandy and water! and 
see if the chop is ready ; if I am not better 
in the morning, 1 am sure I shall not be 
able to attend my appointment in the 
city- 

There will always be a few ready to re¬ 
ceive the hints of experience, and to them 
only can this scene be useful. 


DRINKING. 

Lime applied to trees makes them put 
forth leaves and flourish, and produce fruit 
early, but then it kills them. Wine cheers 
and stimulates men, and makes them thrust 
forth flowers of wit; but, then, there is no 
doubt it shortens life.* 


KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD 
By St. Evremond. 

The first thing by which we know men, 
is the physiognomy, the colour, and the 
lineaments of the face: the briskness, the 
air, the motion of the body, the action, the 
sound of the voice, the aspect, &c.: and 
there is no man, but at/first sight we are 
either well or ill affected towards him. 
Every man makes some impressions upon 
us of what he is ; but these impressions, 
being sudden, are not always certain, a 
little frequent conversation with him per¬ 
fects our knowledge of him. 

Hear the man with whom you keep com¬ 
pany ; endeavour to draw him in to make 
a long discourse, and then you will easily 
perceive the greatness or meanness of his 1 
wit, his civility, his inclination to vice or 
virtue, and to what kind of vice or virtue 
he is most inclined ; whether he be sincere 
in his speech or a man of artifice; whetheT 
he aggravates matters, if he be a liar, or a 
proud man, and to what degree he carries 
his good or bad qualities. 

Study well the persons with whom you 
converse familiarly, and with least circum¬ 
spection. Examine them when they are 
sedate, in an obliging humour; and when 
they are in anger, in a disdainful and mo¬ 
rose humour. When something vexes 01 


* Perron. 


412 













THE TABLE 

pleases them, observe them in their sorrow 
and disgrace, in their pleasures, in their 
advancement, and in their humiliation. Be 
attentive to their discourse in all these 
several states, consider their behaviour, 
their sentiments, their projects, and the 
different motions which their passions, 
their ranks, and their affairs, produce in 
them. r 

Moreover, endeavour also to know your¬ 
self very well; consider in all the different 
states, wherein good or bad fortune has 
placed you, the designs which you pursue, 
and the resolutions for doing good or evil, 
you aie capable of making. These several 
observations upon yourself and others will 
infallibly make you know mankind. And 
the reason of it is this :—all men, and even 
philosophers themselves, are, more or less, 
subject to the same passions, and all of 
them think very nearly after the same 
manner. 

Of the most excellent qualities, that of 
knowing the world is most necessary for 
our behaviour, and for our fortune :—for 
our behaviour , because otherwise our life is 
liable to continual crosses, and is nothing 
else but one continued series of extrava¬ 
gancies, which will bring upon us a thou¬ 
sand bad businesses :—for our fortune, be¬ 
cause if we do not know men, we cannot 
make use of them in that way which is 
most convenient with respect to our inter¬ 
est. It is necessary therefore to know 
them, and to behave ourselves with each of 
them after such a manner as is most agree¬ 
able to their character. A prudent man, 
with respect to others, is like a master who 
knows all the springs of an engine, and 
makes them play as he pleases, either for 
his pleasure or advantage. 

It seems to me, that our first motion 
should be to distrust the world in general, 
and even to have a bad opinion of it. The 
world, such as it should be, is full of virtue; 
out as we see it, it is full of wickedness 
and malice; and this latter world is that 
we should endeavour to know well, because 
we live in it, and it concerns us very much 
to avoid its deceits. 

But why should we have so bad an 
opinion of the world? Why, because men 
are born with a bad disposition, and they 
carry in their heart at their birth the source 
of all vices, and an aversion to all virtues, 
which would hinder their singularity ; and 
which they cannot acquire but by such 
pains as they are not willing to take. Yet 
I do not say that we must thf refore think 
ill of all particular persons, b ;t it is good 
to know them. 


BOOK. 

THE TONGA ISLANDS. 

Wild and straggling as the flowers 
Is human nature there ; 

Uncultivated all its powers 
In that secluded air: 

The passions fiery, bold, and strong, 

Impetuous urge their course along. 

Like mountain torrent rolling 
More rapid as the more confined. 

Far leaving Reason’s rules behind, 

No curb of law controlling ! 

The spectre Superstition there 

Sits trembling on her gloomy throne ! 

Pale cnild of Ignorance and Fear, 

Embodying shapes of things unknown : 

When, when shall rise the glorious morn 
Of heavenly radiance unconfined ? 

When shall the mental veil be torn. 

And God be known by all mankind ? 

Full many a ray must pierce the soul. 

Ere darkness quits the southern pole : 

Yet here are maidens kind and true 
As ever northern pencil drew ; 

And here are warriors brave and young' 

As ever northern minstrel sung ! 

A nd see, upon the valley’s side 
With fairy footstep lightly glide 
A train of virgins soft and fair, 

With sparkling eyes and shining hair. 

As beauteous as the flowers they bear— 

Fresh flowers of every scent and hue. 

Besprinkled with the morning dew. 

Which they have risen before the sun 
To gather for some favourite one. 

It is a custom at Tonga for the young 
women to gather flowers in the earlier part 
of the morning, and twine them on their 
return into various ornaments, for them¬ 
selves, and their relations and friends. 
They gather them at sunrise while the 
dew of the morning is still fresh on them ; 
because, when plucked at that time, their 
fragrance is of longer continuance.* 


SENSIBILITY IN A RAVEN. 

In 1785 there was living at the Red 
Lion inn, Hungerford, Wiltshire, a ravfen, 
respecting which a correspondent commu¬ 
nicated to “Mr. Urban” the following 
anecdote:— 

His name, I think, is “ Rafeand you 
must know, that going into that inn, my 
chaise ran over, or bruised, the leg of my 
Newfoundland dog. W 7 hile we were ex¬ 
amining the injury done to the dog’s fool, 


* From the “ Ocean Cavern, a Tale of the Tcr«re 
.'stands,” 1819. 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


Rate was evidently a concerned spectator ; 
for, the minute the dog was tied up under 
the manger with my horses, Rafe not only 
visited, but fetched him bones, and attended 
upon him with particular and repeated 
marks of kindness. The bird’s notice of 
the dog was so marked, that I observed it 
to the hostler. John then told me, that the 
raven had been bred from his pin-feather 
in intimacy with a dog; that the affection 
between them was mutual; and that all 
the neighbourhood had often been witnesses 
of the innumerable acts of kindness they 
had conferred upon each other. Kafe’s 
poor dog, after a while, unfortunately broke 
his leg; and during the long time he was 
confined, Rafe waited upon him constantly, 
carried him his provisions daily, and never 
scarce left him alone. One night, by acci¬ 
dent, the hostler had shut the stable door, 
and Rafe was deprived of the company of 
his friend the whole night; but the hostler 
found in the morning the bottom of the 
door so pecked away, that, had it not been 
opened, Rafe would, in another hour, have 
made his own entrance-port. I then in¬ 
quired of my landlady, (a sensible woman,) 
and heard what I have related confirmed 
by her, with several other singular traits of 
the kindnesses this bird showed to all dogs 
i in general, but particularly to maimed or 
| j mounded ones. 


DIAMONDS. 

And. the sparkling stars began to shine. 

Like scatter’d gems in the diamond mine. 

The diamond is chiefly found in the 
provinces of Golconda and Visiapour, and 
also in that of Bengal. Raolconda, in 
Visiapour, and Gandicotta, are famed for 
their mines, as is Coulour in Golconda. 
The diamond is generally found in the nar¬ 
row crevices of the rocks, loose, and never 
adherent -to the fixed stratum. The miners, 
with long iron rods, which have hooks at 
the ends, pick out the contents of the fis¬ 
sures, and wash them in tubs, in order to 
extricate the diamonds. In Coulour they 
dig on a large plain, to the depth of ten or 
fourteen feet; forty thousand persons are 
employed ; the men to dig, and the women 
and children to carry the earth to the places 
where it is deposited till the search is 
made.* 


* A cote to the “ Ocean Cavern.” 


STOICAL WIT. 

Zeno detected his slave in a theft, ant 
ordered him to be flogged. The slave hav. 
ing in mind the dogmas of his master, and 
thinking to compliment him, in order to 
save himself from punishment, exclaimed— 
“ It was fated that I should commit this 
theft.’*—“ And also that you should be 
flogged for it,” replied Zeno. 


CAMBRIDGE WIT. 

When Dr. Jeggon, afterwards bishop oi l 
Norwich, was master of Bennet College ! 
Cambiidge, he punished all the under gra- j 
auates for some general offence; and ! 
because he disdained to convert the penalty- j 
money into private use, it was expended on : 
new whitening the hall of the college. A 
scholar hung the following verses on the 
screen:— 

“ Dr. Jeggon, Bennet College master, 

Broke the scholars' heads , and gave the walls a plas¬ 
ter." 

The doctor, perusing the paper, wrote 
underneath, extempore :— 

“ Knew I but the wag that writ these verses in bra 
very. 

I’d commend him for his wit, but whip him for K- 
knavery." 


SENTENCES 

Worthy to be got by Heart. 

As you cannot overtake time, the best 
way is to be always a few minutes before 
him. 

Whatever your situation in life may be, 
lay down your plan of conduct for the day. 
The half hours will glide smoothly on, 
without crossing or jostling each other. 

When you set about a good work, do 
not rest till you have completed it. 

In the morning, think on what you are 
to do in the day, and at night, think on 
what you have done. 

Religion is the best armour, but the 
worst cloak. 

If you make an intentional concealment 
of any thing in a court of judicature, it will 
lie like lead upon your conscience all the 
days of your life. 

Do as you wish to be done by. Follow 
this rule, and you will need no force to keep 
you honest. 


414 








































— 


TABLE BOOK. 



Oje (guntnal JUng. 


This is an ancient form of the “ tool of 
matrimony,” from one found at Horsley- 
down, and exhibited in 1800 to the Society 
of Antiquaries. Mr. Robert Smith, the 
possessor of this curious ring, transmitted 
with it some remarks and descriptions of a 
nature very interesting to the lovers of 
archaeology, and the “ happy estateand 
from thence is derived the following ac¬ 
count of this particular ring, with illustra¬ 
tions of the form and use of the g.immal- 
ring generally.— 

This ring is constructed, as the name 
imports, of twin or double hoops, which 
play one within another, like the links of a 
chain. Each hoop has one of its sides flat, 
the other convex; each is twisted once 
round, and each surmounted by a hand, 
issuing from an embossed fancy-work wrist 
or sleeve; the hand rising somewhat above 
the circle, and extending in the same direc¬ 
tion. The course of the twist, in each 
hoop, is made to correspond with that of 
| Us counterpart, so that on bringing toge¬ 
ther the flat surfaces of the hoops, the latter 
immediately unite in one ring. On the 
lower hand, or that of which the palm is 
uppermost, is represented a heart; and, as 
the hoops close, the hands slide into con¬ 
tact, forming, with their ornamented wrists, 
a head to the whole. The device thus pre¬ 
sents a triple emblem of love, fidelity, and 
union. Upon the flat side of the hoops are 
engraven u Usd de Vertu,” in Roman 
capitals; and, on the inside of the lower 
wrist, the figures “ 990.” The whole is of 
fine gold, and weighs two pennyweights 
four grains. 

It is of foreign workmanship, probably 
French, and appears to be of no great anti¬ 
quity ; perhaps about the reign of our 
oueen Elizabeth: for though the time of 
fie introduction into Europe of the Arabic 
• amcrals be referred by some to an ana 


nearly corresponding with the figures on 
the ring, the better opinion seems to be, 
that the Arabian method of notation was 
unknown to the Europeans until about the 
middle of the 13th century. It is conjec¬ 
ture, therefore, that the figures were meant 
to express, not a date, but the artist’s num¬ 
ber ; such as we see still engraven on 
watches. The workmanship is not incuri¬ 
ous ; and the ring furnishes a genuine spe¬ 
cimen of the ghnrnal , (a term now almost 
forgotten.) 

Rings, it is wel. knowm, are of great anti¬ 
quity ; and, in the early ages of the world, 
denoted authority and government. These 
were communicated, symbolically, by the 
delivery of a ring to the person on whom 
they were meant to be conferred. Thus 
Pharaoh, when he committed the govern¬ 
ment of Egypt to Joseph, took the ring 
from his finger and gave it to Joseph, as a 
token of the authority with which he in¬ 
vested him. So also did Ahasuerus to his 
favourite Haman, and to Mordecai, who 
succeeded him in his dignity. 

In conformity to this ancient usage, re¬ 
corded in the Bible, the Christian church 
afterwards adopted the ceremony of the 
ring in marriage, as a symbol of the autho¬ 
rity which the husband gave the wife over 
his household, and over the “ earthly goods’" 
with which he endowed her. 

But the gimmal ring is comparatively of 
modern date. It should seem, that we are 
indebted for the design to the ingenious 
fancies of our Gallic neighbours, whose skill 
in diversifying the symbols of the tendei 
passion has continued unrivalled, and in 
the language of whose country the mottoes 
employed on almost all the amorous trifles 
are still to be found. It must be allowed, 
that the double hoop, each apparently free 
yet inseparable, both formed for uniting, 
and complete only in their union, affords a 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


not unapt representation of the married 
state. 

Among the numerous “ love-tokens ” 
which lovers have presented to their mis¬ 
tresses, in all ages, the ring bears a con¬ 
spicuous part; nor is any more likely than 
the gimmal to “steal the impression of a 
| mistress’s fantasy , 0 as none so clearly ex¬ 
presses its errand. In the “ Midsummer- 
Night’s Dream ” of Shakspeare, where 
Egeus accuses Lysander, before the duke, 
of having inveigled his daughter’s affec¬ 
tions, or, as the old man expresses it, 
“witch’d the bosom” of his child, he ex¬ 
claims, 

“ Thou hast given her rhimes. 

And interchang’d love-tokens with my child: 

Thou hast, by moon-light, at her window sung. 
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love ; 

And stol’n the impression of her fantasie. 

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits.” 

From a simple love-token, the gimmal 
was at length converted into the more seri¬ 
ous “ sponsalium annulus,” or ring of affi¬ 
ance. The lover putting his finger through 
one of the hoops, and his mistress hers 
through the other, were thus, symbolically, 
yoked together; a yoke which neither could 
be said wholly to wear, one half being 
allotted to the other. In this use of the 
gimmal may be seen typified, “a commu¬ 
nity of interests, mutual forbearance, and a 
participation of authority.” 

The French term for it is foi, or alli¬ 
ance ; which latter word, in the “ Diction- 
naire de Trevoux,” is defined, “bague ou 
jonc que Vaccordi donne a son accordte, oh 
il y a uu fil d'or , et un fil d'argent.” This 
definition not only shows the occasion of its 
use, but supposes the two hoops to be 
composed, one of gold, the other of silver; 
a distinction evidently meant to characterise 
the bridegroom and bride. Thus Columella 
calls those vines which produce two differ- 
, ent sorts of grapes, “ gemellae vites.” 

] Our English glossaries afford but little 
information on the subject. Minshew refers 
the reader from gimmal to gemow ; the 
former he derives from “ gemellus,” the 
latter from the French “ jurneau and he 
explains the gemow ring to signify “ double 
or twinnes , because they be rings with two 
or more links.” Neither of the words is in 
Junius. Skinner and Ainsworth deduce 
gimmal from the same Latin origin, and 
suppose it to be used only of something 
consisting of correspondent parts, or dou¬ 
ble Dr. Johnson gives it a more extensive 
signification ; he explains gimmal to mean, 

! “ some little quaint devices, or pieces of 


machinery,” and refers to Hanmer : but he 
inclines to think the name gradually cor¬ 
rupted from geometry or geometrical, be¬ 
cause, says he, “ any thing done by occult 
means is vulgarly said to be done by geo¬ 
metry.” 

The word is not in Cnaucer, nor in Spen¬ 
ser; yet both Blount in his “ Glossography,” 
and Philips in his “ World of Words,” have 
geminals ; which they interpret twins. 

Shakspeare has gimmal in two or three 
places; though none of the commentators 
seem thoroughly to understand the term. 

Gimmal occurs in “ King Henry the 
Fifth,” Act IV. Scene II., where the French 
lords are proudly scoffing at the condition 
of the English army. Grandpree says, 

“ The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks. 

With torch-staves in their hands ; and their poor jade« 
Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips : 

The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes ; 

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit 
Lies foul with chaw’d grass, still and motionless.” 

We may understand the gimmal bit, 
therefore, to mean either a double bit, in 
the ordinary sense of the word {duplex,') 
or, which is more appropriate, a bit com¬ 
posed of links, playing one within another, 
{gemellus .) 

In the “ First Part of King Henry the 
Sixth,” after the French had been beaten 
back with great loss, Charles and his lords 
are concerting together the farther measure* 
to be pursued, and the king says, 

“ Let’s leave this town, for they are hare-brain’d slave*. 
And hunger will enforce them to be more eager: 

Of old I know them; rather with their teeth 

The walls they’ll tear down, than forsake the siege.” 

To which Reignier subjoins, 

“ I think, by some odd gimmals or device. 

Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on ; 

Else they could ne’er hold out so, as they do. 

By my consent we’ll e’en let them alone.” 

Some of the commentators have the fol- ! 
lowing note upon this passage: “A gimmal 
is a piece of jointed work, where one piece 
moves within another; whence it is taken 
at large for an engine. It is now vulgarly 
called ‘ gimcrack.’ ” 


Mr. Archdeacon Nares instances a stage 
direction in “ Lingua,” an old play— 
“ Enter Anamnestes (a page to Memory) 
in a grave sattin sute, purple buskins, &c. 
a gimmal ring with one link hanging.” He 
adds, that gimmal rings, though originally 
double, were by a further refinement made 


416 




























rHE TABLE BOOK. 


tripie, or even more complicated; yet the 
name remained unchanged Herrick, in 
his “ Hesperides,” has the following verses. 

The Jimmal Ring , or True-love-knot. 

Thou sent’st to me a true-love-knot; but I 
Return’d a ring of jiinmals, to imply 
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple-tye. 

According to Randle Holme, who, under 
the term “ annulet,” figures the gimmal 
rirg,* * Morgan, in his “ Sphere of Gen¬ 
try,” speaks of “ three triple gimbal rings 
borne by the name of Hawberke which 
Mr. Nares says was “ evidently because 
the hawberk was formed of rings linked 
into each other.” 

A further illustration of the gimmal ring 
may be gathered from the following pas¬ 
sage. “It is related in Davis’s Rites of the 
Cathedral of Durham, (8vo. 1672, p. 51,) 
that over our lady of Bolton’s altar there 
was a marvellous, lively, and beautiful 
image of the picture of our lady, called 
the lady of Bolton, which picture was 
made to open with gimmes (or linked fast¬ 
enings) from the breast downward ; and 
within the said image was wrought and 
pictured the image of our Saviour marvel¬ 
lously finely gilt.”f 

I find that the brass rings within which 
the seaman’s compass swings, are by the 
seamen called gimbals. This is the only 
instance I can discover of the term being 
still used. 

* 


The gimmal ring appears in common 
language to have been called a joint-ring. 
There is a passage relating to it in Dryden’s 
“ Don Sebastian.” 

“ A curions artist wrought ’em, 

With joynts so close as not to be perceiv’d ; 

Yet are they both each other’s counterpart. 

CHer part had Juan inscrib’d, and his had Zar/da. 

You know those names were theirs:; and, in the midst, 
A heart divided in two halves was plac’d. 

! Now if the rivets of those rings, inclos’d. 

Fit not each other, I have forg’d this lye : 

But if they join, you must for ever part. 

According to other passages in this play 
One of these rings was worn by Sebastian s 
father : the other by Almeyda’s mother, as 
pledges of love. Sebastian pulls off his, 
which had been put on his finger by his 

dying father : Almeyda does the same with 

_- — / 

• Academy of Armory, b. iii. c. 2. p. 20. 

t Hose on Ancient Mysteries, p. 


hers, which had been given her by her 
mother at parting : and Alvarez unscrews 
both the rings, and fits one half to the 
other. 


There is a beautiful allusion to the em¬ 
blematical properties of the wedding ring 
in the following poem :— 

TO S- n-, WITH A RING. 

Emblem of happiness, not bought, nor sold, 

Accept tliis modest ring of virgin gold. 

Love in the small, but perfect, circle, trace, 

And duty, in its soft, though strict embrace. 

Plain, precious, pure, as best becomes the wife ; 

Yet firm to bear the frequent rubs of life. 

Connubial love disdains a fragile toy, 

Which rust can tarnish, or a touch destroy ; 

Nor much admires what courts the gen’ral gaze. 

The dazzling diamond's meretricious blaze. 

That hides, with glare, the anguish of a heart 
By nature hard, tho’ polish’d bright by art. 

More to thy taste the ornament that shows 
Domestic bliss, and, without glaring, glows. 

Whose gentle pressure serves to keep the mind 
To all correct, to one discreetly kind. 

Of simple elegance th’ unconscious charm. 

The holy amulet to keep from harm ; 

To guard at once and consecrate the shrine. 

Take this dear pledge—It makes and keeps the* 
mine.* 


(Satrtrfe fUaps. 

No. XXIV. 

[From “ Chabot, Admiral of France,” a 
Tragedy, by G. Chapman and J. Shirley 
1639.J 

No Advice to Self Advice. 

■-another’s knowledge, 

Applied to my instruction, cannot equal 
My own soul’s knowledge how to inform acts. 

The sun’s rich radiance shot thro’ waves most fair, 

Is but a shadow to his beams i’ th’ air ; 

His beams that in the air we so admire. 

Is but a darkness to his flame in fire ; 

In fire his fervour but in vapour flies, 

To what his own pure bosom rarifies : 

And the Almighty Wisdom having given 
Each man within himself an apter light 
To guide his acts than any light without him, 
(Creating nothing, not in all thmgs equal). 

It seem3 a fault in any that depend 
On others* knowledge, and exile their owi. 

Virtue under Calumny. 

—— as in cloudy days we see the Sun 
Glide oveT turrets, temples, richest fields, 

* Collection of Poems, Dublin, 1801, 8ro. 


417 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 


(AU those left dark and slighted in his way) ; 
And on the wretched plight of some poor shed 
Pours all the glories of his golden head: 

So heavenly Virtue on this envied Lord 
Points all his graces. 


[From “ Caesar and Pompey,” a Tragedy, 
by G. Chapman, 1631.J 

Cato's Speech at Utica to a Senator , who 
had exprest fears on his account. 

Away, Statilius ; how long shall thy love 
Exceed thy knowledge of me, and the Gods, 

Whose rights thou wrong’st for my right ? have not I 
Their powers to guard me in a cause of theirs, 

Their justice and integrity to guard me 
In what I stand for? he that fears the Gods, 

For guard of any goodness, all things fears ; 

Earth, seas, and air; heav’n; darkness ; broad day¬ 
light ; 

Rumour, and silence, and his very shade : 

And what an aspen soul has such a creature 1 
How dangerous to his soul is such a fear!— 

In whose cold fits, is all Heavn’s justice shaken 
To his faint thoughts ; and all the goodness there, 

Due to all good men by the Gods’ own vows ; 

Nay, by the firmness of their endless being ; 

All which shall fail as soon as any one 
Good to a good man in them : for his goodness 
Proceeds from them, and is a beam of theirs. 

O never more, Statilius, may this fear 
Faint thy bold bosom, for thyself or friend. 

More than the Gods are fearful to defend. 

His thoughts of Death. 

Poor Slaves, how terrible this Death is to them !— 

T f men would sleep, they would be wrath with all 
That interrupt them; physic take, to take 
The golden rest it brings ; both pay and pray 
For good and soundest naps : all friends consenting 
In those invocations ; praying all 
“ Good rest the Gods vouchsafe you.” But when 
Death, 

Sleep’s natural brother, comes ; that’s nothing worse, 
But better (being more rich—and keeps the store— 
Sleep ever fickle, wayward still, and poor) ; 

O how men grudge, and shake, and fear, and fly 
His stern approaches! all their comforts, taken 
in faith, and knowledge of the bliss and beauties 
That watch their wakings in an endless life, 

Drown’d in the pains and horrors of their sense 
Sustain’d but for an hour. 

Ilis Discourse with Athenodorus on an 
After Life. 

Cato. As Nature works in all things to an end, 

So, in the appropriate honour of that end. 

All things precedent have their natural frame ; 

Ani therefore is there a proportion 

fc«twixt the ends of those things and their primes : 

For else there could net be in their creation 


Always, or for the most part, that firm form 
In their still like existence, that we see 
In each full creature. What proportion tl en 
Hath an immortal with a mortal substance ? 

And therefore the mortality, to which 

A man is subject, rather is a sleep 

Than bestial death ; since sleep and death are called 

The twins of nature. For, if absolute death, 

And bestial, seize the body of a man, 

Then there is no proportion in his parts, 

(His soul being free from death) which otherwise 
Retain divine proportion. For, as sleep 
No disproportion holds with human souls, 

But aptly quickens the proportion 

Twixt them and bodies, making bodies fitter 

To give up forms to souls, which is their end: 

So death, twin-born of sleep, resolving all 
Man’s body’s heavy parts, in lighter nature 
Makes a re-union with the sprightly soul; 

When m a second life their Beings given 1 
Hold their proportions firm in highest heaven. 

Athenodorus. Hold you, our bodies shall revive ’ 
resuming 

Our souls again to heaven ? 

Cato. Past doubt; though others 
Think heav’n a world too high for our low reaches 
Not knowing the sacred sense of Him that sings. 

“ Jove can let down a golden chain from heaven. 
Which, tied to earth, shall fetch up earth and seas 
And what’s that golden chain but our pure souls 
That, govern’d with his grace and drawn by him, 

Can hoist the earthy body up to him ?— 

The sea, the air, and all the elements, 

Comprest in it; not while ’tis thus concrete, 

But ’fined by death, and then giv’n heav’nly heat. # v 
We shall, past death, 

Retain those forms of knowledge, learn’d in life 
Since if what here we learn we there shall 1 use. 

Our immortality were not life, but time: 

And that our souls in reason are immortal, 

Their natural and proper objects prove ; 

Which Immortality and Knowledge are : 

For to that object ever is referr’d 
The nature of the soul, in which the acts 
Of her high faculties are still employ’d ; 

And that true object must her powers obtain. 

To which they are in nature’s aim directed; 

Since ’twere absurd to have her set an object 
Which possibly she never can aspire. 

His last words. 

-now I am safe ; 

Come, Caesar, quickly now, or lose your vassal. 

Now wing thee, dear Soul, and receive her heaven 
The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all 
The joys and horrors of their peace and wais j 
And now will see the Gods’ state and the stars 

Greatness in Adversity. 

Vulcan from heav’n fell, yet on’s feet did light, 

And stood no less a God than at his height. 


418 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


[^rom 4< Bussy D’Ambois,” a Tragedy, by 
G. Chapman, 1613.] 

Invocation for Secrecy at a Love-meeting. 

Tamyra. Now all the peaceful Regents of the Night, 
Silently-gliding Exhalations, 

Languishing Winds, and murmuring Falls of Waters, 
Sadness of Heart, and Ominous Secureness, 
Enchantment’s dead Sleeps ; all the Friends of Rest, 
That ever wrought upon the life of man ; 

Extend your utmost strengths, and this charm’d hour 
Fix like the center; make the violent wheels 
Of Time and Fortune stand; and great Existence. 

The Maker’s Treasury, now not seem to be 
To all but my approaching friend* and me. 

At the Meeting. 

Here’s nought but whispering with us: like a calm 
Before a tempest, when the silent air 
Lays her soft ear close to the earth, to hearken 
For that, she fears is coming to afflict her. 

Invocation for a Spirit of Intelligence. 

D'Ambois. I long to know 
How my dear Mistress fares, and be inform’d 
What hand she now holds on the troubled blood 
Of her incensed Lord. Methought the Spirit 
When he had utter’d his perplext presage. 

Threw his chang’d countenance headlong into clouds; 
His forehead bent, as he would hide his face : 

He knock’d his chin against his darken’d breast. 

And struck a churlish silence thro’ his powers.— 
Terror of Darkness: 0 thou King of Flames, 

That with thy music-footed horse dost strike 
The clear light out, of chrystal, on dark earth; 

And hurl’st instructive fire about the world : 

Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night, 

That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle, t 
Or thou, Great Prince of Shades, where never sun 
Sticks his far-darted beams ; whose eyes are made 
To see in darkness, and see ever best 
Where sense is blindest: open now the heart 
Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear 
Of some iH it includes, would fain lie hid ; 

And rise Thou with it in thy greater light.} 

The Friar dissuades the Husband of Ta¬ 
myra from revenge. 

Your wife’s offence serves not, were it the worst 
You can imagine, without greater proofs. 

To sever your eternal bonds and hearts; 

Much less to touch her with a bloody hand: 


* D’Ambois : with whom she has an appointment. 

+ He wants to know the fate of Tamyra, whose in- 
tfigue with him has been discovered by her Husband. 

1 This calling upon Light and Darkness for informa¬ 
tion, but, above all, the description of the Spirit— 
“ Threw his chang’d countenance headlong into clouds’ 

_is tremendous, to the curdling of the blood.—I know 

nothing in Poetry like it. 


Nor is it manly, much less husbandly, 

To expiate any frailty in your wife 
With churlish strokes or beastly odds of strcngtn.— 
The stony birth of clouds * will touch no laursL 
Nor any sleeper. Your wife is your laurel. 

And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then : 

Be net more rude than the wild seed of vapour 
To her that is more gentle than it rude. 

C. L 


MAID MARIAN 
To the Editor. 

Sir,—A correspondent in your last Num¬ 
ber]- rather hastily asserts, that there is no 
other authority than Davenport’s Tragedy 
for the poisoning of Matilda by King John. 
Tt oddly enough happens, that in the same 
Number \ appears an Extract from a Play 
of Heywood’s, of an older date, in two 
parts; in which Play, the fact of such 
poisoning, as well as her identity with 
Maid Marian, are equally established. 
Michael Drayton also hath a Legend, con¬ 
firmatory (as far as poetical authority can 
go) of the violent manner of her death. 
But neither he, nor Davenport, confound 
her with Robin’s Mistress. Besides the 
named authorities, old Fuller (I think) 
somewhere relates, as matter of Chronicle 
History, that old Fitzwalter (he is called 
F’itzwater both in Heywood and in Daven¬ 
port) being banished after his daughter’s 
murder,—some years subsequently—King 
John at a Turnament in France being de¬ 
lighted with the valiant bearing of a com¬ 
batant in the lists, and enquiring his name, 
was told that it was his old faithful servant, 
the banished Fitzwalter, who desired no¬ 
thing more heartily than to be reconciled 
to his Liege,—and an affecting reconcilia¬ 
tion followed. In the common collection, 
called Robin Hood’s Garland (I have not 
seen Ritson’s), no mention is made, if I 
remember, of the nobility of Marian. Is 
she not the daughter of plain Squire Gam- 
well, of old Gamwell Hall ?—Sorry that I 
cannot gratify the curiosity of your “ dis¬ 
embodied spirit,” (who, as such, is methinks 
sufficiently “ veiled ” from our notice) with 
more authentic testimonies, I rest, 

Your humble Abstracter, 

C. L 


* The thunderbolt, 
t Vol. i. p. 803. 
t Ibid. p. 199. 


419 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


RIVAL ITALIAN DRAMATISTS. 

The Venetian stage had long been in 
possession of Goldoni, a dramatic poet, 
who, by introdjcmg bustle and show into 
his pieces, and writing principally to the 
level of the gondoliers, arrived to the first 
degree of popularity in Venice. He had a 
rival in Pietro Chiari, whom the best critics 
thought even inferior to Goldoni; but such 
an epidemic frenzy seized the Venetians in 
favour of these two authors, that it quickly 
spread to almost all parts of Italy, to the 
detriment, of better authors, and the de- 
j rangement of the public taste. This dra¬ 
matic mania was arrested by Carlo Gozzi, a 
younger brother of a noble family, who 
attacked Goldoni and Chiari, and others 
soon followed him. On this occasion the 
two bards suspended their mutual ani¬ 
mosity, and joined to oppose their adversa- 
lies. Chiari was a great prose scribbler , as 
well as a comedy-monger , so that a warm 
paper war was soon commenced, which 
grew hotter and hotter rapidly. 

It happened one day that Gozzi met with 
Goldoni in a bookseller’s shop. They ex¬ 
changed sharp words, and in the heat of 
altercation Goldoni told Gozzi, “ that 
though it was an easy task to find fault 
with a play, it was very difficult to write 
one.” Gozzi acknowledged “ that to find 
fault with a play was really very easy, but 
that it was still easier to write such plays as 
would please so thoughtless a nation as the 
Venetiansadding, with a tone of con¬ 
tempt, “ that he had a good mind to make 
all Venice run to see the tale of the Three 
Oranges formed into a comedy.” Goldoni, 
with some of his partisans in the shop, 
challenged Gozzi to do it; and the critic, 
thus piqued, engaged to produce such a 
comedy within a few weeks. 

To this trifling and casual dispute Italy 
owed the greatest dramatic writer it ever 
had. Gozzi quickly wrote a comedy in five 
acts, entitled “ I Tie Aranci,” or “ The 
Three Orangesformed out of an old 
woman’s story with which the Venetian 
children are entertained by their nurses. 
The comedy was acted, and three beautiful 
princesses, born of three enchanted oranges, 
made all Venice crowd to the theatre of St. 
Angelo. 

In this play Goldoni and Chiari were 
not spared. Gozzi introduced in it many 
j of their theatrical absurdities. The Vene¬ 
tian audiences, like the rest of the world, 
do not much relish the labour of finding 
out the truth; but once point it out, and 
♦hpv will instantly seize it. This was 


remarkable on the first night that the comedy 
of the “ Three Oranges ” was acted. The 
fickle Venetians, forgetting the loud accla¬ 
mations with which they had received Gol¬ 
doni’s and Chiari’s plays, laughed obstrepe¬ 
rously at them and their comedies, and ; 
bestowed frantic applause on Gozzi and 
the “ Three Oranges.” 

This success encouraged Gozzi to write j 
more; and in a little time his plays so 
entirely changed the V enetian taste, that in 
about two seasons Goldoni was stripped ot 
his theatrical honours, and poor Chiari 
annihilated. Goldoni quitted Italy, and 
went to France, wheie V oltaire’s interest 
procured him the place of Italian master to 
one of tiie princesses at V ersailles ; and 
Chiari retired to a country house in the 
neighbourhood of Brescia. 


NATURAL CURIOSITIES OF 
DERBYSHIRE. 

Extracts from the Journal of a 
Tourist. 

For the Table Book. 

Buxton, May 27, 1827. 

* * * 1 was so fortunate as to 

meet at the inn (the Shakspeare) at Buxton 
with two very agreeable companions, with 
whom I dined. The elder was a native ot 
the place, and seemed well acquainted with 
ail the natural curiosities at Buxton, and in 
the county of Derby. The name of the 

other was H-, of a highly respectable 

firm in London, sojourning at the Wells fo: 
the benefit of a sprained leg. He accon 
panied me on the following morning to 
visit an immense natural cavern, called 
Pool’s Hole, from a freebooter of that Lame 
having once made it his place of abod:2. It 
is situated at the foot of a steep b : Il, the 
entrance low and narrow : it is 69G ieet in 
length, penetrating into the bosefil of the 
mountain, and varying in height from six 
to fifty or sixty feet. Our guides we-re two 
old women, who furnished us with lights 
There is in it an incessant dripping o' 
water, crystallizing as it fids, forming a 
great variety of grotesque and fanciful 
figures, more resembling inverted gothic 
pinnacles than any thing else I could ima¬ 
gine : it was with great difficulty that we 
could break some fragments off ; they are 
termed by naturalists stalactites. A scene 
so novel and imposing as the interior ol 
this gloomy cave presented, with its huge 
blocks of rocks irregularly piled upon each 
other, their shrv^s but indistinctly visible 


420 




































rHE TABLE BOOK. 


from the glare of the torches, was of tha‘ 
kind as to leave an indelible impression on 
my mind. It has many very large and 
curious recesses within; one of which is 
called PooPs chamber, another his closet, 
and a third his shelf. The continual falling 
; of the water from the insterstices in the 
roof upon the rocks beneath, causes holes 
on them, which are not formed by the fric¬ 
tion of the water itself, but by its gradual 
crystallization immediately around the spots 
j 'vhereon it drips. The utmost extent that 
can be reached by a human foot is called 
| Mary Queen of Scot’s Pillar; from that 
point it becomes dangerous and impassable. 

After dinner we made a short excursion 
along the banks of the river Wye, called 
Wye-dale; a walk, which from' the gran¬ 
deur of the scenery, and its novelty, (for I 
had never before seen any of the Peak 
scenery,) will be long imprinted in vivid 
colours on my recollection. In some parts 
the river flowed smoothly along, but in 
others its motion was rapid, impetuous, and 
turbulent : huge fragments of rock, dis¬ 
united from the impending crags, divided 
the stream into innumerable eddies ; the 
water bubbled and foamed around, forming 
miniature cataracts, and bestowing life and 
animation to the otherwise quiet scene. 
On either side, the rocks rose to a great 
height in every diversity of shape; some 
: spiral, or like the shattered walis or decayed 
bastions of ruined or demolished fortresses ; 
others bluff, or like the towers of citadels ; 
all covered with a variety of coarse vegeta¬ 
tion, among which the stunted yew was the 
most conspicuous ; its dark foliage hanging 
over the projecting eminences, gave an ex- 
pressive character to surrounding objects. 
A few w'ater mills, built of rough unhewn 
limestone, presented themselves as we fol- 
i lowed the windings of the stream, having a 
deserted and silent appearance. 

It appeared to me probable, that the now 
insignificant little stream was, in by-gone 
distant ages, a mighty river;, the great depth 
of the valley, excavated through the rocks, 
could scarcely have been caused but by the 
irresistible force of water. The lesser vales 
diverging from it in some parts, favour the 
conjecture that they had been formerly some 
of its tributary streams : in one of these, 
which we had the curiosity to ascend, we 
observed a small rill. After a slippery 
ascent on the rough stones of which its bed 
was formed, we reached a mineral spring, 
issuing from a fissure in the rock, and de¬ 
positing a greenish copperas-like sediment 
at the bottom ; we found some beautiful 
apecimms of mosses and lichens. 


I inquired of a passing peasant whit fish 
the Wye could boast of. “ tree (Wye) 1 
fish to be sure,” said he : by which l under¬ 
stood him to mean, that there was in it only 
one species of the finny race of any conse¬ 
quence, and that trout. 

It was late before we gained our inn ; we 
had walked upwards of six miles in that 
deep and romantic dale. 

‘28th. This morning I enjoyed a beau¬ 
tiful ride to Tideswell, along the banks of 
the Wye, about seven miles. The road 
wound up the sides of lofty hills, in some 
parts commanding views of the river flow¬ 
ing in the vale beneath ; not so high how¬ 
ever, but that the murmur of its waters, 
mellowed by the distance, might be heard 
by the traveller. Tideswell possesses a 
handsome church; from the steeple arise 
four gothic spires. 

29th. Went forward to Castleton, down 
the hills called the Wynyats, by the Spar¬ 
row Pit mountain ; the ride took me over 
some of the wild and barren hills which 
surround Buxton on every side. The im¬ 
mediate descent to Castleton is from a 
steep mountain more than a mile in length, 
and is only to be effected by a road formed 
in a zigzag direction. A fine view of the 
rich vale beneath presents itself from this 
road, having the appearance of a vast am¬ 
phitheatre, for nothing is to be seen on any 1 
side but mountains; it is of great fertility. 
The most remarkable mountain is Mam- 
Tor; its height is 1301 feet. One of them 
I learnt was called the “ Shivering” Moun¬ 
tain ; the reason for which being, that after 
severe frosts, or in heavy gales, large quan¬ 
tities of earth separate from one side of it, 
which is nearly perpendicular. At the foot 
of Mam-Tor there is a lead mine, called 
Odin ; from whence is procured the famous 
fluor spar, of which so many articles of I 
utility and ornament are made. Castleton 1 
is by no means a handsome town ; it has 
nariow dirty streets, and a deplorably rough 
pavement. The objects worthy of notice 
near it are, a celebrated cavern, called 
Peak’s Hole, and a venerable ruined castle, 
situated on the rock immediately above it. 

It was built by William Peveril, to whom 
the manor of Castleton was granted by 
William the Conqueror. 

On the path leading to the cavern, a 
streamlet is followed, which issues from 
that extraordinary wonder of nature; the , 
approach is grand and striking; the per- ! 
pendicular cliffs above are solemnly majes¬ 
tic—their height is about 250 feet. The 
arch of the first and largest chamber in tMs 
cavern is stupendously broad in its spaa. 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Hie top of the mountain along the edges L 
/ringed with a number of fine elms, wherein 
there is perched a rookery, a singular situa¬ 
tion of the noisy tribe: lower down are 
innumerable jackdaws, which build in the 
ieda:es of the rocks. 

The span of the grand arch is 180 feet; 
the length of the first cave 220 feet. A 
number of labourers in it are employed at 
rope walks, making twine, &c From the 
roof hang immense spiral masses of petrified 
water, or stalactites. The entrance to the 
interior is through a small door at the fur¬ 
ther end: the visiter is there directed to 
stop and gaze at the arch of the first 
cavern; this is a most striking object; the 
very livid colour of the light admitted, with 
the bluish-white reflection upon the sur¬ 
rounding rocks, reminded me forcibly of 
the descriptions of the infernal regions by 
Virgil, Milton, and other poets. Torches 
are here put into your hands : the passage 
is narrow and low, and you reach an im¬ 
mense hollow above you in the roof, called 
the Bell House, from its resemblance to 
that form; the same stream is then seen 
which was followed on your approach ; on 
t is a small shallop. I was directed to 
extend myself along its bottom with the 
guide, on account of the rock being in this 
place but fourteen inches from the surface 
of the water, which in depth is only four 
feet. I was then landed in a cavern more 
stupendous than the first; the whole of it was 
surrounded with a number of rugged rocks 
of limestone, which seemed to have been 
tossed and heaped together by some violent 
convulsion of nature, or by the impetuosity 
Df the water that swells to a great height 
after heavy and continued rains. This is 
called Pluto’s Hall; and when a distant 
gallery, formed by a ledge of rocks, was 
-Illumined by the light of some dozen of 
candles, the effect was the most imposing 
of the kind I ever witnessed. There is a 
continual dropping of water; and after 
passing a ford, I reached what is called 
“ Roger Rains '’ House, from its always 
dripping there. A little further on is a 
place called the Devil’s Wine Cellar, from 
which is a descent of 150 feet; it becomes 
terrific in the extreme: immense arches 
throw their gloomy and gigantic spans 
above; and the abyss on one side, which 
it is impossible for the vision to penetrate 
to the bottom, adds to the intensity of the 
horror. This wonderful subterraneous man¬ 
sion is 2250 feet in length. 

30th. At Bakewell, one of the plea¬ 
santest of the small towns in England, 
*hete is an excellent note, ca..ed the Rut¬ 


land Arms,belonging to the Rutland family, 
and under its patronage. The church is 
situated on a rising ground. There is a 
neat stone bridge over the river Wye, and, 
the silvery stream winds the adjoining vale. I 
The view from the church-yard is enchant- j 
ing. The two rivers, the Wye and Der¬ 
went, form a junction at some little dis¬ 
tance, and beyond are wood-tufted hills 
sloping their gentle elevations. Haddon 
Hall, one of the finest and most perfect of 
the ancient baronial residences in the 
kingdom, is seen embosomed in the deep 
woods. 

Bakewell is celebrated as a fishing sta¬ 
tion. The fine estates of the Devonshire 
and Rutland families join near it. 

In the church-yard I copied, from the 
tomb of one who had been rather a licen¬ 
tious personage, the following curious 

Epitaph. 

“ Know posterity, that on the 8th of 
April, 1737, the rambling remains of John 
Dale were, in the 86th year of his age, laid 
upon his two wives. 

“ This thing in life might raise some jealousy. 

Here all three lie together lovingly ; 

But from embraces here no pleasure flows. 

Alike are here all human joys and woes. 

Here Sarah’s chiding John no longer hears. 

And old John’s rambling, Sarah no more fears ; 

A period’s come to all their toilsome lives. 

The good man’s quiet—still are both his wives.** 

Another.' 

“ The vocal powers here let us mark 

Of Philip, our late parish clerk ; 

In church none ever heard a layman 

With a clearer voice say Amen : 

Who now with hallelujah’s sound 

Like him can make the roofs rebound ? 

—The choir lament his choral tones 

The town so soon—here lie his bones.” 

E. J. H. 

June , 18‘27. 


BRIBERY. 

Charles V. sent over 400,000 crowns, to 
be distributed among the members of par¬ 
liament, in bribes and pensions, to induce 
them to confirm a marriage between Mary 
and his son Philip. This wa 3 the first in¬ 
stance in which public bribery was exei 
cised in England by a foreign power. 


422 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 



€f)e 3£UttrriJ ^u^banUmam 


This is a sketch from nature —“ a re¬ 
pose”—an aged man enjoying the good 
that remains to him, yet ready for his last 
summons: his thoughts, at this moment, 
are upon the little girl that fondles on 
him — one of his grand aughters. The 
annals of his life are short and simple, 
j u Born to labour as the sparks fly upward,” 
he discharged the obligation of his exist¬ 
ence, and hy the work of his hands en- 
I_ 


dowed himself with independence. He is 
contented and. grateful; and fdled with j 
hope and desire, that, affer he shall be 
gathered to his fathers, there may be many- 
long years of happiness in store for his 
children and their offspring. His days 
have passed in innocence and peace, and 
he prays for peace to the innocent. Iiis 
final inclination is towards the place of his 
rest. • 


423 



































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

A DIALOGUE 

BETWEEN VIRTUE AND DEATH, 

On the Death of Sir James Pember¬ 
ton, Knight, who departed this Life 
the 8th of September, 1613. 

He was lord mayor of London in the 
reign of James I., and was a great bene¬ 
factor to several charities. 

Vertue. What Vertue challen^eth, is but h«r right. 
Death. What Death layes claiine to who can con¬ 
tradict ? 

Ver. Vertue, whose power exceeds all other might. 
Dea. Wher’s Vertue’s power when Death makes all 
submit ? 

Ver. I gave him life and therefore he is mine. 

Dea. That life he held no longer than I list. 

Ver. I made him more than mortall, neere diuine ; 
Dea. How hapt he could not then Death’s stroke 
resist ? 

Ver. Because (by nature) all are born to dye. 

Dea. Then thyne own tongue yeelds Death the vic¬ 
tory. 

Ver. No, Death, thou art deceiued, thy enuiom 
stroke 

Hath giuen him life immortal ’gainst thy will: 
Dea. What life can be, but vanished as smoake ? 
Ver. A life that all thy darts can never kill. 

Dea. Haue I not locked his body in my graue ? 

Ver. That was but dust, and that I pray thee keep*. 
Dea That is as much as I desire to haue. 

His comely shape in my eternal sleepe. 

Ver. But wher’s his honorable life, renowne, and 
fame ? 

Dea. They are but breath, them I resign to thee. 

Ver. Them I inostcouet. 

Dea -I prefer my claim. 

His body mine. 

Vet. -mine his eternity. 

And so they ceast. Death triumphs o’er his graue. 
Virtue o’er that which death can never haue.” 

London , June 12, 1H27. 

ANCIENT DIAL. 

For the Table Booh. 

The dial in use among the ancient Jews 
JiH'ered from that in use among us. Theirs 
was a kind of stairs ; the time of the day 
was distinguished, not by lines, but by 
steps or degrees ; the shade of the sun every 
Hour moved forward to a new degree. On 
the dial of Ahaz, the sun went back (mag- 
noloth) degrees or step^, not lines. — Isai. 
xxxviii. 8. P. 


PETER HERVE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,*—Having had the happiness and 
honour of holding correspondence with that 
most benevolent man, Mr. Peter Hervfh 
whose death I deeply deplore, I shall feel 
myself relieved from a debt due to his me¬ 
mory, if you will allow me, through the 
medium of your valuable publication, to 
express my hope that he was not, in ihe 
time of need, forgotten by that society of 
which he was the honoured founder. His 
last letter told me he was ill and in dis¬ 
tress ; and had been advised to try the ait 
of the south of France, with scarcely any 
means of pursuing his journey but by the 
sale of his drawings. My own inability to 
serve him made me hesitate; and I am 
shocked to say, his letter was not answered. 
I am sorry, but repentance will not come 
too late, if this hint will have any weight 
fowards procuring for his amiable widow, 
from that admirable institution, a genteel, 
if not an ample independence : for certawi 
I am, that he could not have made choice 
of any one who had not a heart generous 
as his own. 

I am, &c. 

F. S. Jun. 

Stamford, June 24, 1827. 


CABALISTIC ERUDITION. 

Nothing can exceed the followers of 
cabalistical mysteries, in point of fantastical 
conceits. The learned Godwin recounts 
some of them. “ Abraham,” they say. 
“ wept but little for Sarah, probably be¬ 
cause she was old.” They prove this by 
producing the letter “ Caph,” which being 
a remarkably small letter, and being made 
use of in the Hebrew word which describes 
Abraham's tears, evinces, they affirm, that 
his grief also was stnull. 

The Cabalists discovered likewise, that 
in the two Hebrew words, signifying 
“ man ” and “ woman,” are contained two 
letters, which, together, form one of the 
names of “ God but if these letters he 
taken away, there remain letters which 
signify « fire.” “ Hence,” aroue the Ca¬ 
balists, “ we may find that when man and 
wife agree together, and live in union, God 
is with them, but when they separate them¬ 
selves from God, fire attends their foot¬ 
steps.” Such are the whimsical dogmas of 
the J ewish Cabala. 




424 


j 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


OFFERINGS TO INFANTS. 

To the Editor. 

Edgeley , near Stockport. 

Sir,—I am anxious to notice a custom I 
have observed in Yorkshire, relative to very 
young infants, which I think it would be 
desirable to keep alive. I know that it is 
partially practised now, in that county, in 
the neighbourhood of Wakefield. The 
custom I allude to is, the. making an offer¬ 
ing to new-born infants on the occasion of 
their making their first visit abroad, by the 
person who is honoured with it, of a cake 
of bread, an egg, and a small quantity of 
salt. Special care is taken that the young 
pilgrim in life makes its first visit to the 
house of a near relative, or an esteemed 
friend, who will in nowise omit a ceremony 
so necessary to its futuie welfare. For it 
is believed if this be not done, that in its 
progress through life it will be exposed to 
the miseries of want; and by parity of 
reason, the due observance of it will insure 
a continual supply of those necessaries, of 
which the offering at setting out in life pre¬ 
sents so happy an omen. I know not 
whence or where this custom originated, 
nor how extensively it may be still prac¬ 
tised ; but if its origin be utterly unknown, 
we are, accoiding to the usage of the 
world in all such cases, bound the more to 
observe and reverence it. There are many 
ancient customs, upon which the hand of 
Time has set his seal, “ more honoured in 
the breach than the observancebut, I 
think, you will agree with me, that this, 
from its air of social humanity, is not of 
that class. Perhaps you can give it further 
elucidation. J believe it to be af the most 
remote antiquity, and to have been amongst 
l he oldest nations. 

I am, &c. 

Milo. 


The only immediate illustration of the 
preceding custom that occurs, is Hutchin¬ 
son’s mention of it in his History of North¬ 
umberland ; in which county, also, infants, 
when first sent abroad in the arms of the 
nurse to visit a neighbour, are presented 
with an egg, salt, and bread. He observes, 
that “ the egg was a sacred emblem, and 
seems a gift well adapted to infancy. Mr. 
Bryant says, “ An egg, containing in it the 
elements of life, was thought no improper 
emblem of the ark, in which were preserved 
the rudiments the future world : hence, 
in the 1‘ionusiaca, and in other mysteries 


one part of the nocturnal ceremony consist¬ 
ed m the conseciation of an egg. By this, 
as we are informed by Porphyry, was sig¬ 
nified the world. It seems to have been a 
favourite symbol, and very ancient, and we 
find it adopted among many nations. It 
was said by the Persians of Orosmasdes, 
that he formed mankind and enclosed them 
in an egg. Cakes and salt were used in 
religious rites by the ancients. The Jews 
probably adopted their appropriation from 
the Egyptians:—‘And if thou bring an 
oblation of a meat-offering baken in the 
oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine 
Hour,’ &c. (Levit. ii. 4.) ‘ With all thine 

offerings thou shalt offer salt.’ ” (Ibid, p.l 3.) 

It is also customary in Northumberland 
for the midwife, &c. to provide two slices, 
one of bread and the other of cheese, which 
are presented to the first person they meet 
in the procession to church at the christen¬ 
ing. The person who receives this homely 
present must give the child in return “ three” 
different tilings, wishing it at the same time 
health and beauty. A gentleman happen¬ 
ing once to fall in the way of such a party, | 
and to receive the above present, was at a 
loss how to make the triple return, till he 
bethought himself of laying upon the child 
which was held out to him, a shilling, a 
halfpenny, and a pinch of snuff. When 
they meet more than one person together, 
it is usual to single out the nearest to the 
woman that carries the child. 

Cowel says, it was a good old custom 
for God-fathers and God-mothers, every 
time their God-children asked them bless¬ 
ing, to give them a cake, which was a God's- 
kichell: it is still a proverbial saying .a 
some countries, “ Ask me a blessing, a:>I I 
will give you some plum-cake.” 


Among superstitions relating to children, 
the following is related by Bingham, on 
St. Austin : “ If when two friends are talk¬ 
ing together, a ston,e, or a dog, or a child, 
happens to come between them, they tread 
the stone to pieces as the divider of their 
friendship; and this is tolerable in compa¬ 
rison of beating an innocent child that 
comes between them. But it is more plea¬ 
sant that sometimes the children’s quart el 
is revenged by the dogs : for many time* 
they are so superstitious as to dare to beat 
the dog that comes between them, who, 
turning again upon him that smites him 
sends him from seeking a vain remedy, to 
seek a real physician.” Brand, who citei 
these passages, adduces the following 


425 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Christening Customs. 

Dr. Moresin was an eye-witness to the 
following usages in Scotland. They take, 
on their return from church, the newly- 
baptized infant, and vibrate it three or four 
times gently over a flame, saying, and re¬ 
peating it thrice, “ Let the flame consume 
thee now or never.” 

Martin relates, that in the Western 
Islands, the same lustration, by carrying of 
fire, is performed round about lying-in 
women, and round about children before 
they are christened , as an effectual means 
to preserve both the mother and infant from 
the power of evil spirits. This practice is 
similar to an ancient feast at Athens, kept 
by private families, called Amphidromia; 
on the fifth day after the birth of the child, 
when it was the custom for the gossips to 
run round the fire with the infant in their 
arms, and then, having delivered it to the 
nurse, they were entertained with feasting 
and dancing. 

There is a superstition that a child who 
does not cry when sprinkled in baptism 
will not live. 

Among the ancient Irish, the mother, at 
the birth of a man child, put the first meat 
into her infant’s mouth upon the point of 
her husband’s sword, with wishes that it 
might die no otherwise than in war, or by 
sword. Pennant says, that in the High¬ 
lands, midwives give new-born babes a 
small spoonful of earth and whisky, as the 
first food they take. 

Giraldus Cambrensis relates, that “ at 
the baptizing of the infants of the wild 
Irish, their manner was not to dip their 
right arms into the water, that so as they 
thought they might give a more deep and 
incurable blow.” Mr. Brand deems this a 
proof that the whole body of the child was 
anciently commonly immersed in the bap¬ 
tismal font. 

In 1795 the minister of the parishes of 
South Ronaldsay and Burray, two of the 
Orkney islands, describing the manners of 
the inhabitants, says: “ Within these last 
seven years, the minister has been twice 
interrupted in administering baptism to a 
female child, before the male child, who 
was baptized immediately after. When 
the service was over, he was gravely told 
ne had done very wrong; for,as the female 
child was first baptized, she would, on her 
coming to the years of discretion, most cer¬ 
tainly have a strong beard, and the boy 
would have none.’’ 

The minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, 
escribing the superstitious opinions and 


practices in that parish, says : “ V\ hen a 
child was baptized privately, it was, not 
long since* customary to put the child upon 
a clean basket, having a cloth previously 
spread over it, with bread and cheese put 
into the cloth; and thus to move the basket 
three times successively round the iron 
crook, which hangs over the fire, from the 
roof of the house, for the purpose of sup¬ 
porting the pots when water is boiled, or 
victuals are prepared. This” he imagines, 
“ might be anciently intended to counter¬ 
act the malignant arts which witches and 
evil spirits were imagined to practise against 
new-born infants.” 

It is a vulgar notion, that children, pre¬ 
maturely wise, are not long-lived, and 
rarely reach maturity. Shakspeare puts 
this superstition into the mouth of Richard 
the Third. 

Bulwer mentions a tradition concerning 
children born open-handed, that they will 
prove of a bountiful disposition and frank¬ 
handed. A character in one of Dekker’s 
plays says, “ I am the most wretched fel¬ 
low : sure some left-handed priest christened 
me, I am so unlucky.” 

The following charms for infancy are de¬ 
rived from Herrick: 

“ Bring the holy crust of bread. 

Lay it underneath the head; 

* Tis a certain charm to keep 
Hags away while children sleep.” 

***** 

“ Let the superstitious wife 
Neer the child’s heart lay a knife ; 

Point be up, and haft be down, 

(While she gossips in the towne;) 

This, ’mongst other mystick charms. 

Keeps the sleeping child from harmes.” 


BUNYAN’S HOLY WAR DRAMA 
TIS ED. 

A very beautiful manuscript was once 
put into the hands of one of Dr. Aikin’s 
correspondents by a provincial bookseller, 
to whom it had been offered for publication 
It consisted of two tragedies upon the sub¬ 
ject of John Bunyan’s Holy War: they were 
the composition of a lady, who had fitted 
together scraps from Shakspeare, Milton, 
Young’s Night Thoughts, and Erskine’s 
Gospel Sonnets, into the dramatic form, 
with no other liberty than that of occasion¬ 
ally altering a name. The lady Constance, 
for instance, was converted into lady Con 


426 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


science: the whole speeches and scenes 
were thus introduced in a wholesale sort 
of cento. The ghost in Hamlet also did 
for a Conscience.* 


GENTLEMEN OF THE PARISH. 

Look up at the inscription on that vene¬ 
rable church defaced with plaster; what 
does it record ? “ Beautified, by Samuel 

Smear and Daniel Daub, churchwardens.” 
And so these honest gentlemen call dis¬ 
guising that fine, old, stone building, with 
a thick coat of lime and hair, or white¬ 
wash, beautifying it! 

What is the history of all this ? Why the 
plain matter-of-fact is, that every parish 
officer thinks he has a right to make a 
round bill on the hamlet, during his year 
of power. An apothecaiy in office physics 
'he poor. A glazier, first in cleaning, 


• Athenaeum. 


breaks the church-windows, and afterwaids 
brings in a long bill for mending them. A 
painter repairs the commandments, puts 
new coats on Moses and Aaron, gilds the 
organ pipes, and dresses the little cherubim 
about the loft, as fine as vermilion, Prussian 
blue, and Dutch gold can make them. The 
late churchwardens chanced to be a silver¬ 
smith and a woollen-draper; the silver¬ 
smith new fashioned the communion plate, 
and the draper new clothed the pu.pit, and 
put fresh curtains to the windows. All 
this might be done with some shadow of 
modesty, but to insult the good sense of 
every beholder with their beautified ! Shame 
on them! 

Dr. Burney tells of some parish officers, 
that they applied to Snetzler (a celebrated 
organ-builder) to examine their organ, and 
to make improvements on it—“ Gentle¬ 
men,” said the honest Swiss, “ your organ 
be wort von hondred pound, just now— 
well—I will spend von hondred pound 
upon it, and it shall then be wort fifty ” 


For the Table Book. 

THE ANGLER. 

From the German of Goethe. 

Das Wasser rauscht’, das Wasser schwoll, &c. 

There was a gentle angler who was angling in the sea. 

With heart as cool as only heart untaught of love can be; 

When suddenly the water rush’d, and swell’d, and up there sprung 
A humid maid of beauty’s mould—and thus to him she sung : 

“ Why dost thou strive so artfully to lure my brood away, 

And leave them then to die beneath the sun’s all-scorching ray ? 

Couldst thou but tell how happy are the fish that swim below, 

Thou wouldst with me, and taste of joy which earth can never knew. 

« Do not Sol and Diana both more lovely far appear 

When they have dipp’d in Ocean’s wave their golden, silvery hair? 

And is there no attraction in this heaven-expanse of blue, 

Nor in thine image mirror’d in this everlasting dew ?” 

The water rush’d, the water swell’d, And touch’d his naked feet, 

And fancy whisper’d to his heart it was a love-pledge sweet; 

She sung another siren lay more ’witching than before, 

Half pull’d—half plunging—down he sunk, and ne’er was heard oi mow 

a. W\ D. 


427 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


CLOSING THE EYES. 

For the Table Book. 

A GIPSY’S FUNERAL. 

Epping Forest. 

It was considered a mark of the strongest 
affection by the ancients, that a son, when 
hi> father was dying, should lean over him 
and receive his last grasp, 

“ and kiss his spirit into happy rest. ” 

The Jews, Greeks, and Romans, esteem¬ 
ed it a high privilege for the nearest rela¬ 
tive to close the eyes of the deceased body ; 
as in Genesis, when Jacob’s sun was setting, 
“ Joseph shall put his hands upon thine 
eyes.” And in another place,—“The 
memory of the father is preserved in the 
son. ” Again, (contra) “ I have no son to 
keep my name in remembrance.” And in 
H >mer, “ Let not the glory of his eyes 
depart, without the tender hand to move it 
si'ently to peace.” Ovid says, “ IHe meos 
oculos comprimat, ille tuos. ” The per- 
I forming this ceremony was so valued, that 
to die without friends to the due observance 
of this affectionate and last testimony, was 
thought an irreparable affliction. 

I The sudden death of a man was attri¬ 
buted to Apollo ; of a woman, to Diana. 
It any relation were present, a vessel of 
brass was procured, and beaten loudly in 
the ears of the deceased to determine the 
1 point. The ringing of bells by the Romans, 
and others to this day is practised. The 
Irish wake partakes also of this usage. 
When the moon was in eclipse, she was 
thought asleep, and bells were rung to wake 
ner: the eclipse having past, and the moon 
recovered her light, faith in this noisy cus¬ 
tom became strengthened. Euripides says, 
when Hyppolitus was dying, he called on 
his father to close his eyes, cover his face 
with a cloth, and put a shroud over the 
corpse. Cassandra, desirous of proving the 
Trojan cause better than that of the Greeks, 
eulogizes their happy condition in dying at 
home, where the obsequies might be per¬ 
formed for them by their nearest relatives 
Medea tells her children she once hoped 
they would have performed the duty for 
her, but she must do it for them. If a 
father, or the mother died a widow, the 
children attended to it: if the husband 
died, the wife performed it; which the 
Greeks lamented could not be done if they 
died at Troy. The duty devolved on the 
sister if her brother died ; which caused 
Orestes to exclaim, when he was to suffer 
death so far from his home—“ Alas! how 
shall my sister shroud me now V* 


Last month I was gratified by observing 
the funereal attentions of the gipsy tribes 
to Cooper , then lying in a state on a com¬ 
mon, near Epping forest. The corpse lay 
in a tent clothed with white linen ; candles 
were light^l over the body, on which forest 
flowers and blossoms of tne season were 
strewn and hung in posies. Cooper’s wife, 
dressed in black, perceiving I did not wish 
to see the face of her husband, said in per¬ 
fect naivete, “ Oh, sir, don’t fear to look at 
him, I never saw his countenance so plea¬ 
sant in all my life.” A wit might have 
construed this sentence otherwise; but too 
much kindness emanated from this scene 
of rustic association to admit of levity. 
Her partner was cold, and her heart beat 
the pulsations of widowhood. The picture 
would have caught an artist’s eye. The 
gipsy-friends and relations sat mutely in 
the adjoining tents; and, like Job and 
his comforters, absorbed their grief in the 
silence of the summer air and their breasts. 
When Cooper was put in his coffin, the 
same feeling of attachment pervaded the 
scene. A train of several pairs, suitably 
clothed, followed their friend to the grave, 
and he was buried at the neighbouring 
church in quiet solemnity. 

In addition to this, I transcribe a notice 
from a MS. journal, kept by a member of 
my family, 1769, which confirms the custom j 
above alluded to. “ Here was just buried 1 
in the church, (Tring,) the sister of the 
queen of the gipsies, to whom it is designed 
by her husband, to erect a monument to 
her memory of 20/. price. He is going to 
be married to the queen (sister to the de¬ 
ceased.) He offered 20/. to the clergymai 
to marry him directly ; but he had not beer 
in the town a month, so could not be mar 
ried till that time. When this takes plact 
an entertainment will be made, and 20/. c 
30/. spent. Just above esquire Gore’s park 
these destiny readers have a camp, at which 
place the woman died ; immediately after 
which, the survivors took all her wearing 
apparel and burnt them, including silk 
gowns, rich laces, silver buckles, gold ear¬ 
rings, trinkets, &c.,—for such is their cus¬ 
tom.” 

June , 1827. J. R. P. 

LITERARY INGENUITY. 

Odo tenet rnnlum, madidam mappam tenet anna. 

The above line is said, in an old book, to 
have “costthe inventor much foolish labour, 
for it is a perfect verse, and every word is 
the very same both backward and forward.* 


: 428 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


S7. JAMES’S PARK. 

I\v»* June, and many a gossip wench, 
Child-freighted, trod the central Mall ; 

I gain’d a white unpeopled bench, 

And gazed upon the long canal. 

Beside me soon, in motley talk, 

Boys, nursemaids sat, a varying race ; 

At length two females cross’d the walk, 

And occupied the vacant space. 

In years they seem’d some forty-four. 

Of dwarfish stature, vulgar mien ; 

A bonnet of black silk each wore. 

And each a gown of bombasin ; 

And, while in loud and careless tones 
Thpy dwelt upon their own concerns. 

Ere long I learn’d that Mrs. Jones 
Was one, and one was Mrs. Burns. 

They talk’d of little Jane and John, 

And hoped they’d come before ’twas dark ; 
Then wonder’d why with pattens on 
One might not walk across the park : 

They call’d it far to Camden-town, 

Yet hoped to reach it by and by ; 

And thought it strange, since flour was down. 
That bread should still continue high. 

They said last Monday’s heavy gales 
Had done a monstrous deal of ill; 

Then tried to count the iron rails 
That wound up Constitution-hill; 

This larum sedulous to shun, 

I don’d my gloves, to march away, 

When, as I gazed upon the one, 

“ Good heavens 1” I cried, “ tis Nancy Gray." 

'Twas Nancy, whom I led along 
The whiten’d and elastic floor. 

Amid mirth’s merry dancing throng. 

Just two and twenty years before. 

Though sadly alter’d, I knew her, 

While she, 'twas obvious, knew me not; 

But mildly said, “Good evening, sir,” 

And with her comrade left the spot. 

“ Is this,” I cried, in grief profound, 

“ The fair with whom, eclipsing all, 

I traversed Ranelagh’s bright round. 

Or trod the mazes of Vauxhall ? 

And is this all that Time can do ? 

Has Nature nothing else in store ; 

Is this of lovely twenty-two. 

All that remains at forty-four ? 

“ Could 7 to such a helpmate cling ? 

Were such a wedded dowdy mine, 

On yonder lamp-post would I swing. 

Or plunge in yonder Serpentine I” 

1 left the park with eyes askance. 

But, ere I enter’d Cleveland-row, 

Rude Reason thus threw in her lance, 

And dealt self-love a mortal blow. 


H Time, at whose touch all mortals bow, 

From either sex his prey secures. 

His scythe, while wounding Nancy’s brow. 

Can scarce have smoothly swept o’er you - *; 
By her you plainly were not known ; 

Then, while you mourn the alter’d hue 
Of Nancy’s face, suspect your own 
May be a little alter’d too.” 

New Monthly Magazine. 


ON ’CHANGE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—We know that every thing in this 
world changes in the course of a few years; 
but what I am about to communicate to 
you is a change indeed.—“ I’ve been roam¬ 
ing;” and in my city rounds I find the 
present residence and profession of the 
undernamed parties to be as follows: 

Adam is now an orange-merchant in Lower 
Thames-street; and a counseller in 
Old-square, Lincoln’s-inn. 

Eve is a stove-grate manufacturer in Lud- 
gate-hill; and a sheep-salesman at 
41, West Smithfield. 

Cain is a builder at 22, Prince’s-row, Pim¬ 
lico; and a surgeon, 154, White- 
cliapel-road. 

Abel is a dealer in china at 4,,Crown- 
street, Soho; and a glover at 153, 
St. John-street-road. 

Moses is a slopseller at 4, James-place, 
Aldgate; and a clothes-salesman 
in Sparrow-corner, Minones. 

Aaron is a pawnbroker in Houndsditch, 
No. 129; and an oilman at Aid- 
gate. 

Abraham keeps a childbed-linen-ware- 
hoase at 53, Houndsditch ; and is a 
special pleader in Pump-court, in 
the Temple. 

Benjamin is a fishmonger at 5, Duke’s- 
place. 

Mordecai keeps a clothes-shop near 
Shoreditch church. 

Absalom is a tailor at No. 9, Bridge-road, 
Lambeth. 

t 

Peter is a cotton-dyer in Biick-lane. 

I am, &c 

dam Sam’s Son. 
















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Srtnnpmtana. 

The Jews-harp. 

The Jews-trump, or, as it is more gene¬ 
rally pronounced, the Jew-trump, seems to 
take its name from the nation of the Jews, 
and is vulgarly believed to be one of their 
instruments of m sic. Dr. Littleton ren¬ 
ders Jews-trump by sistrum Judaicum. But 
there is not any such musical instrument as 
this described by the authors that treat of 
the Jewish music. In short, this instrument 
is a mere boy’s plaything, and incapable 
of itself of being joined either with a voice 
or any other instrument. The present 
orthography seems to be a corruption of 
the French, jeu-trump, a trump to play 
with : and in the Belgick, or Low-Dutch, 
fmm whence come many of our toys, a 
tromp is a rattle for children. Sometimes 
they will call it a Jews-harp ; and another 
etymon given of it is Jaws-harp, because 
the place where it is played upon is between 
the jaws. It is an instrument used in St. 
Kilda. (Martin, p. 73.) 

Quid pro Quo. 

“ Give you a Rowland for an Oliver.” 
This is reckoned a proverb of late stand¬ 
ing, being commonly referred to Oliver 
Cromwell, as if he were the Oliver here 
intended: but it is of greater antiquity 
than the protector; for it is met wi*h in 
Hall’s Chronicle, in the reign of Edward 
IV. In short, Rolland and Oliver were 
two of Charlemagne’s peers. (See Ames’s 
Hist, of Printing, p. 47, and Ariosto.) Ro¬ 
lando and Orlando are the same name; 
Turpin calling him Roland, and Ariosto 
Rolando. 

Father and Son 

“ Happy is the son whose fatner is gone 
to the devil,” is an old saying. It is not 
grounded on the supposition, that such a 
father by his iniquitous dealings must have 
accumulated wealth; but is a satirical hint 
on the times when popery prevailed here 
so much, that the priests and monks had 
engrossed the three professions of law, 
physic, and divinity; when, therefore, by 
the procurement either of the confessor, 
the physician, or the lawyer, a good part 
of the father’s effects were pretty sure to go 
to the church; and when, if nothing of 
that kind happened, these agents were cer 
tain to defame him, and adjudge that such 
u man must undoubtedly be damned. 


Living well. 

** If you would live well for a week, kil ! 
a hog; if you would live well for a month 
marry; if you would live well all your life, 
turn priest.” This is an cld proverb; but 
by turning priest is not barely meant be¬ 
coming an ecclesiastic, but it alludes to the 
celibacy of the Romish clergy, and is as j 
much as to say, do not marry at all. 

Country Dances. 

The term “ country dance ” is a corrup¬ 
tion of the French contre danse , by whick 
they mean that which we call a country- 
dance, or a dance by many persons places, 
opposite one to another: it is not frone 
contrfe, but contre. 

The Vine. 

The Romans had so much concern with ! 
the vine and its fruit, that there are more 
terms belonging to it, and its parts, its 
culture, products, and other appurtenances, 
than to any other tree :— 

Vitis, the tree; palmes , the branch; 
patnpinus, the leaf; racemus , a bunch oi 
grapes ; uva , the grape; capreolus, a ten¬ 
dril; vindemia, the vintage; vinum, wine 
acinus, the grape-stone. 

Posthumous Honour. 

Joshua Barnes, the famous Greek pro¬ 
fessor of Cambridge, was remarkable for a 
very extensive memory; but his judgment 
was not exact: and when he died, one 
wrote for him this 

Epitaph. 

Hie jacet Joshua Barnes, 
felicissimae memoriae, 

„ expectans judicium. 


The King’s Arms. 

When Charles II. was going home one 
night drunk, and leaning upon the shoul¬ 
ders of Sedley and Rochester, one of them 
asked him what he imagined his subjects 
would think if they could behold him in 
that pickle. — “ Think !” said the king, 
“ that I am my arms, supported by two 
beasts.” 


430 - 







THE TABLE BOOK. 



iuston Cross. 


1 


Com Kent, 13 miles from London, 3 from Bromley.— Itinsr.tn,. 


When I designed with my friend W. a 
visit to the Dulwich gallery, which we did 
not effect, we did not foresee the conse¬ 
quence of diversion from our intent; and 
having been put out of our way, we strolled 
without considering “ the end thereof.’’ 
Hence, our peradventure at the “ Crooked 
Billet, on Penge Common ;* our loitering to 
sketch the “ Bridge on the Road to Beck¬ 
enham ;”f the same, for the same purpose, al 
“ the Porch of Beckenham Church-yard ;”f 
the survey of “ Beckenham Church the 
view of its old Font in the public-house 
garden; || and the look at the hall of 
“ Wickham Court,” and West Wickham 
church, New and beautiful prospects 
opened to us from the latter v.illage; and 
to the just enumerated six articles, and 


• Vol. i. p. 6?0. f p. 702. t p. 715. 

p. 766. |p. 771. Up. 811. 


their engravings, respecting that part of the 
country, in the former volume of tne Table 
Book , it is intended to add like abstracts ol 
our further proceedings. In short, to be 
respectful and orderly, as one moiety of a 
walking committee, self-constituted and 
appointed, I take permission to “report 
progress, and ask leave to go again.” 

The “ Crooked Billet” at Penge, and 
mine host of the “Swan” at West Wick¬ 
ham, have had visitors curious to trace the 
pleasant route, and remark the particulars 
previously described. While indulging the 
sight, there is another sense that craves to 
be satisfied ; and premising that we are now 
penetrating further “ into the bowels of the 
land,” it becomes a duty to acquaint fol¬ 
lowers with head-quarters. For the pre¬ 
sent, it is neither necessary noi expedient 
to nicely mark the road to “ Keston Cross’ 
- -go which way you will it is an agreeab 


2 F 


431 


























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


one. A Tunbridge or Seven-Oaks coach 
passes within a short half mile, and the 
Westerham coach within the same distance. 
If a delightful two hours’ lounging walk 
from Bromley be desired, take the turning 
from the Swan at Bromley to Beckenham 
church; go through the church-yard over a 
stile, keep the meadow foot-path, cross the 
Wickham road, and wander by hedge-row 
elms, as your will and the countrv-folk 
direct you, till you arrive at Hayes Com¬ 
mon ; then make for the lower or left-hand 
side of the common, and leaving the mill 
on the right, get into the cottaged lane. 
At a few hundred yards past the shjep- 
wash, formed in a little dell by the Ravens- 
bourne, at the end of the open rise, stands 
'* Keston Cross/’ 

Before reaching this place on my first 
visit to it, the country people had indiscri¬ 
minately called it “Keston Cross'’ and 
“ Keston mark ; ” and lacking all intelli¬ 
gible information from them respecting the 
reason for its being so named, I puzzled 
j myself with conjectures, as to whether it 
| was the site of a cross of memorial, a 
maiket cross, a preaching cross, or what 
other kind of cross. It was somewhat of 
disappointment to me, when, in an angle 
of a cross-road, instead of some ancient 
vestige, there appeared a commodious, re¬ 
spectable, and comfortable-looking house 
of accommodation for man and horse; and, 
swinging high in air, its sign, the red-cross, 
heraldically, a cross gules ; its form being, 
on reference to old Randle Holme, “ a cross 
molyne , invertantto describe which, on 
the same authority, it may be said, that 
“ this cross much resembles the molyne, or 
pomette; saving in this, the cut, or sawed 
ends, so turn themselves inward that they 
appear to be escrowles rolled up. Some term 
it molyne , the ends rolled up ”* So much 
for the sign, which I take to be a forgotten 
memorial of some old boundary stone, or 
land-mark, in the form of a cross, long 
since removed from the spot, and perhaps 
after it had become a “ stump-cross 
j which crosses were of so ancient date, that 
| the Christians, ignorantly supposing them 
I to have beet) dedicated to idolatrous pur¬ 
poses, religiously destroyed them, and their 
ancient names were soon forgotten : “ this 
may be the reason why so many broken 
crosses were called stump-crosses.”f The 
observation is scarcely a digression; for 
the house and sign, commonly called 
“ Keston Cross,’’ or “ Keston mark,” stand 


on a site, which, for reasor s that will ap¬ 
peal oy and by, the antiquary deems sacred. 
The annexed representaiion shows the 
direction of the roads, and the star * in the 
corner the angular situation of the house, 
cut out of Holwood, the estate of the late 
Mr. Pitt, which is bounded by the Fan.- 
borough and Westerham roads, and com¬ 
mands from the grounds of the enclosure the 
finest view towards the vsald of Kent in 
this part of the county. 


3 

ce 


* 


Farnboro and 7 Oakes 


Wickham and Croydon 


I 


13 

a 

as 


v 


03 


• Academy of Armory. 

♦ Fosbroke’s Eucy. of Antiquities, 


* Henry IV act u. sc. 1. 


“ Keston Cross” I call “ head-quarters,” 
because in this house you will find yourselt 
“ at home.” You may sparkle forth to many 
remarkable spots in the vicinage, and then 
return and take your “ corporal refection,’’ 
and go in and out at will; or you may sit 
at your ease, and do nothing but contem¬ 
plate in quiet; or, in short, you may do 
just as you like. Of course this is said to 
“ gentle ” readers; and I presume the 
Table Book has no others: certain it is, 
that ungentle persons are unwelcome visi¬ 
tors, and not likely to visit again at “ Kes¬ 
ton Cross.” Its occupant, Mr. S. Young— 
his name is beneath his sign—will not be 
regarded by any one, who does himself the 
pleasure to call at his house, as a common 
landlord. If you see him seated beside the 
door, you estimate him at least of that 
order one of whom, on his travels, the 
chamberlain at the inn at Rochester de¬ 
scribes to Gadshill as worthy his particular 
notice—“ a franklin in the weald of Kent, 
that hath three hundred marks with him in 
gold—one that hath abundance of charge 
too.”* You take Mr. Young for a country 
gentleman ; and, if you company with him, 
may perhaps hear him tell, as many a 




432 














































THE TABLE BOOK. 


country gentleman would—bating obsolete 
phrase and versification— 

I lerned never ihetorike certain ; 

Thing that I spoke it mote be bare and plain : 

I slept never on the mount of Pernaso, 

Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero. 

Colours ne know I non, withouten drede. 

But swiche colours as growen in the mede. 

Or elles swiche as men die with, or peint; 

Colours of rhetorike ben to me queinte ; 

My spirit feleth not of swiche matere: 

But if you lust my tale shul ye here.* 

In brief, if you “ put up ” at the “ Red 
Cross,” and invite Mr. Young’s society, you 
will find him 


a franklin faire und free. 


That entertaines with comely courteous glee.f 

The house itself is not one of your bold 
looking inns, that if you enter you assure 
yourself of paying toll at, in regard of its 
roystering appearance, in addition to every 
item in your bill; but one in which you 
have no objection to be “ at charges,” in 
virtue of its cheerful, promising air. You 
will find these more reasonable perhaps 
than you expect, and you will not find any 
article presented to you of an inferior 
quality. In respect therefore of its self¬ 
commendations and locality, the “ Cross ” 
at Keston is suggested as a point d'appui 
to any who essay from town for a few 
hours of fresh air and comfort, and with a 
desire of leisurely observing scenery alto¬ 
gether new to most London residents. 


* The Frankelein’s proie ue. Chaucer. 
*■ Spenser. 


the visitors to taste. They had common 
drinking vessels as with us, and sometimes 
the flaggons were chained to posts. In the 
inns on the roads there were both hot and 
cold meats. Until the time of Nero, inns 
provided every kind of delicacy : that em¬ 
peror restricted them to boiled vegetables, 
Tiberius prohibited their selling any baker’s 
goods. 

The company frequenting the ancient 
public-houses were usually artificers, sai¬ 
lors, drunken galli, thieves, &c. Chess 
was played, and the abacus, or chess-board 
was made oblong. Hence came the com¬ 
mon painted post still at the doors of out 
own public-houses, the sign of the chequer 
or chequers.* Sir William Hamilton pre¬ 
sented to the Antiquarian Society a view of 
a street in Pompeii, another Italian city 
destroyed by Vesuvius, which contains the 
sign of the chequers, from whence there 
can be no doubt that it was a common one 
among the Romans. 


The classical ancients had inns and pub¬ 
lic-houses. Nothing is a stronger proof of 
the size and populousness of the city of 
Herculaneum, which was destroyed by an 
eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 24th 
of August, a. d. 79, than its nine hundred 
public-houses. A placard or inscription, 
discovered on the wall of a house in that 
ruined city, was a bill for letting one of its 
public-houses on lease; and hence, it ap¬ 
pears that they had galleries at the top, 
and balconies, or green arbours, and baths. 
The dining-rooms were in the upper story. 
Although it was the custom of the Romans 
to recline at their meals, yet when they 
refreshed themselves at these places they 
sat. The landlord had a particular dress, 
and landladies wore a succinct , or tucked 
up dress, and brought the wine in vases foi 


Our Saxon ancestors had public-houses 
where they drank very hard out of vessels 
of earthenware, as the country people do 
still. 

The Anglo-Saxons had the eala-hus, ale¬ 
house, ivin-hus , wine-house, and cumen-hus, 
or inn. Inns, however, were by no means 
common houses for travellers. In the time 
of Edward I. lord Berkeley’s farm-houses 
were used for that purpose. Travellers 
were accustomed to inquire for hospitable 
persons, and even go to the king’s palaces 
for refreshment. John Rous, an old tra¬ 
veller, who mentions a celebrated inn on 
the Warwick road, was yet obliged to go 
another way for want of accommodation.f 


Mr. Brand supposes, that the chequers, 
at this time a common sign of a public- 
house, was originally intended for a kind 
of draught-board, called “ tables,” and that 
it showed that there that game might be 
played. From their colour, which was red, 
and the similarity to a lattice, it was cor¬ 
ruptly called the red lettuce, a word fre¬ 
quently used by ancient writers to signify 
an alehouse. He observes, that this de¬ 
signation of an alehouse is not altogether 
lost, though the original meaning of the 
word is, the sign being converted into a 
preen lettuce; of which an instance occurs 
in Brownlow-street, Holborn. 


• Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiq-uties. 

* Hid. 


433 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


In “ A Fine Companion/’ one of Shack- 
erly Marmion’s plays, we read of “ A 
waterman’s widow ai the sign of the Red 
Lattice in Southwark.” Again, in “ Arden 
of Faversham,” 1592, we have 

— “ his sign pulled down, and his lattice bom away.’ 

Again, in “ The Miseries of Inforc’d 
Marriage,” 1607 : 

— “ ’tis treason to the Red Lattice , enemy to the sign¬ 

post.” 

It were needless to multiply examples of 
this sign beyond one in Shakspeare. Fal- 
staffs page, speaking of Bardolph, says, 
“ He called me even now, my lord, through 
a red lattice, and I could see no part of his 
face from the window.” 

A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine 
for June 1793, says, “ It has been related 
to me by a very noble personage, that in 
the reign of Philip and Mary the then earl 
of Arundel had a grant to license public- 
houses, and part of the armorial bearings 
of that noble family is a chequered board: 
wherefore the publican, to show that he 
had a license, put out that mark as part of 
his sign.” On this, Mr. Brand inquires 
why the publicans take but a part of the 
Arundel arms, and why this part rather 
than any other ? Another writer in the 
Gentleman’s Magazine for September 1794, 
says, “ I think it was the great earl War- 
renne, if not, some descendant or heir near 
him, not beyond the time of llufus, had an 
exclusive power of granting licenses to sell 
beer : that his agent might collect the tax 
more readily, the door-posts were painted 
in chequers ; the arms of Warren then, and 
to this day.” We may, however, reasonably 
refer all these “ modern instances ” to an¬ 
cient times; and derive the publican’s sign 
of the chequers from the great authors of 
many of our present usages, the old Ro¬ 
mans. 


Mons. Jorevin, a French traveller, who 
journeyed through England in the reign of 
Charles II., stopped at the Stag inn, at 
Worcester, in the High-street, and he de¬ 
scribes the entertainment of himself and a 
friend with whom he supped, so as to ac¬ 
quaint us somewhat with the entertainments 
in inns at that time. “ During supper he 
(his friend) sent for a band of music, con¬ 
sisting of all sorts of instruments: among 
these the harp is the most esteemed by the 
English. According to the custom of the 
country the landladies sup with the stran¬ 
gers and passengers, and if they have dnugh- 

____ 


ters they are also of the company, to 
entertain the guests at table with pleasant 
conceits, where they drink as much as the 
men. But what is to me the most disgust¬ 
ing in all this is, that when one drinks the 
health of any person in company, the cus¬ 
tom of the country does not permit you to 
drink more than half the cup, which is 
filled up, and presented to him or her 
whose health you have drank. Moreover, 
the supper being finished, they set on the 
table half a dozen pipes and a packet of 
tobacco for smoking, which is a genera, 
custom, as well among women as men, who 
think that without tobacco one cannot live 
in England, because, say they, it dissipates 
the evil humours of the brain.” It appears 
from a “ Character of England,” printed in 
1659, “ that the ladies of greatest quality 
suffered themselves to be treated in these 
taverns, and that they drank their crowned 
cups roundly, danced after the fiddle, and 
exceeded the bounds of propriety in their 
carousals.” 


If a description of Scottish manners, 
printed about fifty years ago, may be relied 
on, it was then a fashion with females at 
Edinburgh to frequent a sort of public- 
house in that city. The writer says : “Ja¬ 
nuary 15, 1775.—A few evenings ago I 
had the pleasure of being asked to one of 
these entertainments by a lady. At that 
time I was not acquainted with this scene 
of ‘ high life below stairs;’ and therefore, 
when she mentioned the word ‘ oyster-cel¬ 
lar,’ I imagined I must have mistaken the 
place of invitation : she repeated it, how¬ 
ever, and I found it was not my business to 
make objections; so agreed immediately. 
I waited with great impatience till the hour 
arrived, and when the clock struck away I 
went, and inquired if the lady was there. 
—‘ O yes,’ cried the woman, she has been 
here an hour, or more.’ The door opened, 
and I had the pleasure of being ushered in, 
not to one lady, as I expected, but to a 
large and brilliant company of both sexes, 
most of whom I had the honour of being 
acquainted with. The large table, round 
which they were seated, was covered with 
dishes full of oysters and pots of porter. 
For a long time I could not suppose that 
this was the only entertainment we were to 
have, and I sat waiting in expectation of a 
repast that was never to make its appear¬ 
ance. The table was cleared, and glasses 
introduced. The ladies were now asked 
whether they wmuld choose brandy or rum 
punch? I thought this question an odd 
one, but I was soon informed by the gen- 


434 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


pieman who sat next me, that no wine was 
sold here, but that punch was quite ‘ the 
j thing;’and a large bowl was immediately 
' introduced. The conversation hitherto had 
oeen insipid, and at intervals: it now be¬ 
came general and lively. The women, who, 
to do them justice, are much more enter- 
.aining than their neighbours in England, 
discovered a great deal of vivacity and 
fondness for repartee. A thousand things 
were hazarded, and met with applause; to 
which the oddity of the scene gave, pro¬ 
priety, and which could have been produced 
in no other place. The general ease with 
which they conducted themselves, the inno¬ 
cent freedom of their manners, and their 
unaffected good-nature, all conspired to 
make us forget that we were regaling in a 
cellar, and was a convincing proof that, let 
local customs operate as they may, a truly 
polite woman is every where the same. 
When the company were tired of conversa¬ 
tion they began to dance reels, their fa¬ 
vourite dance, which they performed with 
great agility and perseverance. One of the 
gentlemen, however, fell down in the most 
active part of it, and lamed himself; so the 
dance was at an end for that evening. On 
looking at their watches, the ladies now 
found it time to retire; the coaches were 
therefore called, and away they went, and 
with them all our mirth. The com¬ 
pany were now reduced to a party of 
gentlemen; pipes and politics were intro¬ 
duced : I took my hat and wished them 
good night. The bill for entertaining half 
a dozen very fashionable women, amounted 
only to two shillings apiece. If you will 
not allow the entertainment an elegant one, 
you must at least confess that it was 
cheap.”’ 


It may be amusing to wander for a 
moment to another place of public enter¬ 
tainment, for the sake of a character of it 
‘wo centuries ago, by bishop Earle. 

The Tavern, 1628, 

Is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of 
stairs above an ale-house, where men are 
crunk with more credit and apology. If 
;he vintner’s nose be at the door, it is a 
sign sufficient, but the absence of this is 
supplied by the ivy-bush : the rooms are 
ill breathed like the drinkers that have been 
washed well over night, and are smelt-to 
fasting next morning. It is a broacher of 


* Letters from Edinburgh, written :» the years 1774 
tn<l 1775. 


more news than hogsneads, and more jests 
than news, which are sucked up here by 
some spungy brain, and from thence squeez¬ 
ed into a comedy. Men come here to make 
merry, but indeed make a noise; and 
this musick above is answered with the 
clinking below. The drawers are the 
civilest people in it, men of good bringing 
up; and howsoever we esteem of them 
none can boast more justly of their higl 
calling. ’Tis the best theater of natures 
where they are truly acted, not played ; and 
the business, as in the rest of the world, up 
and down, to wit, from the bottom of the 
cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy 
man would find here matter to work upon, 
to see heads as brittle as glasses, and often 
broken; men come hither to quarrel, and 
come hither to be made friends: and if 
Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even 
Telephus’s sword that makes wounds and 
cures them. It is the common consump¬ 
tion of the afternoon, and the murderer or 
maker-away of a rainy day. It is the tor¬ 
rid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco 
the gunpowder that blows it up. Much 
harm would be done, if the charitable vint¬ 
ner had not water ready for these flames. 
A house of sin you may call it, but not a 
nouse of darkness, for the candles are never 
out; and it is like those countries far in 
the north, where it is as clear at mid-night 
as at mid-day. To give you the total reck¬ 
oning of it; it is the busy man’s recreation, 
the idle man’s business, the melancholy 
man’s sanctuary, the stranger’s welcome, 
the inns-of-court man’s entertainment, the 
scholar’s kindness, and the citizen’s courtesy. 
It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup 
of canary their book, whence we leave 
them. 


Bishop Ear.e, in his character of a “ Poor 
Fiddler,” describes him as “ in league with 
the tapsters for the worshipful of the inn, 
whom he torments next morning with his 
art, and has their names more perfect than 
their men.” Sir John Hawkins, who cite!, 
this in his History of Music, also abstracts 
a curious view of the customs at inns, from 
Fyne Moryson’s “ Itinerary,” rather later 
in the same age :— 

“ As soone as a passenger comes to an 
inne, the seruants run to him, and one takes 
his horse and walkes him till he be cold, 
then rubs him, and giues him meate, yet I 
must say that they are not much to be 
trusted in this last point, without the eye 
of the master or his seruant to ouersee them. 
Another seruant giues the passenger hi«- 


435 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


I 


I 


priuate chamber, and kindles his fier, the 
third puls of his bootes, and makes them 
cleane. Then the host or hostesse visits 
him, and if he will eate with the host, or at 
a common table with others, his meale will 
cost him sixepence, or in some places but 
foure pence, (yet this course is lesse honour¬ 
able, and not vsed by gentlemen) : but if 
he will eate in his chamber, he commands 
what meate he will according to his appe¬ 
tite, and as much as he thinkes fit for him 
and his company, yea, the kitchen is open 
to him, to command the meat to be dressed 
as he best likes; and when he sits at table, 
the host or hostesse will accompany him, or 
if they haue many guests, will at least visit 
him, taking it for curtesie to be bid sit 
downe : while he eates, if he haue company 
especially, he shall be offred musicke, 
which he may freely take or refuse, and if 
he be solitary, the musitians will giue him 
the good day with musicke in the morning. 
It is the custome, and no way disgracefull, 
to set vp part of supper for his breakefast: 
in the euening or in the morning after 
breakefast, (for the common sort vse not to 
dine, but ride from breakefast to supper 
time, yet comming early to the inne for 
better resting of their horses) he shall haue 
a reckoning in writing, and if it seeme vn- 
reasonable, the host will satisfie him, either 
for the due price, or by abating part, espe¬ 
cially if the seruant deceiue him any way, 
which one of experience will soone find. I 
will now onely adde, that a gentleman and 
his man shall spend as much, as if he were 
accompanied with another gentleman and 
his man ; and if gentlemen will in such sort 
ioyne together, to eate at one table, the ex- 
pences will be much deminished. Lastly, 
a man cannot more freely command at. 
home in his owne house, than hee may doe 
in his inne ; and at parting, if he giue some 
few pence to the chamberlin and ostler, 
they wish him a happy journey.” 


Through a most diligent collector of 
archaeological authorities, we find in the 
time of Elizabeth only eight-pence paid at 
an inn for a physician all night; and in the 
time of Charles II. only two-pence for a 
man and horse at Bristol.* 


Bristol has now attained to so great 
wealth and prosperity, as to provide inns of 
importance equal perhaps to any in the 


• Fosbroke. 


kingdom. A friend, who sojourned there 
at the undermentioned date, hands me 
a printed document, which he received 
from his landlord, Mr. John Weeks; it is 
so great a curiosity, as bespeaking the opu¬ 
lence of that ancient city, and the spirit of 
its great innkeeper, that I cannot refrain 
from recording it. 

BUSH TAVERN. 

Bill or Fare for Christmas, 1800 


1 Bustard 
Red game 
Black game 
1 Turtle, 1201b. 

1 Land tortoise 

72 Pots turtle, different 
prices 

Vermicelli soup 
British turtle 
Giblet soup 
Pease soup 
Gravy soup 
Soup Sant£ 

Soup and bouillg 
Mutton broth 
Barley broth 

3 Turbots 

4 Cods 

2 Brills 
2 Pipers 
12 Dories 

2 Haddocks 
14 Rock fish 
18 Carp 
12 Perch 
4 Salmon 
12 Plaice 
17 Herrings 
Sprats 
122 Eels 
Salt fish 
78 Roach 
98 Gudgeons 

1 Dried salmon 
Venison ,—1 Haunch he- 

vior 

5 Haunches doe 
5 Necks 
10 Breasts 
10 Shoulders 
49 Hares 
17 Pheasants 
41 Partridges 
97 Wild ducks 
17 Wild geese 
37 Teal 
31 Widgeon 
16 Bald coots 

2 Sea pheasants 

3 Mews 


11 Veal burrs 
1 Roasting pig 
Oysters, stew’d & collop’d 

Hogs’ puddings 
Ragoo’d feet and ears 
Scotch’d collops 
Veal cutlets 
Harricoed mutton 
Maintenon chops 
Pork chops 
Mutton chops 
Rump steaks 
Joint steaks 
Pinbone steaks 
Sausages 

Hambro’ sausages 
Tripe, cow heels, am. 
knotlings 

5 House lambs 

Veal —3 Legs & loins 
2 Breasts & shou 
ders 

2 Heads 
Beef— 5 Rumps 

3 Sirloins 
5 Rounds 

2 Pieces of 5 rib 
each 

7 Pinbones 

Dutch & Hambro’ 1 be<* 
Mutton —8 Haunches 
8 Legs 
8 Necks 
11 Loins 
6 Saddles 
6 Chines 
5 Shoulders 
Pork —4 Legs 

4 Loins 
4 Chines 
Sparibs 
Half a porkm 

[Cold] 

1 Boar’s head 

1 Baron beef 

2 Hams 

4 Tongues 

6 Chicken 


436 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


4 Moor hens 

Hogs* feet and ears 

2 Water drab* 

7 Collars brawn 

7 Curlews 

2 Rounds beef 

2 Bitterns 

Collared veal 

81 Woodcocks 

Collared beef 

149 Snipes 

Collared mutton 

17 Wild Turkies 

Collared eels 

18 Golden plovers 

Collared pig’s head 

1 Swan 

Dutch tongues 

5 Quists 

Bologna sausages 

2 Land rails 

Paraguay pies 

13 Galenas 

French pies 

4 Peahens 

Mutton pies 

1 Peacock 

Pigeon pies 

1 Cuckoo 

Venison pasty 

116 Pigeons 

Sulks 

121 Larks 

430 Mince pies 

1 Sea magpye 

13 Tarts 

127 Stares 

Jellies 

208 Small birds 

Craw fish 

44 Turkies 

Pickled salmon 

8 Capons 

Sturgeon 

19 Ducks 

Pickled oysters 

10 Geese 

Potted partridges 

2 Owls 

Lobsters 

61 Chickens 

5>2 Barrels Pyfieet 8t Col¬ 

4 Ducklings 

chester oysters 

11 Rabbits 

Milford & Tenby oysters 

3 Pork griskins 

4 Pine apples 


Could our ancestors take a peep from their 
1 graves at this bill of fare, we may conceive 
what would be their astonishment at so 
great a variety and abundance of provi¬ 
sion for travellers at a single inn of our 
times; in earlier days, wayfarers were, in 
many places, compelled to seek accommo¬ 
dation from hospitable housekeepers, and 
knights were lodged in barns. 


A history of inns would be curious. It 
is not out of the way to observe, that the 
old inns of the metropolis are daily under¬ 
going alterations that will soon destroy 
their original character. “Courts with 
bedchambers, below and around the old 
inns, occur in the middle age, and are pro¬ 
bably of Roman fashion ; for they resemble 
'the barracks at Tivoli.”* There are speci¬ 
mens of this inn-architecture still remaining 
to be observed at the Bell Savage, Ludgate- 
j hill; the Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill; the 
j George, and the Ram, in Smithfield; the 
Bull and Mouth; the Swan and two 
| necks;+ the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate- 
street, and a few others ; not forgetting the 


r Oal/iURCt t 

t See the derivation of this sign in the Every-Day 

Both. 


Talbot inn, in the Borough, from whence 
Chaucer’s pilgrims set out to the shrine 
of St. Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury ; o; 
which there is a modern painting placed in 
front of one of its galleries facing the street 
entrance. Stow, in his time, calls it, under 
the name of the “Tabard,” “ the most an¬ 
cient” of the inns on the Surrey side of Lon¬ 
don. In Southwark, he says, “ bee many 
faire innes for receit of travellers—amongst 
the which, the most ancient is the Tubard, 
so called of the signe, which as wee now 
terme it, is of a jacket, or sleevelesse coate, 
whole before, open on both sides, witli a 
square collar, winged at the shoulders; a 
stately garment, of old time commonly 
worne of noblemen and others, both at 
home and abroad in the wars; but then (to 
wit, in the waires,) their armes embroider¬ 
ed, or otherwise depict upon them, that 
every man by his coat of armes might bee 
knowne from others : but now these tabards 
are onely worne by the heralds, and bee 1 
called their coats of armes in service.” 
Stowe then quotes Chaucer in commenda¬ 
tion of the “ Inne of the Tabard :”— 

It befelle in that season, on a aay 
In Southwerk, at the Tabard as I lay 
Ready to wend on my pilgrimage 
To Canterbury with devout courage ; 

That night was come into that hostelrie 
Well nine and twenty in a compagnie 
Of sundry folke, by aver.ture yfalle 
In felawsship, and pilgrimes were they alle, 

That toward Canterbury wolden ride 
The chambers and stables weren wide, &c. 

Chaucer, whom it pleases to Stowe to 
call “ the most famous poet of England,” 
relates 

-shortly in a clause 

Th’ estat, th’ araie, the nombre, and eke the cause, 

Why that assembled was this compagnie 
In Southwerk, at this gentil hostelrie. 

That hight the Tabard , faste by the Bell. 

In course of time the original name of 
the sign seems to have been lost, and its 
meaning forgotten. The “ Tabard” is cor¬ 
rupted or perverted into the “ Talbot ” inn; 
and as already, through Stowe, I have shown 
the meaning of the Tabard, some readers 
perhaps may excuse me for adding, that the 
Talbot, which is now only a term for an 
armorial bearing, is figured in heraldry as 
a dog, a blood-hound, or hunting hound * 


• Academy of Armory, b. li. c. 9. 


437 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 



aanflltam Blafee, #6tler at Srstmt Cross. 


After thus beating up inns and public- 
houses generally, we will return for a mo¬ 
ment to “ Keston Cross.’’ To this pleasant 
house there is attached a delightful little 
flower and fruit-garden, with paddocks, 
poultry-yard, outhouses, and every requisite 
for private or public use ; all well-stocked, 
and, by the order wherein all are kept, be¬ 
speaking the well-ordered economy of the 
occupant’s mind. The stabling for his own 
and visitors’ horses is under the manage¬ 
ment of an ostler of long service: and 


it must not be forgotten, that the rooms in 
the house are marked by its owner’s at¬ 
tachment to horses and field-sports. In 
the common parlour, opposite the door, is 
a coloured print of the burial of a hunts¬ 
man—the attendants in “ full cry” over the 
grave—with verses descriptive of the cere¬ 
mony. A parlour for the accommodation 
of private parties has an oil painting of the 
old duke of Bolton, capitally mounted, in 
the yard of his own mansion, going out, 
attended by his huntsman and dogs. There 


438 



































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


are other pictures in the same taste, par¬ 
ticularly a portrait of one of Mr. Young's 
horses. 

The ostler at “ Keston Cross ” is the 
most remarkable of its obliging, humble 
servants. The poor fellow has lost an eye, 
and is like the “ high-mettled racer ” in his 
decline—except that he is well used. While 
looking about me I missed W., and found 
he had deemed him a picturesque subject, 
and that he was in the act of sketching 
him from behind the door of the stable- 
yard, while he leaned against the stable- 
i door with his corn-sieve in his hand. I 
know not why the portrait should not come 
into a new edition of Bromley’s Catalogue, 

! or an appendix to Granger: sure I am that 
many far less estimable persons figure in 
the Biographical History of England. As 
an honest man, (and if he were not he 
would not be in Mr. Young’s service,) I 
craved my friend W. to engrave him on a 
wood-block; I have no other excuse to 
offer for presenting an impression of it, 
than the intrinsic worth of the industrious 
original, and the merit of the likeness; and 
that apology it is hoped very few will 
j decline. 


Dr. Johnson derives “ ostler'’ from the 
French word “ hostelier,” but “ hostelier ’’ 
in French, now spelt “ hotelier,” signifies 
an innkeeper, or host, not an ostler; to 
express the meaning of which term the 
French word is wholly different in spelling 
and pronunciation. It seems to me that 
“ ostler” is derived from the word “ hostel,’ 
which was formerly obtained from the 
French, and was in common use here to 
signify an inn ; and the innkeeper was from 
thence called the “ hosteller.” This was at 
a period when the innkeeper or “ hosteller 
would be required by his guests to take 
and tend their horses, which, before the 
use of carriages, and when most goods 
were conveyed over the country on the 
nacks of horses, would be a chief part of 
nis employment; and hence, the “ hostel- 
,er ” actually became the “ hostler,” or 
| * ostler,” that is, the horse-keeper. 


We will just glean, for two or three 
minutes, from as many living writers who 
have gone pleasantly into inns, and so con¬ 
clude. 


Washington Irving, travelling under the 
name of “ Geoffrey Crayon, gent.” and re¬ 
posing himself within a comfortable hostel 


at Shakspeare s birth-place, says :—T> * 
homeless man, who has :.o spot on this 
wide world which he can truly call his own, 
there is a momentary feeling of something 
like independence and territorial conse¬ 
quence, when, after a weary day’s t'ravel, 
lie kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into 
slippers, and stretches himself before an inn 
fire. Let the world without go as it may ; 
let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has 
the wherewithal to pay his bilf, he is, for 
the time being, the very monarch of all he 
surveys. The arm chair is his throne, the 
poker his sceptre, and the little parlour, of 
some twelve feet square, his undisputed 
empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatch¬ 
ed from the midst of the uncertainties of 
1 ife ; it is a sunny moment gleaming out 
kindly on a cloudy day ; and he who has ; 
advanced some way on the pilgrimage of 
existence, knows the importance of hus¬ 
banding even morsels and moments of en¬ 
joyment. ‘ Shall I not take mine ease in 
mine inn ?’ thought I, as I gave the fire a : 
stir, lolled back in my elbow chair, and 
cast a complacent look about the little par¬ 
lour of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on- 
Avon.”— 


Elia, to illustrate the “ astonishing com¬ 
posure” of some of the society of “ friends,” 
tells a pleasant anecdote, which regards 
a custom at certain inns, and is there¬ 
fore almost as fairly relatable in this place, 
as it is delightfully related in his volume of 
“ Essays —“ I was travelling,” says Elia, 
“ in a stage-coach with three male quakers, 
buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity 
of their sect. We stopped to bait at An¬ 
dover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, 
partly supper, was set before us. My 
fiiends confined themselves to the tea-table. 
I in my way took supper. When the land¬ 
lady brought in the bill, the eldest of my 
companions discovered that she had charged 
for both meals. This was resisted. Mine 
hostess was very clamorous and positive. 
Some mild arguments were used on the 
part of the quakers, for which the heated 
mind of the good lady seemed by no means 
a fit recipient. The guard came in with 
his usual peremptory notice. The quakers 
pulled out their money, and formally ten¬ 
dered it—so much for tea—I, in humble 
imitation, tendering mine—for the supper 
which I had taken. She would not relax 
in her demand. So they all three quietly 
put up their silver, as did myself, and 
marched out of the room, the eldest and 
gravest going first, w'th myself closing m> 


439 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


the rear, whc thought f could not do better 
ti an follow the example of such grave and 
warrantable personages. We got in. The 
1 steps went up. The coach drove off. The 
murmurs of mine hostess, not very indis¬ 
tinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became 
after a time inaudible—and now my con¬ 
science, which the whimsical scene had for 
a while suspended, beginning to give some 
twitches, I waited, in the hope that some 
•ustification would be offered by these 
erious persons for the seeming injustice of 
their conduct. To my great surprise, not a 
syllable was dropped on the subject. They 
sate as mute as at a meeting. At length 
; the eldest of them broke silence, by in- 
I quiring of his next neighbour, ‘ Hast thee 
| heard how indigos go at the India House?’ 

| and the question operated as a soporific on 
j my moral feeling as far as Exeter.” 


Finally, from the “ Indicator” we leatn, 
that to Mr. Leigh Hunt “ a tavern and 
coffee-house is a pleasant sight, from its 
sociality; not to mention the illustrious 
club memories of the times of Shakspeare 
and the Tatlers. The rural transparencies, 
j however, which they have in their windows, 
with all our liking of the subject, would 
! perhaps be better in any others ; for tavern 
sociality is a town-tiling, and should be 
content with town ideas. A landscape in 
the window makes us long to change it at 
once for a rural inn ; to have a rosy-faced 
damsel attending us, instead of a sharp and 
serious waiter; and to catch, in the inter¬ 
vals of chat, the sound of a rookery instead 
of cookery. We confess that the common- 
. est public-house in town is not such an 
eyesore to us as it is with some. It may 
not be very genteel, but neither is every 
thing that is rich. There may be a little 
too much drinking and roaring going on in 
the middle of the week; but what, in the 
mean time, are pride and avarice, and all 
the unsocial vices about? Before we object 
to public-houses, and above all to their 
Saturday evening recreations, we must alter 
the systems that make them a necessary 
comfort to the poor and laborious. Till 
then, in spite of the vulgar part of the 
polite, we shall have an esteem for the 
Devil and the Bag o’ Nails; and like to 
hear, as we go along on Saturday night, 
the applauding knocks on the table that 
follow the song of ‘ Lovely Nan,’ or * Brave 
Captain Death,’ or * Tobacco is an Indian 
Weed,' or * Why, Soldiers, why,’ or * Sayi 
Plato why should man be vain,’ or that 

- ■ - - .. - ■■ - , -- - 

H 1 " • ■ ’ 1 " i n. . 1 - -- - - 


judicious and unanswerable ditty, com 
mencing 

Now what can man more desire 
Nor sitting by a sea-coal fire ; 

And on his knees, &c.” 


#amcfc flaps!. 

No. XXV. 

[From “ Edward the Third,” an Historical 
Play, Author Unknown, 1597.] 

The King, having relieved the Castle of 
the heroic Countess of Salisbury , besieged 
by the Scots, and being entertained by her, 
loves her. 

Edward (solas ') She is grown more fairer far since 
I came hither: 

Her voice more silver every word than other. 

Her wit more fluent. What a strange discourse 
Unfolded she of David, and his Scots ! 

Even thus, quoth she, he spake, and then spake broad 
With epithets and accents of the Scot ; 

But somewhat better than the Scot could speak : 

And thus, quoth she, and answer’d then herself; 

For who could speak like her ? but she herself 
Breathes from the wall an angel note from heaven 
Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes.— 

When she would talk of peace, methinks her tongue 
Commanded war to prison: when of war. 

It waken’d Caesar from his Roman grave, 

To hear war beantified by her discourse. 

Wisdom is foolishness ; but in her tongue; 

Beauty a slander, but in her fair face; 

There is no summer, but in her chearful looks; 

Nor frosty winter, but in her disdain. 

I cannot blame the Scots that did besiege her, 

For she is all the treasure of our land : 

But call them cowards, that they ran away ; 

Having so rich and fair a cause to stay. 

The Countess repells the King's unlaw¬ 
ful suit. 

Countess. Sorry I am to see my liege so sad : 

What may thy subject do to drive from thee 
This gloomy consort, sullome Melancholy ? 

King. Ah Lady 1 I am blunt, and cannot strew 
The flowers of solace in a ground of shame. 

Since I came hither, Countess, I am wrong’d. 

Coun. Now God forbid that any in my house 
Should think my sovereign wrong 1 thrice-gentle king 
Acquaint me with your cause of discontent. 

King. How near then shall I be to remedy ? 


440 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


Court. As near, my l'.ege, as all my woman’s power, 
Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy. 

King. If thou speak’st true, then have I my redress. 
Engage thy power to redeem my joys. 

And 1 am joyful, Countess ; else I die. 

Coun. 1 will, my liege. 

King. Swear, Countess, that thou wilt. 

Conn. By heaven I will. 

King. Then take thyself a little way aside. 

And tell thyself, a king doth dote on thee. 

Say that within thy power it doth lie 
To make him happy, and that thou hast sworn 
To give him all the joy within thy power. 

Do this ; and tell him, when I shall be happy. 

! Coun. All this is done, my thrice-dread sovereign. 
That power of love, that I have power to give, 

Thou hast, with all devout obedience. 

Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof. 

King. Thou hear’st me say that I do dote on thee. 
Coun. If on my beauty, take it if thou can’st; 
Though little, I do prize it ten times less: 

If on my virtue, take it if thou can’st; 

For virtue’s store by giving doth augment. 

Be it on what it will, that I can give. 

And thou can’st take away, inherit it. 

King. It is thy beauty that I would enjoy. 

Coun. O were it painted, I would wipe it off. 

And dispossess myself to give it thee ; 

But, sovereign, it is soulder’d to my life : 

Take one, and both ; for, like an humble shadow, 

It haunts the sunshine of my summer’s life. 

King. But thou may’st lend it me to sport withaL. 
Coun. As easy may my intellectual soul 
Be lent away, and yet my body live, 

As lend my body (palace to my soul) 

Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 

My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 

And'she an angel pure, divine, unspotted; 

If I should lend her house, my Lord, to thee, 

I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me. 

King. Didst thou not swear to give me what I 
would ? 

Count. I did, my liege, so what you would, I could. 
King. I wish no more of thee, than thou may’st give : 
Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy; 

That is thy love; and for that love of thine 
In rich exchange, I tender to thee mine. 

Coun. But that your lips were sacred, my Lord, 

You would profane the holy name of love. 

Thai love, you offer me, you cannot give ; 

For C»sar owes that tribute to his Queen. 

That love, you beg of me, 1 cannot give ; 

For Sara owes that duty to her Lord. 

He, that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp, 

Shall die, my Lord : anu shall your sacred self 
Commit high treason ’gainst the King of Heaven, 

To stamp his image in forbidden metal, 

Forgetting your allegiance and your oath ? 

In violating marriage’ sacred law. 

You break a greater Honour than yourself. 

To be a King , is of a younger house 
Than To be married : your progenitor. 

Sole-reigning Adam on the universe, 

By God was honour’d for a married Man 


But not by him anointed for a King. 

It is a penalty to break your statutes. 

Tho’ not enacted with your Highness’ hand; 

How much more to infringe the holy act. 

Made by the mouth of God, seal’d with his hand 
I know my Sovereign, in my Husband’s love, 

Doth but to try the Wife of Salisbury, 

Whether she will hear a wanton’s tale or no : 

Lest being guilty therein by my stay, 

From that, not from my liege, I turn away. 

****** 

King. Whether is her beauty by her words divine 
Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty 1 
Like as the wind doth beautify a sail, 

And as a sail becomes the unseen wind, 

So do her words her beauties, beauty words. 

* ***** 

Coun. He hath sworn me by the name of God 
To break a vow made in the name of God. 

What if I swear by this right hand of mine 
To cut this right hand off? the better way 
Were to profane the idol, than confound it. 

Flattery. 

- 0 thou World, great nurse of flattery, 

Why dost thou tip men’s tongues with golden word* 
And poise their deeds with weight of heavy lead, 
That fair performance cannot follow promise ? 

O that a man might hold the heart’s close book 
And choke the lavish tongue, when it doth utter 
The breath of falsehood, not character’d there l 

Sin , worst in High Place , 

An honourable grave is more ester ned, 

Than the polluted closet of a king ; 

The greater man, the greater is the thing, 

Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake. 

An unreputed mote, flying in the sun. 

Presents a greater substance than it is; 

The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint 
The loathed carrion, that it seems to kiss ; 

Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe; 

That sin does ten times aggravate itselt, 

That is committed in a holy place; 

An evil deed done by authority 
Is sin, and subornation; deck an ape 
In tissue, and the beauty of the robe 
Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast; 

The poison shews worst in a golden cup; 

Dark night seems darker by the light’ning flash ; 
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds . 

And every Glory, that inclines to Sin, 

The shame is treble by the opposite. 

C. L. 


441 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


poeUp. 

For the Table Book. 

SONNET TO MISS KELI f, 

On her excellent performance of 
Blindness, in the revived Opera 
of Arthur and Emmeline. 

Rare artist, who with half thy tools, or none, 

Canst execute with ease thy curious art, 

And press thy powerful’st meanings on the heart 
Unaided by the eye, expression’s throne! 

While each blind sense, intelligential grown 
Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight. 

Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might. 

All motionless and silent seem to moan 
The unseemly negligence of nature’s hand. 

That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine, 

O mistress of the passions !—artist fine !— 

Who dost our souls against our sense command ; 
Plucking the horroT from a sightless face. 

Lending to blank deformitv a grace 

C. Lamb. 


VOLUNTEER REMINISCENCES. 

To the Editor. 

Sham-Fights and Invasion. 

Dear Sir,—Some agreeable recollections 
-nduce me to pen a few circumstances for 
the Table Book , which may kindle associa¬ 
tions in the many who were formerly en¬ 
gaged in representing the “ raw recruit,” 
and who are now playing the “ old soldier” 
in the conflict of years. I do not travel 
out of the road to take the “ Eleven city 
regiments” into my battalion, nor do I call 
for the aid of the “ Gray’s-inn sharpshoot¬ 
ers,” (as lawyers are,) and other gents of 
the “ sword and sash,” who then emulated 
their brethren in “ scarlet and blue.”— 
Erecting my canteen at Moorgate, I hint 
to other quilldrivers to extend their forces 
when and where their memories serve. 
Inkshed, not bloodshed, is my only danger 
—my greatest failing is a propensity (I fear) 
to digress and enlarge, till I may not bring 
the numbers of my muster-roll within pro¬ 
per discipline. Being on my guard, how¬ 
ever, I take the succeeding specimens from 
a spot filled with chapels of several persua¬ 
sions, the “ London Institution,” and well- 
built houses, w ith a pleasant relief of ver¬ 
dure in the centre for nursery maids and 
tomping children. 


Moorjields, alas ! has no fields ! Where 
the “ Beth’lem hospital” raised its magnifi¬ 
cent but gloomy front, with old Cibber’s 
statues of “ Raving and Melancholy Mad¬ 
ness” siding the centre entrance, no vestiges 
remain, except the church and parts of 
London Wall, leading from Broker-row to 
the Albion chapel, commonly called the 
Plum-cake. Who that knew the crossing 
from Finsbury-square to Broad-street re¬ 
members not the open-barred window at 
which “ Mad Molly” daily appeared,sing¬ 
ing, and talking inconsistencies of love, 
confinement, and starvation ? Who that 
stood before the massive building heard not 
the tones of agony, and felt not deep pity 
for the poor reasonless creatures ? 

-In Moorfields, when Buonaparte 

threatened this country with invasion, the 
beat of drum and the shrillings of the fife 
brought corps of gentlemen volunteers into 
rank and file, to show how much a “ nation 
of shopkeepers ” could do. Ladies in clus¬ 
ters assembled here to witness the feats of 
their soldier-like heroes—sanctioning with 
their presence, and applauding with their 
smiles, the defenders of their domiciles. 

The “ Bank gentlemen,” distinguished 
by their long gaiters, and therefore called 
black-legs, went farther off and exercised 
before bank-hours, in the Tenter-ground 
beyond the Vinegar-yard. 

The East India Company’s three regi¬ 
ments (the best soldiers next to the foot- 
guards) drilled in a field which lay in the 
way on the one side to the Rosemary 
Branch, (noted for a water-party or fives’ 
match,) and the White Lead Mills, whose 
windsails are removed by the steam Quix¬ 
otes of the day. On the other side, skirted 
the once pleasant path, leading from the 
Shepherd and Shepherdess across the mea¬ 
dow either to Queen’s Head-lane, the Bri¬ 
tannia, or the Almshouses, near the Barley 
Mow, Islington. The East India field is 
now divided into gardens and snug ar¬ 
bours, let to the admirers of flowers and 
retreats. 

Lackington’s “ Temple of Fame ” was a 
temple of knowledge. This splendid place 
and its winding shelves of books caught 
the passing eye with astonishment at the 
success and skill of the once humble own¬ 
er of a bookstall in Chiswell-street. Here 
Finsbury's “ child of lore and catalogue- 
maker” wrote a “ book,” abounding with 
quotations from authors, and refuted his 
own words in after-life by publishing his 
“ Confessions.” Lackington was, how¬ 
ever, a man of deep judgment in his busi¬ 
ness, and no every-day observer of the 


442 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


manners and variations of li.s contempora¬ 
ries. 

Then, the “ Artillery Company” attracted 
well-dressed people on Wednesday even- 
ings, and from Finsbury-side to Bunhill- 
row there was a promenade of fashionables 
from Duke’s-place and Bevis Marks, listen¬ 
ing to a band of music and the roar of 
cannon till dusk. 

Moorfields gathered more regiments than 
any other spot excepting the Park, in which 
reviews and sham-fights concentrated the 
corporate forces on field-days. Wimbledon 
Common became also an occasional scene 
of busy parade and preparation ; baggage 
long drawn out, multitudes of friends, 
sweethearts and wives, and nondescripts. 
In the roads were collected the living beings 
of half of the metropolis. It seemed astir 
in earnest of great achievements. Many a 
white handkerchief dried the parting tear. 
There were the adieu and the farewell; 
salutes given behind the counter, or snatch¬ 
ed in the passage, affected the sensibilities 
like last meetings. Sir W. Curtis and other 
colonels reminded the “ gentlemen ” they 
I had “ the honour ” to command, that they 
were in “ good quarters.” Sermons were 
preached in and out of the establishment to 
“ soldiers.” Representations were given 
at the theatres to “ soldiers.” The shop- 
windows presented tokens of courage and 
love to “ soldiers.” Not a concert was 
held, not a “ free and easy ” passed, with¬ 
out songs and melodies to “ soldiers.” It 
was a fine time for publicans and poets. 
Abraham Newland’s promises kept army- 
clothiers, gun-makers, Hounslow powder- 
mills, and Mr. Pitt’s affairs in action. No 
man might creditably present himself if he 
were void of the ton of military distinc¬ 
tion ; and Charles Dibdin and Grimaldi— 
j “ wicked wags !”—satirized the fashion of 
“ playing at soldiers.” 

In process of time, Maidstone, Colches¬ 
ter, and Rochester were select places for 
; trying the shopkeeping volunteers: they 
I were on duty for weeks, and returned with 
the honours of the barracks. Things taking 
! a more peaceful aspect, or rather the alarm 
j of invasion having subsided, the regimen¬ 
tals were put by, and scarcely a relic is 
j now seen to remind the rising generation 
of the deeds of their fathers. 

I could travel further, and tell more of 
these and similar doings, but I refrain, lest 
I tire your patience and your readers’ cour- 
! tesy. 

1 Dear srr, 

Truly yours, 

June, 1827. A City Volunteer. 


Bisrobrrirs 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. I. 

It has been ascertained by the researches 
of a curious investigator,* that many cele¬ 
brated philosophers of recent times have, 
for the most part, taken what they advance 
from the works of the ancients. These 
modern acquisitions are numerous and im¬ 
portant ; and as it is presumed that many 
may be instructed, and more be surprised 
by their enumeration, a succinct account of 
them is proposed. 

It appears as unjust to praise and admire 
nothing but what savours of antiquity, as 
to despise whatever comes from thence, 
and to approve of nothing but what is 
recent. The moderns certainly have much 
merit, and have laboured not a little in the 
advancement of science; but the ancients 
paved the way, wherein at present is made 
so rapid a progress: and we may in that 
respect join Quintilian, who declared, seven¬ 
teen hundred years ago, “ that antiquity 
had so instructed us by its example, and 
the doctrines of its great masters, that we 
could not have been born in a more happy 
age, than that which had been so illumi¬ 
nated by their care.” While it would be 
ingratitude to deny such masters the enco¬ 
miums due to them, envy alone would 
refuse the moderns the praise they so 
amply deserve. Justice ought to be ren¬ 
dered to both. In comparing the merits of 
the moderns and ancients, a distinction 
ought to be made between the arts and 
sciences, which require long experience 
and practice to bring them to perfection, 
and those which depend solely on talent 
and genius. Without doubt the former, in 
so long a series of ages, have been extended 
more and more; and, with the assistance 
of printing and other discoveries, have been 
brought to a very high degree of per¬ 
fection by the moderns. Our astronomers 
understand much better the nature of the 
stars, and the whole planetary system, than 
Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and others of the 
ancients; but it may be doubted, whether 
they had gone so far, unaided by telescopes. 
The moderns have nearly perfected the art 
of navigation, and discovered new woilds; 


* The Rev. L. Du tens, in his “Inquiry irto the On 
gin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns.’* 


443 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


yet without the compass, America had pro¬ 
bably remained unknown. Likewise, by 
long observation, and experiments often 
repeated, we have brought botany, anatomy, 
and chirurgery, to their present excellence. 
Many secrets of nature, which one age was 
insufficient to penetrate, have been laid 
open in a succession of many. Philosophy 
has assumed a new air; and the trifling 
and vain cavils of the schools, have at 
length been put to flight by the reiterated 
efforts of Ramus, Bacon, Gassendi, Des¬ 
cartes, Newton, Gravesand, Leibnitz, and 
'Wolf. While, therefore, willingly con¬ 
ceding to the moderns every advantage 
they are fairly entitled to, the share which 
the ancients had in beating out for us the 
pathways to knowledge is an interesting 
subject of inquiry. 


For two thousand years the ancient phi¬ 
losophers were so fully in possession of the 
general esteem, that they often led men 
blindfold. They were listened to as ora¬ 
cles, and their very obscurities regarded as 
too sacred to be pried into by common 
eyes. An ipse dixit of Pythasroras, Aris¬ 
totle, or any other ancient sage, was enough 
to decide the most difficult case: the 
learned bowed in a body, and expressed 
j their satisfaction, while they surrendered 
their judgment. These habits of submission 
were ill adapted to advance knowledge. A 
few noble spirits, who, in recompense of 
their labours, have been honoured with the 
glorious title of restorers of learning, quickly 
felt the hardship of the bondage, and threw 
off the yoke of Aristotle. But instead of 
following the example of those great men, 
whose incessant studies, and profound re¬ 
searches, had so enriched the sciences, some 
of their successors were content to make 
them the basis of their own slight works; 
and a victory, which might have tended to 
the perfecting of the human mind, dwindled 
into a petty triumph. Bruno, Cardan, 
Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and 
Leibnitz, the heroes of the literary com¬ 
monwealth, had too much merit, not to own 
that of the ancients. They did them justice, 
and avowed themselves their disciples; but 
the half-learned and feeble, whose little 
stock and strength were insufficient to raise 
to themselves a name, rail at those from 
whom they stole the riches with which they 
are bedecked, and ungratefully conceal their 
obligations to their benefactors. 

The method made use of by the moderns, 
in the new philosophy, recommends itself 
by its own excellence ; for the spirit of 
analysis and geometry that pervades their 


manner of treating subjects, has contributed 
so much to the advancement of science, 
that it were to be wished they had never 
swerved from it. It is not, however, to be 
denied, that the noblest parts of that system 
of philosophy, received with so much ap¬ 
plause in the three last centuries, were 
known and inculcated by Pythagoras, Plato, 
Aristotle, and Plutarch. Of these great 
men, it may be believed that they well knew 
how to demonstrate what they communi¬ 
cated ; although the arguments, upon 
which some portions of their demonstra¬ 
tions were founded, have not come down 
to us. Yet, if in those works which have 
escaped destruction from the fanaticism of 
ignorance, and the injuries of time, we 
meet with numberless instances of penetra¬ 
tion and exact reasoning in their manner 
of relating their discoveries, it is reasonable ! 
to presume that they exerted the same care 
and logical accuracy in support of these 
truths, which are but barely mentioned in 
the writings preserved to us. Among the 
titles of their lost books are many respect¬ 
ing subjects mentioned only in general in 
their other writings. We may conclude, 
therefore, that we should have met with 
the proofs we now want, had they not 
thought it unnecessary to repeat them, after 
having published them in so many other 
works, to which they often refer, and of 
which the titles are handed down to us by 
Diogenes Laertius, Suidas, and other an¬ 
cients, with exactness sufficient to give us 
an idea of the greatness of our loss. From 
numerous examples of this kind, which 
might be quoted, one may be selected re¬ 
specting Democritus. That great man was 
the author of two books, from the titles of 
which it evidently appears, that he was 
one of the principal inventors of the ele¬ 
mentary doctrine which treats of those 
lines and solids that are termed irrational, 
and of the contact of circles and spheres. 

It is remarkable, that the illustrious 
ancients, by the mere force of their own 
natural talents, attained to all those acqui¬ 
sitions of knowledge which our experi¬ 
ments, aided by instruments thrown in our 
way by chance, serve only to confirm. 
Without the assistance of a telescope De¬ 
mocritus knew and taught, that the milky 
way was an assemblage of innumerable 
stars that escape our sight, and whose united 
splendour produces in the heavens the 
whiteness, which we denominate by that 
name; and he ascribed the spots in the 
moon to the exceeding height of its moun¬ 
tains and depth of its vallies. True it is, 
that the moderns have gone farther, and 


444 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


found means to measure the leight of those 
same mountains • yet Democritus’s re¬ 
searches were those of a great genius; 
whereas the operations of the moderns are 
merely organical and mechanic. Besides 
which, we have this advantage,—that we 
work upon their canvass. 

Finally, it may be repeated, that there is 
scarcely any discovery ascribed to the mo¬ 
derns, but what was not only known to the 
ancients, bat supported by them with the 
most solid arguments. The demonstration 
of this position will at least have this good 
effect; it will abate our prejudices against 
the ancients, occasioned by a blind admira¬ 
tion of some moderns, who had never shone 
at all but for the light they borrowed of 
their masters. Their opinions fairly stated 
from their own works, and often in their 
words, must render the decision easy ; and 
the result may restore to the early philoso¬ 
phers some part at least of their disputed 
glory. 


For the Table Book. 

THE GOSSIP AND STARE. 

-A creature of so frightful mien. 

As to be hated needs but to be seen. 

It is feminine; a lower animal of the 
tribe Inquisitoria ; and with all others of 
its species indescribably restless. It is 
commonly found with the bosom slatternly 
arrayed, leaning with folded arms out of a 
“ two-pair front,” looking cunningly and 
maliciously over the side of a garden-pot— 
like a starling through the water-hole of its 
cage over the water-pot—with its head 
always on the bob, like that of the Chinese 
figure in grocers’ shops. Its features are 
lean and sharp as the bows of a Folkstone 
cutter, or the face of a Port Royal pig; its 
nose, like a racoon’s, is continually on the 
twist ; the ears are ever pricking up for 
vague rumours and calumnious reports, and 
the eyes roll from side to side, like those of 
the image in the wooden clock at Kalten- 
bach’s in the Borough ; the tongue is snake¬ 
like, is perpetually in motion—pretty yet 
pert—and venomous. Its habit is bilious, 
its temper splenetic. It is a sure extractor 
of all secrets, a thorough heart-wormer, a 
living diving-bell, a walking corkscrew. It 
generally “ appears as well as its neigh¬ 
bours,” but it is fastidious, and loves to be 
different. Upon its legs, which are of the 
sparrow order, it looks a merry, light¬ 
hearted, artless, and good-natured little 


thing; but it is the green-bag-bearer ot 
the parish, and its food is scandal. Hear 
it talk on a first meeting with a regular 
listener 1 Its voice is at first soft as the 
low piping of the nightingale, but gradually 
becomes like the loud hissing of an adder, 
and ends hoarse, and ominous of evil as 
that of the raven. It is an untiring spreader 
of idle and false reports, to the injury of 
many a good character. It is only innox¬ 
ious to reasonable beings, for they never 
listen to it, or when obliged to do so, are 
no more amused by its sayings than by the 
singing of a tea-kettle; but these being | 
few in number, compared with the lovers 1 
of small talk, to whom its company is 
always acceptable, it is a dangerous animal, 

-mother of deceit and lies. 

Look at it sitting in its habitation!—every 
sound from the street draws it to the light- 
hole*—every thing from a bonnet to a pat¬ 
ten furnishes it with matter for gossip— 
every opening of a neighbour’s door brings 
its long neck into the street. Every mis¬ 
fortune that assails others is to it a pleasure 
—every death a new life to itself—and 
the failings of the departed are eternal 
themes for its envenomed slander. It is at 
the heels of every thing that stirs, and the 
sooner it is trodden upon the better. Bu* 
people tolerate and like it, because it is 
“ so amusing,” and “ so clever ;” and yet 
each of its listeners is traduced in turn. 
There is no dealing with it, but by giving 
it rope enough; it will then hang itself, 
which, by the by, will be such an end as 
the creature merits. 

S. R. J. 


NAVAL MANNERS. 

When the old duke of York (brother to 
George III.) went on board lord Howe’s 
ship, as a midshipman, the different cap¬ 
tains in the fleet attended, to pay him their 
respects, on the quarter-deck. He seemed 
not to know what it was to be subordinate, 
nor to feel the necessity of moderation in 
the display of superiority resulting from 
his high rank, and he received the officers 
with some hauteur. This a sailor on the 
forecastle observed; and after expressing 
astonishment at the duke’s keeping his hat 
on, he told one of his messmates, that“ the 
thing was not in its sphere;” adding, “ it 
is no wonder he does not know manneis, 
as he was never at sea before.” 


• Window. 


445 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


LEGAL RECREATION. 

It is alleged in a memoir ot the Life of 
Lord Eldon, that, when plain John Scott, 
his zeal for knowledge of the law was so 
l great, that he abandoned the pursuit of 
almost every other species of information, 
and never sacrificed a moment from his 
legal studies, beyond what was absolutely 
necessary to his health. His brother Wil¬ 
liam, (afterwards lord Stowell,) with a view 
of engaging him to meet Or. Johnson and 
other men of distinguished literary talent, 

| would sometimes say, “ Where do you dine 
to-day Y* To this question John’s uniform 
answer was, “ I dine on Coke to-day. 
William would then demur, with a “ Nay, 
but come to my chambers—you 11 see the 
doctor;” whereupon John argued, concern¬ 
ing the doctor, “ He can’t draw a bill 
and so the friendly suit concluded. 

It is further affirmed, on the best autho¬ 
rity, that it was an amusement in the early 
legal life of John Scott, to turn pieces of 
poetry into the form of legal instruments , 
and that he actually converted the ballad 
of “ Chevy Chace” into the shape and style 
of a bill in chancery. 


A professional gentleman, who, during 
his pupilage, was recommended by a dis¬ 
tinguished barrister to commit the follow¬ 
ing verses to memory, duly availed himsell 
of that advantage, and obligingly commu¬ 
nicates them 

For the Table Book . 

CANONS OF DESCENT. 

By an Apprentice of the Law'. 

Canon I. 

Estates go to the issue (item) 

Of him last seized in infinitum ; 

Like cow-tails, downward, straight they tend, 
•Jut never, lineally, ascend : 

Canon II. 

This gives that preference to males, 

At which a lady justly rails. 

Canon III. 

Of two males, in the same degree, 

The eldest, only, heir shall be : 

With females we this order break, 

And let them all together take. 

Canon IV. 

When one his worldly strife hath ended, 
Those who are lineally descended 


From him, as to his claims and ricnes. 
Shall stand, precisely, in his breeches. 

Canon V. 

When lineal descendants fail, 

Collaterals the land may nail; 

So that they be (and that a bore is) 

De sanguine progenitores . 

Canon VI. 

The heir collateral, d’ye see. 

Next kinsman of whole blood must be ; 

Canon VII. 

And, of collaterals, the male 
Stocks, are preferr’d to the female; 
Unless the land come from a woman, 
And then her heirs shall yield to no man. 


FRENCH JUDICIAL AUTHORITY. 

In the “ Thuana” we read of a whimsical, 
passionate, old judge, who was sent into 
Gascony with power to examine into the 
abuses which had crept into the administra¬ 
tion of justice in that part of France. Ar¬ 
riving late at Port St. Mary, he asked “how 
near he was to the city of Agen?” He was 
answered, “ tivo leagues.” He then de¬ 
cided to proceed that evening, although he 
was informed that the leagues were long, 
and the roads very bad. In consequence 
of his obstinacy the judge was bemired, 
benighted, and almost shaken to pieces. 
He reached Agen, however, by midnight, 
with tired horses and harassed spirits, and 
went to bed in an ill humour. The next 
morn he summoned the court of justice to 
meet, and after having opened his commis¬ 
sion in due form, his first decree was, 
“ That for the future the distance from 
Agen to Port St. Mary should be reckoned 
six leagues.” This decree he ordered to be 
registered in the records of the province, 
before he would proceed to any other busi¬ 
ness. 


A LONG MINUET. 

Hogarth, in his “ Analysis of Beauty,” 
mentions the circumstance of a dancing- 
master’s observing, that though the “mi¬ 
nuet” had been the study of his whole life, 
he could only say with Socrates, that he 
“ knew nothing.” Hogarth added of him¬ 
self, that he was happy in being a painter, 
because some bounds might be set to the 
study of his art. 


446 














































TIIE TABLE KOOK. 



Cf)e Bfeftoa’ss 2HHI, 33romIq), Sent. 


There is a way from Bromley market¬ 
place across meadow grounds to the 
palace of the bishop of Rochester. Tins 
edifice, about a quarter of a mile from the 
town, is a plain, homely mansion, erected 
in 1783 by bishop Thomas, on the site of 
the ancient palace built there by bishop 
Gilbert Glanville, lord chief justice of Eng- 
lj and, aftei be succeeded to the see in 1185, 


instead of a still more ancient palace, 
founded by the prelate Gundalph, an emi¬ 
nent architect, bishop of Rochester in the 
reign of William the Conqueror. At a few , 
hundred yards eastward of the palace is the j 
“ Bishop’s Well which, while I minutely 
examined it, Mr. Williams sketched ; anti 
he* has since engraved it, as the reader sees 
The water of the “ Bishop’s Well ** r» 


2 G 


447 














































































































Tins table book. 


chalybeate, honoured by local reputation 
with surprising propeities; but, in reality, 
it is of the same nature as the mineral water 
of Tunbridge Wells. It rises so slowly, as 
to yield scarcely a gallon in a quarter of an 
bour, and is retained in a small well about 
sixteen inches in diameter. To the stone 
work of this little well a wooden cover is 
attached by a chain. When the fluid attains 
a certain height, its surplus trickles through 
an oriflce at the side to increase the water 
of a moat, or small lake, which borders the 
grounds of the palace, and is overhung on 
each side with the branches of luxuriant 
shrubs and trees. Above the well there is 
a roof of thatch, supported by six pillars, 
m the manner of a rustic temple, heighten¬ 
ing the picturesque appearance of the 
scene, so as to justify its representation by 
’he pencil. On visiting it, with Mr. W., 
this pleasant seclusion, consecrated by for¬ 
mer episcopal care, and the fond recollec¬ 
tions of ancient adjacent residents, was 
passing to ruin : we disturbed some boys 
in their work of pulling reeds from the 
I thatched roof. A recent vacancy of the see 
seemed to have extended to the superin¬ 
tendence of the well; the seeds of neglect 
had germinated, and were springing up. I 
have revisited the spot, and seen 


the wild-briar. 


The thorn, and the thistle, grown broader and higher. 


The “ Bishop’s Well ” is said to have 
oeen confounded with a spring of more 
ancient note, called St. Blase’s Well. Of 
this latter well topographers* say, “ It an¬ 
ciently had an oratory annexed to it, dedi¬ 
cated to St. Blasius, which was much fre¬ 
quented at Whitsuntide, because Lucas, 
who was legate for Sixtus the Fourth, here 
in England, granted an indulgent remission 
j of forty days; enjoined penance to all 
those who should visit this chapel, and offer 
up their orizons there in the three holidays 
of Pentecost. This oratory falling to ruin 
at the Reformation, the well too became 
disused, and the site of both in pro¬ 
cess of time was forgotten, and con¬ 
tinued so till the well was discovered again 
in the vear 1754, by means of a yellow 
ocnrey sediment remaining in the tract of 
a small current leading from the spring to 
(he corner of the moat, with the waters of 
which it used to mix. In digging round 
the well there were found the remains of 
the old steps leading down to it, made of 
oax plank, which appeared to have lain 
vindci ground many years. The water of 


• Plilipot. and Hasted 


this spring is chaly beate, and rises at the 
foot of a declivity, at a small distance east¬ 
ward from the bishop’s palace. The sod 
through which it passes is gravel, and it 
issues immediately from a bed of pure 
white sand. The course of the spring 
seems to be about north-north-east and 
south-south-west from its aperture; its 
opening is towards the latter; and as 
Shooter’s Hill bears about north-north-east 
from its aperture, it probably comes from 
thence. The water being thus found to be 
a good chalybeate, was, by the bishop’s 
orders, immediately secured from the inter¬ 
mixture of other waters, and enclosed.” 

Wilson, a recent writer, affirms, that “ the 
old well, dedicated to St. Blase, is about ( 
two hundred yards north-west of the mi- 
neral spring, in a field near the road, with 
eight oaks in a cluster, on an elevated spot 
of ground adjoining.” This, however, 
seems wholly conjectural, and wholly nuga¬ 
tory ; for, if “ the old steps made of oak- 
plank, which appeared to have lain under 
ground many years,” led to the “ Bishop’s 
Well,” it may reasonably be presumed that 
they were the old steps ” to St. Blase’s 
Well, and that the w'ater of the ancient 
oratory now flows within the humble edifice 
represented by the engraving. 

* 


MISS KELLY. 

To the Editor. 

Dear Sir,—Somebody has fairly play’d a 
hoax on you (I suspect that pleasant rogue 
M — x — n*) in sending you the Sonnet in my 
name, inserted in your last Number. True 
it is, that I must own to the Verses being 
mine, but not written on the occasion there 
pretended, for I have not yet had the plea-! 
sure of seeing the Lady in the part of Em-! 
rneline; and I have understood, that the 
force of her acting in it is rather in the 
expression of new-horn sight, than of the 
previous want of it. — The lines were 1 
really written upon her performance in the 
“ Blind Boy,” and appeared in the Morning 
Chronicle some years back. I suppose, our 
facetious friend thought that they would 
serve again, like an old coat new turned. 

Yours (and his nevertheless) 

C. Lamb. 


# It was.—Et>. 


448 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


#arrtrft paps* 

No. XXVI. 

[From “ Doctor Dodypol,” a Comedy, 
Author unknown, 1600.J 

Earl Lassenburgh, as a Painter, painting 
his Mistress al grotesco. 

Lass. Welcome bright Morn, that with thy golden 
rays 

Reveal’st the radiant colours of the world ; 

Look here, and see if thou can’st find dispers’d 
The glorious parts of fair Lucilia! 

Take them, and join them in the heavenly spheres ; 
And fix them there as an eternal light. 

For lovers to adore and wonder at. 

Luc. You paint your flattering words, Lord Lassen¬ 
burgh, 

Jtaking a curious pencil of your tongue ; 

And that fair artificial hand of yours 

Were fitter to have painted Heaven’s fine story, 

Than here to work on antics, and on me : 

: Thus for my>sake you of a noble Earl 
Arc glad to be a mercenary Painter, 
j Lass. A Painter, fair Lucilia: why, the world 
jWith all her beauty was by painting made. 

Look on the heavens, colour’d with golden stars. 

The firinamental part of it all blue. 

Look on the air, where with an hundred changes 
The watery rainbow doth embrace the earth. 

Look on the summer fields, adorn’d with flowers, 

How much is Nature’s painting honour’d there. 

I-ook in the mines, and on the eastern shore. 

Where all our metals and dear gems are drawn ; 
-Though fair themselves, made better by their foils. 
Look on that little world, the Two-fold Man, 

Whose fairer parcel is the weaker still; 

And see what azure veins in stream-like form 
Divide the rosy beauty of the skin. 

I speak not of the sundry shapes of beasts ; 

The several colours of the elements. 

Whose mixture shapes the world’s variety, 

[n making all things by their colours known. 

And, to conclude—Nature herself divine 
In all things she has made is a mere Painter. 

Luc. Now by this kiss, the admirer of thy skill. 

Thou art well worthy th’ honour thou hast given 
With thy so sweet words to thy eye-ravishing Art ; 

Of which my beauties can deserve no part. 

Lass. From these base antics, where my hand hath 
’spersed 

Thy several parts, if I, uniting all, 

Had figured there the true Lucilia. 

Then might thou justly wonder at my art; 

And devout people would from far repair, 

Like pilgrims, with their duteous sacrifice, 

'Adorning thee as Regent of their loves. 

Here in the center of this Marigold 

Like a bright diamond I enchased thine eye- 

Here underneath this littde rosy bush 

Thy crimson cheeks peer forth, more fair thaa it. 

Here Cupid hanging down his wings doth sit, 


Comparing cherries to thy rosy lips. 

Here is thy brow, thy hair, thy neck, thy naiu. 

Of purpose in all several shrouds dispersed ! 

Lest ravish’d I should dote on mine own work. 

Or envy-burning eyes should malice it 

A Cameo described. 

- see this Agate, that contains 

The image of the Goddess and her Son 
Whom ancients held the Sovereigns of Love. 

See naturally wrought out of the stone. 

Besides the perfect shape of every limb, 

Besides the wondrous life of her bright haif, 

A waving mantle of celestial blue, 

Embroidering itself with flaming stars ; 

Most excellent! and see besides,— 

How Cupid’s wings do spring out of tne stone 
As if they needed not the help of Art. 

Earl Lassenburgh, for some distaste 
flees Lucilia, who follows him. 

Lass. Wilt thou not cease then to pursue me still ? 
Should I entreat thee to attend me thus, 

Then thou would’st pant and rest; then your soft feet 
Would be repining at these niggard stones: 

Now I forbid thee, thou pursuest like wind ; 

Ne tedious space of time, nor storm can tire thee. 

But I will seek out some high slippery close. 

Where every step shall reach the gate of death. 

That fear may make thee cease to follow me. 

Luc. There will I bodiless be, when you are there ; 
For love despiseth death, and scorneth fear. 

I.ass. I’ll wander where some desperate river part* 
The solid continent, and swim from thee. 

Luc. And there I’ll follow, though I drown for thee. 
Lass. O weary of the way, and of my life. 

Where shall I rest my sorrow’d, tired limbs ? 

Luc. Rest in my bosom, rest you here, my Lord 
A place securer you can no way find— 

Lass. Nor more unfit for my onpleased mind. 

A heavy slumber calls me to the earth ; 

Here will I sleep, if sleep will harbour here. 

Luc. Unhealthful is the melancholy earth ; 

0 let my Lora rest on Lucilia’s lap. 

I’ll help to shield you from the searching air, 

And keep the cold damps from your gentle blood. 

Lass. Pray thee away ; for, whilst thou art so near, 
No sleep will seize on my suspicious eyes. 

Luc. Sleep then; and I am pleased far off to sit. 
Like to a poor and forlorn centinel, 

Watching the unthankful sleep, that severs me 
From ray due part of rest, dear Love, with thee. 

An Enchanter, who is enamoured oj 
Lucilia, charms the Earl to a dead s eep, 
and Lucilia to a forgetfulness of her pas 
love. 

Enchanur (to Lsssenburgh .) Lie there; and lose 
the memory of her. 

Who likewise hath forgot the love of thee 

By my enchantments:—come sit dcwu, fa-r Nympiv, 

And taste the sweetness of these heav’uly cates, 


449 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


Whilst from the hollow crannies of this rock 
Music shall sound to recreate my Love. 

Eut tell me, had you ever Lover yet 7 

Lucilia. I had a Lover, I think ; but who it was, 

)r where, or how long since, aye me ! I know not: 

/et beat my timerous thoughts on such a thing. 

I feel a passionate heat, yet find no flame ; 

Think what I know not, nor know what I think. 

Ench. Hast thou forgot me then ? I am thy Love,— 
Yhom sweetly thou wert wont to entertain 
Yith looks, with vows of love, with amorous kisses. 
Look’st thou so strange ? dost thou not know me yet ? 
Luc. Sure I should know you. 

Ench. Why, Love, doubt you that ? 

Twas I that led you* thro’ the painted meads, 

Vhere the light fairies danced upon the flowers, 
tanging on every leaf an orient pearl, 

Vhich, struck together with the silken wind 
)f their loose mantles, made a silver chime. 

Twas I that, winding my shrill buerle horn, 

Made a gilt palace break out of the hill. 

Fill’d suddenly with troops of knights and dames. 

Who danced and revel’d; whilst we sweetly slept 
Upon a bed of roses, wrapt all in gold. 

Dost thou not know me now ? 

Luc. Yes, now I know thee. 

Ench. Come then, confirm this knowledge with a 
kiss. 

Luc. Nay, stay; you are not he: how strange is 
this! 

Ench. Thou art grown passing suange, my Love, 

To hinr. that made thee so long since his Bride. 

Luc. O was it yon? come then. O stay awhile. 

I know not where I am, nor what I am ; 

Nor you, nor these I know, nor any thing. 

C. L. 


lf £e of an 

HUGH AUDLEY. 

There are memoirs of this remarkable 
man in a rare quarto tract, entitled “The 
Way to be Rich, according to the practice of 
the great Audley, who began with two 
hundred pounds in the year 1605, and died 
worth four hundred thousand.” He died 
on the 15th of November, 1662, the year 
wherein the tract was printed. 

Hugh Audley was a lawyer, and a great 
practical philosopher, who concentrated his 
vigorous faculties in the science of the rela¬ 
tive value of money. He flourished through 
the reigns of James I., Charles I., and held 
a lucrative office in the “ court of wards,” 
till that singular court was abolished at the 
time of the restoration. In his own times 
he was called “ The great Audley,” an epi 
thet so often abused, and here applied to 


* In charmed visnns. 


the creation of enormous wealth. But 
there are minds of great capacity, concealed 
by the nature of their pursuits; and the 
wealth of Audley may be considered as the 
cloudy medium through which a bright 
genius shone, of which, had it been thrown 
into a nobler sphere of action, the “ great¬ 
ness ” would have been less ambiguous. 

Audley, as mentioned in the title of his 
memoir, began with two hundred pounds, 
and lived to view his mortgages, his sta¬ 
tutes, and his judgments so numerous, that 
it was observed, his papers would have 
made a good map of England. A con¬ 
temporary dramatist, who copied from life, 
has opened the chamber of such an usurer, 
—perhaps of our Audley— 

-“ Here lay 

A manor bound fast in a skin of parchment, 

The wax continuing hard, the acres melting. 

Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town, 

If not redeem’d this day, which is not in 
The unthrift’s power ; there being scarce one shire 
In Wales or Plngland, where iny monies are not 
Lent out at usury, the certain hook 
To draw in more.— 

Massinger's City Madam. 

This genius of thirty per cent, first had 
proved the decided vigour of his mind, by 
his enthusiastic devotion to his law-studies 
deprived of the leisure for study through 
his busy day, he stole the hours from his 
late nights and his early mornings; and 
without the means to procure a law-library, 
he invented a method to possess one with¬ 
out the cost; as fast as he learned, he 
taught; and by publishing some useful 
tracts on temporary occasions, he was ena¬ 
bled to purchase a library. He appears 
never to have read a book without its fur¬ 
nishing him with some new practical de¬ 
sign, and he probably studied too much for 
his own particular advantage. Such devoted 
studies was the way to become a lord- 
chancellor ; but the science of the law was 
here subordinate to that of a money-trader. 

When yet but a clerk to the clerk in the 
Counter, frequent opportunities occurred 
which Audley knew how to improve. He 
became a money-trader as he had become 
a law-writer, and the fears and follies o: 
mankind were to furnish him with a trad¬ 
ing-capital. The fertility of his genius ap¬ 
peared in expedients and in quick con¬ 
trivances. He was sure to be the friend o' 
all men falling out. He took a deep con¬ 
cern in the affairs of his master’s clients, 
and often much more than they were aware 
of. No man so ready at procuring bail o 
compounding debts This was a consider 


450 ' 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


able traffic then, as now. They hired 
themselves out for bail, swore what was 
| required, and contrived to give false ad¬ 
dresses. It seems they dressed themselves 
out for the occasion : a great seal-ring 
flamed on the finger, which, however, was 
pure copper gilt, and they often assumed 
the name of some person of good credit. 
Savings, and small presents for gratuitous 
opinions, often afterwards discovered to be 
l-ery fallacious ones, enabled him to pur¬ 
chase annuities of easy landholders, with 
.heir treble amount secured on their estates. 
The improvident owners, or the careless 
neirs, were soon entangled in the usurer’s 
nets; and, after the receipt of a few years, 
the annuity, by some latent quibble, or 
some irregularity in the payments, usually 
ended in Audley’s obtaining the treble for¬ 
feiture. He could at all times out-knave a 
knave. One of these incidents has been 
preserved. A draper, of no honest reputa¬ 
tion, being arrested by a merchant for a 
debt of 200/. Audley bought the debt at 
40/., for which the draper immediately 
offered him 50/. But Audley would not 
consent, unless the draper indulged a sud¬ 
den whim of his own: this was a formal 
contract, that the draper should pay within 
I twenty years, upon twenty certain days, a 
penny doubled. A knave, in haste to sign, 
is no calculator; and, as the contemporary 
dramatist describes one of the arts of 
those citizens, one part of whose business 
was 

“ To swear and break—they all grow rich by break¬ 
ing—” 

the draper eagerly compounded. He after¬ 
wards “ grew rich.” Audley, silently 
watching his victim, within two years, 
claims his doubled pennies, every month 
during twenty months. The pennies had 
now grown up to pounds. The knave per¬ 
ceived the trick, and preferred paying the 
forfeiture of his bond for 500/., rather than 
to receive the visitation of all the little gene¬ 
ration of compound interest in the last de¬ 
scendant of 2000/., which would have closed 
with the draper's shop. The inventive 
genius of Audley might have illustrated 
that popular tract of his own times, Peach- 
am’s “ Worth of a Penny ; ” a gentleman 
who, having scarcely one left, consoled 
himself by detailing the numerous com¬ 
forts of life it might procure in the days of 
Charles II. 

Such petty enterprises at length assumed 
a deeper cast of interest He formed tem¬ 
porary partnerships with the stewards of 
country gentlemen. They underlet estates 


which they had to manage ; and, antici¬ 
pating the owner’s necessities, the estates 
in due time became cheap purchases fo 
Audley and the stewards. He usually 
contrived to make the wood pay for the 
land, which he called “ making the feathers 
pay for the goose.” He had, however, 
such a tenderness of conscience for his 
victim, that, having plucked the live fea¬ 
thers before he sent the unfledged goose on 
the common, he would bestow a gratuitous 
lecture in his own science—teaching the 
art of making them grow again, by showing 
how to raise the remaining rents. Audley 
thus made the tenant furnish at once the 
means to satisfy his own rapacity, and his 
employer’s necessities. His avarice was 
not working by a blind, but on an enlight¬ 
ened principle ; for he was only enabling 
the landlord to obtain what the tenant, with 
due industry, could afford to give. Adam 
Smith might have delivered himself in the 
language of old Audley, so just was his 
standard of the value of rents. “ Under an 
easy landlord,” said Audley, “a tenant 
seldom thrives ; contenting himself to make 
the just measure of his rents, and not la¬ 
bouring for any surplusage of estate. Under 
a hard one, the tenant revenges himself 
upon the land, and runs away with the 
rent. I would raise my rents to the present 
price of all commodities: for if we should 
let our lands, as other men have done before 
us, now other wares daily go on in price, 
we should fall backward in our estates.” 
These axioms of political economy were 
discoveries in his day. 

Audley knew mankind practically, and 
struck into their humours with the versa¬ 
tility of genius: oracularly deep with the 
grave, he only stung the lighter mind. 
When a lord, borrowing money, complain¬ 
ed to Audley of his exactions, his lordship 
exclaimed, “ What, do you not intend to 
use a conscience?” “Yes, I intend here¬ 
after to use it. We monied people must 
balance accounts : if you do not pay me, 
you cheat me ; but, if you do, then I cheat 
your lordship.” Audley’s monied con¬ 
science balanced the risk of his lordship’s 
honour, against the probability of his own 
rapacious profits. When he resided in the 
Temple among those “pullets without fea¬ 
thers,” as an old writer describes the brood, 
the good man would pule out paternal 
homilies on improvident youth, grieving 
that they, under pretence of “ learning the 
law, only learnt to be lawless;” and “never 
knew by their own studies the process of an 
execution, till it was served on themselves.” 
Nor could he fail in his prophecy; for at 


451 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


the moment that the stoic was enduring 
their ridicule, his agents were supplying 
them with the certain means of verifying 
(t; for, as it is quaintly said, he had his 
decoying as well as his decaying gentlemen. 

Audley was a philosophical usurer: he 
never pressed hard for his debts ; like the 
‘bwler, he never shook his nets lest he 
might startle, satisfied to have them, with¬ 
out appearing to hold them. With great 
fondness he compared his “bonds to in¬ 
fants, which battle best by sleeping.’’ To 
battle is to be nourished, a term still re¬ 
tained at the university of Oxford. His 
I familiar companions were all subordinate 
! actors in the great piece he was perform¬ 
ing ; he too had his part in the scene. 

; When not taken by surprise, on his table 
usually lay opened a great Bible, with 
bishop Andrews’s folio sermons, which 
often gave him an opportunity of railing at 
the covetousness of the clergy ! declaring 
their religion was “ a mere preach and 
that “ the time would never be well till we 
had queen Elizabeth’s Protestants again in 
fashion.” lie was aware of all the evils 
arising out of a population beyond the 
means of subsistence. He dreaded an in¬ 
undation of men, and considered marriage, 
with a modern political economist, as very 
dangerous; bitterly censuring the clergy, 
whose children, he said, never thrived, and 
whose widows were left destitute. An 
apostolical life, according to Audley, re¬ 
quired only books, meat, and drink, to be 
had for fifty pounds a year! Celibacy, 
voluntary poverty, and all the mortifica¬ 
tions of a primitive Christian, were the vir¬ 
tues practised by this puritan among his 
money bags. 

Yet Audley’s was that wotldly wisdom 
which derives all its strength from the 
weaknesses of mankind. Every thing w as 
to be obtained by stratagem, and it was 
his maxim, that to grasp our object the 
faster, we must go a little round about it. 
His life is said to have been one of intri¬ 
cacies and mysteries, using indirect means 
in all things; but if he walked in a laby¬ 
rinth, it was to bewilder others; for the 
clue was still in his own hand; all he 
sought was that his designs should not be 
discovered by his actions. His word, we 
Are told, was his bond ; his hour was punc¬ 
tual ; and his opinions were compressed 
and weighty : but if he was true to his 
f!ond-word, it was only a part of the system 
i o give facility to the carrying on of his 
jade, for he was not strict to his honour ; 
! .he pride of victory, as well as the passion 
jfo* acquisition, combined in the character 


of Audley, as in more tremendous con¬ 
querors. His partners dreaded the effects 
of his law-library, and usually relinquished 
a claim rather than stand a suit against a 
latent quibble. When one menaced him 
by showing some money-bags, which he 
had resolved to empty in law against him, 
Audley, then in office in the couit of wards, 
with a sarcastic grin, asked, “ Whether the 
bags had any bottom ?” “ Ay!” replied 

the exulting possessor, striking them. “ In 
that case I care not,” retorted the cynical 
officer of the court of wards; “ for in this 
court I have a constant spring; and I can¬ 
not spend in other courts more than I gain 
in this.” He had at once the meanness 
which would evade the law, and the spirit 
which could resist it. j 

The genius of Audley had crept out of 
the purlieus of Guildhall, and entered the 
Temple; and having ofteD sauntered at 
“ Bowles” down the great promenade which 
was reserved for “ Duke Humphrey and < 
his guests,” he would turn into that part j 
called “ The Usurer’s Alley,” to talk with 
“ Thirty in the hundred,’’ and at length was 
enabled to purchase his office at that re¬ 
markable institution, the court of wards. 
The entire fortunes of those whom we now 
call wards in chancery were in the hands, 
and often submitted to the arts or the tyranny 
of the officers of this court. 

When Audley was asked the value of 
this new office, he replied, that “ It might 
be worth some thousands of pounds to him 
who after his death would instantly go to 
heaven ; twice as much to him who would ! 
go to purgatory ; and nobody knows what 
to him who would adventure to go to hell.” 
Such was the pious casuistry of a witty 
usurer. Whether he undertook this last ! 
adventure, for his four hundred thousand 
pounds, how can a sceptical biographer de¬ 
cide ! Audley seems ever to have been 
weak, when temptation was strong. 

Some saving qualities, however, were 
mixed with the vicious ones he liked best j 
Another passion divided dominion with the 
sovereign one : Audley’s strongest impres¬ 
sions of character were cast in the old law- 
library of his youth, and the pride of legal 
reputation was not inferior in strength to 
the rage for money. If in the “ court of 
wards” he pounced on incumbrances which 
lay on estates, and prowled about to dis¬ 
cover the craving wants of their owners, it 
appears that he also received liberal fees 
from the relatives of young heirs, to pro 
tect them from the rapacity of some great 1 
persons, but who could not certainly exceed , 
Audley in subtilty. He was an 


432 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


awyer, for he was not satisfied with hear¬ 
ing,, hut examining his clients; which he 
tailed “ pinching the cause where he per¬ 
ceived it was foundered.’’ He made two 
nbservations on clients and lawyers, which 
Vave not lost their poignancy. “ Many 
clients, in telling their case, rather plead 
than relate it, so that the advocate heareth 
not the true state of it, till opened by the 
adverse party. Some lawyers seem to keep 
an assurance-office in their chambers, and 
will warrant any cause brought unto them, 
knowing that if they fail, they lose nothing 
but what was lost long since, their credit.” 

The career of Audley’s ambition closed 
with the extinction of the “ court of wards,” 
by which he incurred the loss of above 
100,000/ On that occasion he observed* 
that “ his ordinary losses were as the shav¬ 
ings of his beard, which only grew the faster 
by them ; but the loss of this place was 
like the cutting off of a member, which was 
irrecoverable.” The hoary usurer pined at 
the decline of his genius, discoursed on the 
vanity of the world, and hinted at retreat. 
A facetious friend told him a story ot an 
old rat, who having acquainted the young 
rats that he would at length retire to his 
hole, desiring none to come near him : their 
curiosity, after some days, led them to 
venture to look into the hole ; and there 
they discovered the old rat sitting in the 
midst of a rich parmesan cheese. It is 
probable that the loss of the last 100,000/. 
disturbed his digestion, for he did not long 
survive his court of wards. 

Such was this man, converting wisdom 
into cunning, invention into trickery, and 
wit into cynicism. Engaged in no honour¬ 
able cause, he however showed a mind re¬ 
solved, making plain the crooked and in¬ 
volved path he trod. Sustine et abstine , to 
bear and to forbear, was the great principle 
of Epictetus, and our monied stoic bore all 
the contempt and hatred of the living smil¬ 
ingly, while he forbore all the consolations 
of our common nature to obtain his end. 
He died in unblest celibacy.—And thus he 
received the curses of the living for his 
rapine, while the stranger who grasped the 
million he had raked together, owed him 
no gratitude at his death .—D Israeli. 


AVARICE. 

There are two sorts of avarice. One 
consists in a solicitude to acquire wealth for 
the sake of those advantages which wealth 
cestows, and the dread of poverty and its 
Attendant evils; the other, in an anxiety 
*br wealth c> ts own account oniy, and 


which sacrifices to the attainment cf it 
every advantage that wealth can give. The 
first is the exaggeration of a quality, which 
when not carried to excess is praiseworthy, 
and is called economy. The other, when 
indulged in the extreme, produces the effect 
of a species of prodigality. Where is the 
great difference between the man who 
leduces himself to the want of the common 
necessaries of life, by completing a collec¬ 
tion of books, pictures, or medals, and the 
n an who brings himself in effect to the 
same situation, for the sole end of leaving 
a precise sum of money to his executors? 
What signifies whether I starve myself and 
my family, because I will possess a coppei 
farthing of Otho, or will not part with a 
gmden guinea of king George? 

But if diere is more folly in one, the 
other is more likely to be productive ot 
vice. A man who considers wealth as the 
object cf nis passion, will hardly refrain 
from acts of dishonesty when strongly tempt¬ 
ed ; and yet some of these jackdaw hoarders 
a"o men of inviolable integrity. 

T l ere are remarkable instances of im¬ 
provident expenditure by misers on parti- 
ct.'ar o ccasions The money-loving Elwes, 
c-t his first e’.eetion for Berkshire, besides j 
opening houses, giving ribbons, and in- | 
cttrring every expense common on those 1 
occasions, dispersed guineas an 1 half- 
guineas among the populace, with a pro¬ 
fusion as useless as unprecedented. 

Perhaps there is no character so seldom 
to be met with, as that of a man who is 
strictly reasonable in the value he sets on 
property—who can be liberal without pro¬ 
fusion, and economical without avarice. 


ECONOMY. 

A rich and parsimonious person, re¬ 
markable for having by his will preferred 
public charities to his relations, was fond of 
going to the theatre, and taking his great 
coat with him. But where should he leave 
this useful appendage during the perform¬ 
ance ? The box-keepers would expect at 
least sixpence ; and, should he leave it at a 
coffee-house, he must spend threepence to 
obtain house-room for it. His invention 
supplied him with a method cheaper and 
equally secure. He pledged his garment 
every evening that he attended the play, at 
a pawnbrokers, near the door, for a shilling. 
This sum he carried back at the close of 
the play, added one penny to it for interest, 
and received his great coat again safe and 
sound, as it had literally been laid up in 
lavender 


45o 

















THE TABLE BOOB. 



Then Mrs. Gilpin sweetly said 
Unto her children three, 

“ I’ll clamber o’er this style so high, 

And you climb after me.” 

But having climb’d unto the top, 

She could no further go, 

But sate, to every passer by 
A spectacle and show • 

Who said “ Your spouse and you this day 
Both show your horsemanship, 

And if you stay till he comes back, 

Vour horse will need no whip.” 


The sketch, here engraved, (probably 
from the poet’s friend Romney,) was found 
with the above three stanvas in the hand¬ 
writing of Cowper, among the papers of 


the late Mrs. Unwin. It is to be regretteo 
that no more was found of this little Epi¬ 
sode, as it evidently was intended to be, tc 
the “ Diverting History of Johnny Gilpin.’ 


454 














































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


ll is to oe supposed that Mrs. Gilpin, in 
the interval between dinner and tea, finding 
the time to hang upon her hands, during 
her husband’s involuntary excursion, ram¬ 
bled out with the children into the fields at 
the back of the Bell, (as what could be 
more natural ?) and at one of those high 
aukward styles, for which Edmonton is so 
proverbially famed, the embarrassment re¬ 
presented, so mortifying to a substantial 
City Madam, might have happened; a 
predicament, which leaves her in a state, 
which is the very Antipodes to that of her 
too loco-motive husband ; in fact she rides 
a restive horse.—Now I talk of Edmonton 
styles, I must speak a little about those of 
Enfield, its next neighbour, which are so 
ingeniously contrived—every rising bar to 
the top becoming more protuberant than 
the one under it—that it is impossible for 
any Christian climber to get over, without 
bruising his (or her) shins as many times 
as there are bars. These inhospitable invi¬ 
tations to a flayed skin, are planted so 
thickly too, and are so troublesomely im¬ 
portunate at every little paddock here, that 
this, with more propriety than Thebes of 
old, might be entitled Hecatompolis: the 
Town of the Hundred Gates, or styles. 

A Sojourner at Enfield. 

July 16,1827. 


Far the Table Book. 

SAWSTON CROSS. 

% 

In the summer of the year 1815, I ful¬ 
filled my longstanding promise of spending 
' a day with an old schoolfellow at Sawston, 
a pleasant little village, delightfully situated 
in a fertile valley about seven miles south 
of Cambridge, the north of which is en¬ 
compassed by the Gogmagog hills, which 
appear Apennines in miniature; the south, 
east, and west, are beautifully diversified 
with trees and foliage, truly picturesque 
and romantic. After partaking of the good 
things at the hospitable board of my friend, 
we set out for a ramble among the quiet 
rural scenery, and suddenly found our¬ 
selves in the midst of a group of people, 
near the road leading to the church. They 
were holding a conversation on a grass- 
plot ; from the centre of which rose a cross , 
enclosed in a small covered building, like 
a*a amphitheatre, that added not a little to 
the romantic appearance of the village; 
towards the bottom of the southern slope 


of the grass-plot, propped with uncommon 
care, and guarded by a holy zeal from the 
ravages of time, stood an ancient sycamore- 
tree; and on the east side, to the terror of 
evil-doers, stood the stocks. Alas! un¬ 
sparing ignorance has, since then, destroyed 
this fine tree; “the place that knew it 
knows it no more/’ and the stocks are 
fallen never to rise again. 

My friend, taking me aside, informed me 
the persons assembled were residents of 
the place, and that the meeting was con¬ 
vened to sell the cross. “ This cross,” 
continued my friend, “ is the ornament of 
the village. Jt escaped the phrenetic rage 
of the puritans in the civil wars, and is oi 
such antiquity, that when it was built is 
not to be traced with certainty in the re¬ 
cords of history. It may be supposed, 
however, to have been erected by the 
Knights Templars, as the living belonged 
to them; for, I believe, it was usual for 
them to erect crosses on their property. 
Upon the abolition of the Templars, the 
living came into the hands of the Knights 
Hospitallers of St. John, afterwards called 
the Knights of Rhodes, and lastly, of 
Malta. So early as the thirteenth century 
public officers sat on this cross to adminis¬ 
ter justice ; at other times, the bishop’s 
house, near the Campion-field, was used 
for that purpose: this house is now in 
ruins, but the cross,” continued my friend, 
“ we possessed as an inheritance from our 
forefathers, and at this moment the cupidity 
and folly of the covetous and ignorant are 
conspiring to destroy the venerable relic.” 

Wishing to preserve a memoranda of the 
old cross, I took a hasty sketch of it, (too 
hastily perhaps to be sufficiently accurate 
for an engraving,) and having reached my 
home, recorded the adventures of the day 
in my pocket-book, from whence the above 
extract is taken. Passing through the vil¬ 
lage in the following autumn, I found that 
the inhabitants had sacrilegiously levelled 
the cross and sold the remnants. 


The Jews of old, as we’ve been told— 
And Scriptures pure disclose— 

With harden’d hearts drew lots* for parts 
Of our Salvator’s clothes. 


The modern Jews—the Sawstonites— 

As harden’d as the Israelites— 

In ignorance still more gioss— 

Thinking they could no longer thrive 
By Christian means, did means contrive— 
Drew lots, and sold the cross 1 


Cambridge. 


T. N 


455 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Dtecoberies 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. II. 

The Method and Logic of Descartes 
and Locke derived from tue An¬ 
cients. 

Within the last two centuries some no¬ 
tions were advanced in logic and metaphy¬ 
sics, which were taken to be new; and 
Descartes, Leibnitz, Mallebranche, and 
Locke, were regarded as innovators, al¬ 
though nothing be put forth in their works, 
but what is clearly laid down io those of the 
ancients. 

Descartes sets forth, as a first principle, 
that whoever searches for truth, ought onte 
in his lifetime at least U doubt of every 
thing. He then lays down the four follow¬ 
ing rules, wherein consists the whole cf his 
logic.—1. Never to admit any thing as true, 
but what we evidently discern to be so; 
that is, we should carefully avoid rashness 
and prejudice, and assent to nothing, till it 
present itself so clearly to the mind, that 
there be no occasion to hesitate about it.— 
2. To reduce every difficulty into as many 
separate parts, as may be necessary to come 
at its solution.—3. So to arrange our 
thoughts, that we may gradually arise from 
the more simple and obvious, to the more 
complex and remote, adhering to the order 
Vherein they naturally precede one ano¬ 
ther.—4. To take so extensive a view of 
our subject, and be so exact in the enume¬ 
ration of its parts, that nothing may escape 
our observation. 

The first of these principles of doubt 
and circumspection, so boasted of in Des¬ 
cartes, is clearly laid down by Aristotle, 
and forcibly recommended by the very 
arguments that Descartes assumes. “ Who¬ 
ever seeks after instruction,” says Aristotle, 
“ ought first of all to learn to doubt; for 
that simplicity of mind, which accompanies 
hesitation, contributes to the discovery of 
(truth:” and, “whoever searches for truth, 
(without beginning his investigation by 
doubting of every thing, is like one who 
wanders he knows nor whither, and having 
no fixed scope, cannot determine where he 
is ; whilst, on the contrary, he who hath 
learned to doubt, so as to inquire, will 
find, in the end, the place where he ought 
to rest.” So, also, speaking of the method 


to be observed in our investigations, Aristo¬ 
tle bids us begin always with what is most 
evident and best known; and carefully 
trace to its first elements and principles 
whatever is obscure, by properly severing 
and defining them. 

Descartes imagined he had been the first 
discoverer of one of the most proper engines 
tor sapping and demolishing the great bul¬ 
wark of scepticism, when he reared even 
upon doubt itself a basis for truth ; for he 
looked upon himself as the original advancer 
of the Enthymem,* “ I doubt (or think) 
therefore I am.” To Descartes has been 
assigned the whole honour of this argument, 
though in reality it is to be found in St, 
Augustine. “ I do not see,” says that great 
man, “ what mighty force there is in the 
.scepticism of the academics. For my part, 
i look upon it as a very just observation of 
heirs, that we may deceive ourselves. But 
f I deceive myself, may I not thence con- | 

• lude that I am ? For he who has no exist- 
-nce, cannot deceive himself; wherefore, 
by that very circumstance, that l deceive 
myself, I find that I am.” 

Locke, in his “ Essay on the Human 
Understanding,” merely advances the fruits 
of an exact attention to the principles of , 
Aristotle, who taught that all our ideas 
originally spring from the senses, insomuch | 
that a blind man can never conceive the j 
idea of colours, nor a deaf man of sounds ; i 
and who makes the senses to convey truth, 
so far as the imagination can discern it; ' 
and the understanding, so far as truth re- | 
gards the conduct of life and morals. It } 
was Aristotle who laid the foundation of 
that principle, so celebrated among the 
Peripatetics, that “ there is nothing in the 
understanding but what came into it by 
the senses.” This principle diffuses itself i 
through his works in a thousand places, 
and Locke was singularly indebted for the 
very foundation of his system to the Stoics. 
The basis of his work is, that our sensations 
are the materials which reflection makes 
use of to come at mental notions; and that 
our sensations are simple ideas. It is true, 
that he has thrown great light upon our 
manner of acquiring and associating ideas; 
but the Stoics reasoned in the very same 
manner; and if all that they advanced 
on this subject, in those works of which we 
have nothing now remaining but the titles, 
had reached our times, we had not needed 


* Enthymem: an argument consisting only of an an¬ 
tecedent and consequential proposition ; a syllogism, 
where the major proposition is suppressed, and only 
the minor and consequence produced in words. 

Johnion. 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


.he labours of a Locke. There is a most re¬ 
markable passage to this point in Plutarch, 
lie says, “ The foundation of the doctrine of 
Zeno and his school, as to logic, was, that 
all our ideas come from sensation. The 
mind of man at his birth, say they, is like 
white paper, adapted to receive whatever 
may be written on it. The first impressions 
that it receives come to it from the senses: 
if the objects are at a distance, memory 
retains those types of them; and the repe¬ 
tition of these impressions constitutes ex¬ 
perience. Ideas or uotions are of two kinds, 
natural and artificial. The natural have 
their source in sensation, or are derived 
from the senses; whence they also gave 
them the name of anticipations : the artifi¬ 
cial are produced by reflection, in beings 
endowed with reason.’’ This passage, and 
others in Origen, Sextus Empiricus, Dio¬ 
genes Laertius, and St. Augustine, may 
serve to trace the true origin of the princi¬ 
ple, “ That there is nothing in the under¬ 
standing, but what entered into it by the 
senses.*' It may be observed, that this 
axiom, so clearly expressed by the ancient 
Stoics and Epicureans, and by Locke among 
the moderns, has been erroneously attributed 
by several learned men, especially Gas¬ 
sendi and Harvey, to Aristotle. 


MECHANICAL POWER. 

Mr. Robert Owen calculates that iwo 
hundred arms, with machir-'s, now manu¬ 
facture as much cotton ns twenty millions 
of arms were able to manulacture without 
machines forty years ago; and that the 
cotton now manufactured in the course of 
one year, in Great Britain, would require, 
without machines, sixteen millions of work¬ 
men with simple wheels. He calculates 
further, that the quantity of manufactures 
of all sorts produced by British wotkmen 
with the aid of machines is so great, that it 
would require, without the assistance of 
machinery, the labour of four hundred mil¬ 
lions of workmen. 

j In the wool manufacture, machines pos¬ 
sess au eminent advantage over common 
wheels. The yarn on thirty or thirty-six 
spindles i3 all equally twisted and drawn to 
the same degree of finenesr. The most 
dexterous spinners cannot twist so equally 
*nd so gently twenty slips of yarn from 
wool of the same quality, as a machine can 
do twenty thousand. 

A* one of the cotton mills ir Manr.hes¬ 


ter yarn has been spun so fine, as to tequinj 
350 hanks to weigh one pound avoirdu¬ 
pois. The perimeter of the common reel 
being one yard and a half, 80 threads or 
revolutions would measure 120 yards; and 
one hank seven times as much, or 810 
yards, which multiplied by 350, gives 
294,000 yards, or 167 miles and a frac¬ 
tion. 

A steam-engine of the ordinary pressure 
and construction, with a cylinder of thirty 
inches in diameier, will perform tl> vork of 
forty horses ; and, as it may be m <de to act 
without intermission, while horses will not 
work more than eight hours in th< day, it 
will do the work of one hundred and twenty 
horses ; and as the work of a horse is equa. 
to that of five men, it will perform as much 
as six hundred men can ; while its whole 
expense is only equal to about half the 
number of horses for which it is substi¬ 
tuted. 

The only purpose to which steam-engines 
were first applied was the raising of water 
from coal-pits, mines, &c.; but they are 
now used for many different purposes n 
which great power is required. Mr Bolt' ll 
applied the steam-engine to his apparatus 
for coining; and, by the help of four boy* 
only, it was capable of striking thirty thou¬ 
sand pieces of money in an hour; the 
machine itself was made to keep an accu¬ 
rate account of the number struck off. 


MANUFACTURING CELERITY. 

iii .1811 a gentleman made a bet of one 
thousand guineas, that he would have a 
coat made in the course of a single day 
from the first process of shearing the sheep 
till its completion by the tailor. The wager 
was decided at Newbury, on the 25th of 
June in that year, by Mr. John Coxeter, of j 
Gresham Mills, near that town. At five 
o’clock ’hat morning, sir John Throckm_a- | 
ton, ba. presented two Southdown wedder 
sheep to Air. Coxeter, and the sheep were 
shorn, the wool spun, the yarn spooled 
warped, loomed, and wove ; and the clotl 
burred, milled, rowed, dried, sheared, and 
pressed, and put into the hands of the 
tailors by four o’clock that afternoon: ar.' J 
at twenty minutes past six the coat, entre^ 
finished, was presented by Mr. Coxete: .o 
sir John Throckmorton, who appeared witl 
it before upwards of five thousand spec** 3 
tr rs, who rent the air witl. acrferrati'-ns at 
this remarkably instate of despatch. 


4j7 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book . 

BALLAD 

Suggested on reading the ^ovel of 
“ Castle Bax>abv*,*' 

“ And must thou go, and must thou go. 

So very, very soon ? 

There is not time to say farewell 
Before the morrow’s noon.” 

‘ O let me kiss away those tears 
That dim thine eyes of blue, 

The king’s behest mist be obeyed, 

.lad I must «>i:, adieu.” 

-•Yet stay ! oh stay ! my Eustace, stay ! 

A little, little while ; 

I fear me that in Gallia’s court 
Thou’lt woo another’s smile.” 

“ Nay, nay, Matilda, say not so. 

Thy knight will aye be true. 

True to his own betrothed maid, 

So now, sweet love, adieu.” 

“ Yet tarry—canst thou tarry not 
One other, other day ? 

Then guard this pledge of plighted faith 
When thou art far away.” 

“ This precious gift, this flaxen lock, 

How fondly shall I view, 

And cherish next my heart—but now, 

One last, last kiss, adieu.” 

* * * 

July 3, 1827. 


HELL BRIDGE. 

There is a narrow pass between the 
mountains in the neighbourhood of Ben- 
dearg, in the Highlands of Scotland, which, 
at a little distance, has the appearance of 
an immense artificial bridge thrown over a 
tremendous chasm : but on nearer approach 
it is seen to be a wall of nature’s own ma¬ 
sonry, formed of vast and rugged bodies of 
solid rock, piled on each other as if in 
giant sport of architecture. Its sides are 
in some places covered with trees of a con¬ 
siderable size; and the passenger who has 
a head steady enough to look down, may 
see the eyrie of birds of prey beneath his 
feet. The path across is so narrow, that it 
cannot admit of persons passing, and in¬ 
deed none but natives attempt the danger¬ 
ous foute, though it saves a circuit of three 
miles; yet it sometimes happens that two 
travellers meet, owing to the curve formed 
by the pass preventing a view over it from 


either side, and, in that case, one person 
lies down while the other creeps over his j 
body. One day, a highlander walking aiong 
the pass, when he had gained the highest j 
part of the arch, observed another coming; 
leisurely up, and being himself one of the 
patrician order, called to him to lie down ; 
the person addressed disregarded the com¬ 
mand, and the highlanders met on the sum¬ 
mit. They were Cairn and Bendearg, of! 
two families in enmity to each other. “ 1 
was first at the top,” sard Bendearg, “ and 
called out first; lie down, that I may pass 
over in peace.” “ When the Grant pros¬ 
trates himself before the M’Pherson,” an¬ 
swered the other, “ it must be with a sword 
through his body.” “ Turn back then,” 
said Bendearg, “ and repass as you came.” 
'* Go back yourself, if you like it,” replied 
Grant; “ I will not be the first of my name 
to turn before the M'Phersons.” They then 
threw their bonnets over the precipice, and 
advanced with a slow and cautious pace 
closer to each other—both were unarmed 
Preparing for a desperate struggle, they 
planted their feet firmly on the ground, 
compressed their lips, knit their brow’s, 
and fixing fierce and watchful eyes on each 
other, stood prepared for an onset. They 
both grappled at the same moment; but, 
being of equal strength, were unable to 
shift each other’s position, and stood fixed 
on the rock with suppressed breath, and 
muscles strained to the “ top of their bent,” 
like statues carved out of the solid stone. 
At length M’Pherson, suddenly removing 
his right foot so as to give him greater pur¬ 
chase, stooped his body, and bent his 
enemy down with him by main strength, 
till they both leaned over the precipice, 
looking into the terrible abyss. The con¬ 
test was doubtful, for Grant had placed his 
foot firmly on an elevation at the brink, 
and had equal command of his enemy, but 
at this moment M’Pherson sunk slowly and 
firmly on his knee, and, while Grant sud¬ 
denly started back, stooping to take the 
supposed advantage, whirled him over his 
head into the gulf. M’Pherson himself fell 
backwards, his body partly hanging over 
the rock, a fragment gave way beneath 
him, and he sunk further, till, catching with 
a desperate effort at the solid stone above, 
he regained his footing. There was a pause 
of death-like stillness, and the bold heart 
of M'Pherson felt sick and faint. At 
length, as if compelled by some mysterious 
feeling, he looked down over the prec’.pice. 
Grant had caught with a death-like errire 
by the rugged point of a rock—his enemy 
was almost within his reach. His face w?s 


458 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


turned upward, and there was in it horror 
and despair—but he uttered no word or 
cry. The next moment he loosed his hold, 
his brains were dashed out before the eyes 
of his hereditary foe: the mangled body 
disappeared among the trees, and his last 
heavy and hollow sound arose from the 
bottom. M‘Pherson returned home an 
altered man. lie purchased a commission 
in the army, and fell fighting in the wars of 
the Peninsula. The Gaelic name of the 
place where this tragedy was acted signifies 
“ Hell Bridge.’' 


CIut)3 

AT BIRMINGHAM. 

The whole British empire may be justly 
considered as one grand alliance, united 
for public and private interest; and this vast 
body of people is subdivided into an infi¬ 
nity of smaller fraternities, for individual 
benefit. 

Perhaps there are hundreds of these 
societies in Birmingham, under the name of 

clubs some of them boast the antiquity 
of a century, and by prudent direction have 
Acquired a capital, at accumulating interest. 
Thousands of the inhabitants are connected; 
nay, to be otherwise is rather unfashion¬ 
able, and some are people of sentiment and 
property. 

Among a variety of purposes intended 
by these laudable institutions, the princi¬ 
pal one is that of supporting the sick. 
Each society is governed by a code of laws 
of its own making, which have at least the 
honour of resembling those of the legisla¬ 
ture ; for words without sense are found in 
both, and we sometimes stumble upon con¬ 
tradiction. 

The poor-rates, enormous as they appear, 
are softened by these brotherly aids; they 
tend also to keep the mind at rest, for a 
man will enjoy the day of health, with 
double relish, when he considers he has a 
treasure laid up for that of sickness. If a 
member only of a poor family be sick, the 
|head still remains to procure necessaries; 
out if that head be disordered, the whole 
source of supply is dried up. 

The general custom is to meet at a public 
house every fortnight, spend a trifle, and 
each contribute sixpence, or any stated 
Uum, to the common stock. The landlord 
! is always treasurer, or father, and is assist- 
| ed by two stewards, annually or monthly 
chosen. 

i 

i 


As honour and low life are not always 
found together, we sometimes see a man/ 
who is idle, wish the society may suppose 
him sick, that he may rob them with more 
security ; or, if a member hang long “ upon 
the box,” his brethren seek a pretence to 
expel him. On the other hand, we fre¬ 
quently observe a man silently retreat from 
the club, if another falls upon the box, and 
fondly suppose himself no longer a mem¬ 
ber; or if the box be loaded with sickness, 
the whole club has been known to dissolve, 
that the members might rid themselves of 
the burden. The Court of Requests finds 
an easy remedy for these evils, at a trifling 
expense. '• i 

The charity of the club is often extended 
beyond the grave, and terminates witli a 
present to the widow. 

Philosophers tell us, “ There is no good 
without its kindred evil.” This amiable 
body of men, marshalled to relieve disease, 
has one small alloy, and perhaps but one. 
As liquor and labour are inseparable, the 
imprudent member is apt to forget to quit 
the club-room when he has spent his neces¬ 
sary two-pence, but continues there, to the 
injury of his family. 

One of these institutions is the “ Rent 
Club," where, from the weekly sums depo¬ 
sited by the members, a sop is regularly 
served up twice a year, to prevent the 
growlings of a landlord. 

In the “ Breeches Club'" every member 
ballots for a pair, value a guinea, promised 
of more value by the maker. This club 
dissolves when all the members are served. 

The intentions of the “ Book Club ” are 
well known to catch the productions of the 
press as they rise. 

The “ IVatch Club ” has generally a 
watchmaker for its president, is composed 
of young men, and is always temporary. 

If a tailor be short of employment, he 
has only to consult a landlord over a bot¬ 
tle, and by their joint powers, they give 
birth to a “ Clothes Club," where every 
member is supplied with a suit to his taste, 
of a stipulated price. These are chiefly 
composed of bachelors, who wish to shine 
in the eyes of the fair. 

A bricklayer stands at the head of the 
“ Building Club," where every member 
perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, 
and each house, value about one hundred 
pounds, is balloted for as soon as erected. 
As a house is a weighty concern, every 
member is obliged to produce two bonds¬ 
men for the performance of covenants. 

1 will venture to pronounce another, the 
“ Capital Club;" for when the contributions 1 


459 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


amount to fiffy pounds, the members ballot 
for this capital, to bring into business . here 
also securities are necessary. It is easy to 
conceive the two last clubs are extremely 
beneficial to building and to commerce. 

The last I shall enumerate is the “ Clock 
Club ” When the weekly deposits of the 
members amount to about four pounds, they 
cast lots who shall be first served with a clock 
of that value, and continue the same method 
i till the whole club is supplied ; after which, 
the clock-maker and landlord cast about 
for another set, who are chiefly young 
I housekeepers. Hence the beginner orna¬ 
ments his premises with furniture, the 
at tist finds employment with profit, and the 
publican empties his barrel.* 


HYPOCHONDRIA. 

A person at Taunton often kept at home 
| for several weeks, under an idea of danger 
in going abroad. Sometimes he imagined 
that he was a cat, and seated himself on his 
hind quarters; at other times he would 
fancy himself a tea-pot, and stand with one 
arm a-kimbo like the handle, and the other 
stretched out like the spout. At last he 
conceived himself to have died, and would 
not move or be moved till the coffin came. 
His wife, in serious alarm, sent for a sur¬ 
geon, who addressed him with the usual 
salutation, “ How do you do this morning ?” 

“ Do!” replied he in a low voice, “ a 
pretty question to a dead man !” 

“ Dead, sir ! what do you mean ?” 

“ Yes, I died last Wednesday ; the coffin 
will be here presently, and I shall be buried 
to-morrow.’' 

The surgeon, a man of sense and skill, im¬ 
mediately felt the patient’s pulse, and shaking 
his head, said, “ I find it is indeed too true ; 
you are certainly defunct ; the blood is in a 
state of stagnation, putrefaction is about to 
take place, and the sooner you are buried 
the better.” 

The coffin arrived, he was carefully placed 
in it, and carried towards the church. The 
surgeon had previously given instructions 
to several neighbours how to proceed. The 
procession had scarcely moved a dozen 
yards, when a person stopped to inquire 
who they were carrying to the grave ? 
u Mr.-, our late worthy overseer.” 

“ What! is the old rogue gone at last ? 
a good release, for a greater villain never 
lived.” 

| The imaginary deceased no sooner heard 
this attack on his character, than he jumped 

* Hutton’s History of Bimingbam, 


up, and in a threatening posture said, “ You 
lying scoundrel, if I was not dead I’d make 
you suffer for what you say ; but as it is, 11 
am forced to submit.” He then quietly laid 
down again; but ere they had proceeded 
half way to church, another party stepped 
tne procession with the same inquiry, and 
added invective and abuse. This was more 
than the supposed corpse could bear; and 
jumping from the coffin, was in the act of 
following his defamers, when the whole 
party burst into an immoderate fit of laugh- J 
ter, the public exposure awakened him to a 
sense of his folly, and he fought against the 
weakness, and, in the end, conquered it. 


prisons*, 

ANCIENT AND MODERN. 

The prisons of the classical ancients 
consisted of “ souterains,” or, sometimes, 
of only simple vestibules, where the pri¬ 
soners saw their friends, &c.: it was in 
this latter kind of confinement that Socrates 
was placed. Their “ latomiae” and “ lapi- ' 
dicinoe” were caves or vast quarries, guard¬ 
ed at the entrance: in the “ latomiae” 
prisoners could move about; but in the 
“ lapidicinae” they were chained and fet¬ 
tered. The famous “ latomiae” at Syracuse 
made a capital prison. The prisoners 
bribed the lictor or executioner to introduce 
food, and allow them to visit friends, See. 
Some prisoners had merely chains upon the 
legs, others were set fast in stocks. There j 
w'ere also free prisons; as committal to the 
house of a magistrate, or custody of the 
accused in his own house.* Felix, at 
Cesarea, commanded a centurion to keep 
Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that 
he should forbid none of his acquaintance 
to minister or come to him. At Rome, 
Paul was suffered to dw'ell by himself with 
a soldier that kept him; and while in that 
custody the chief of the Jews came and 
heard him expound. He spoke to them of 
being “ bound with this chain.” He dwelt 
two whole years in his own hired house 
preaching and teaching with all confidence, 
no man forbidding him.j- 

In the middle age there were prisons 
provided with collars, handcuffs, and other 
fetters, without doors or windows, and de¬ 
scended into only by ladders. Other prisons 
were made like a cage, with portcullised 
doors, as now; and there was a kind of 
prison, called “ pediculus,” because in it 

• Fohroke’p Ency. of Antiquities. 

t Acts xxriii. 16, -O, 23, 30, 31. 


460 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


the feet were bound with chains, and pri¬ 
sons were made dark on purpose. 

Anglo-Saxon prisons were annexed to 
palaces, with a work-place in them; the 
prisoners were chained and had guards. In 
castles there were dungeons, consisting of 
four dark apartments, three below, and one 
above, up a long staircase, all well secured; 
in the uppermost, a ring to which criminals 
were chained. Prisons were sometimes 
guarded by dogs, and prisoners bound in 
chains, brought in carts, and discharged 
upon a new reign.* 


AN ENGLISH PRISON A. D. 1827. 

In the Table Book, which notes the man¬ 
ners and customs, and sketches the features 
ot ancient and modern times, whenever 
they are conveniently presented, it seems 
appropriate to notice a petition printed by 
order of the House of Commons, on the 
12th of February, 1827, respecting 

IIORSIIAM GAOL, SUSSEX. 

The petition alluded to is from debtors 
:n the above prison, and the Votes of the 
House state the following particulars, as 
set forth in the petition :— 

The said gaol is ill constructed, confined, 
and inconvenient, having only twenty cells 
on the debtors’ side, half of which are ap¬ 
propriated to the debtors, and the other 
half chiefly to smugglers and others for 
notorious offences against the revenue laws, 
and to deserters from the army. 

The said cells for debtors are constructed 
of the same dimensions, and in the same 
manner, as the cells for the felons, having 
no glazed sash-windows, but merely iron- 
gratings, with the addition at night of an 
| ill-constructed wooden shutter, having a 
Ismail square hole in the same of about six 
j inches diameter, in some instances glazed 
and in others not, and by no means calcu¬ 
lated to keep out the rain or cold during the 
inclement season. 

The cells are small, being only twelve 
feet by eight feet, and having no fire-place 
or other means of being warmed. 

The said cells are merely brick arches 
lime-whitened, with rough stone pavement, 
and so exceedingly damp at times that the 
water condenses on the walls, and runs 
dowm the sides thereof, and on to the floor, 
land from thence into the common passage, 
I which is so narrow, that when any of the 
doots of the cells are open there is not 


room for one person safely to walk, par¬ 
ticularly as the passage is dark. 

When the weather is wet, or otherwise 
inconvenient, the shutters of the cells must 
necessarily be put up to exclude the same, 
thereby rendering the cells so dark that the 
prisoners cannot conveniently see either to 
read or write; and, therefore, when the I 
prisoners wish to retire to read or write ! 
they cannot do so, and are compelled to sit 
in the common kitchen, which is small, and 
consequently crowded, and is the only place 
for the cooking for all the prisoners and at i 
the same time to accommodate them for a 1 
sleeping ward and other purposes. 

The fire-place is small and inconvenient, 
and very scantily supplied with fuel, and 
when the prison is crowded, as it has lately 
been, it is totally impossible for all the 
prisoners to have access to the fire, for the 
required pui poses of cooking or otherwise 
particularly when most required, as in wet 
and inclement weather. 

It sometimes happens that thirteen or 
more prisoners are obliged to sleep in 
the said kitchen, and three in each bed in 
many of the cells. 

To each cell is affixed an iron-grating 
door, and also a door made of timber; and 
the debtors are locked up within their re¬ 
spective cells at nine o’clock in the evening, 
having no access to them till seven o’clock 
the next morning, so that any one being 
taken ill in the night might lay and perish 
before his situation could be discovered or 
made known, or any assistance rendered. 

The prisoners are unlocked at seven 
o’clock in the morning, and are allowed to 
go into the yard of the prison till eight, 
when they are called in by means of a 
whistle until nine o’clock, and allowed to 
remain in the yard again until twelve 
o'clock at noon, again locked into the 
wards till one o’clock, and again in the 
same manner at five o’clock in the after¬ 
noon for the night. 

Respectable females are confined in the 
same ward with the smugglers and others, 
and no female is appointed or employed to 
attend on them in any case. 

The state of the prison is in geneial 
filthy. 

There is no sink or water-course, nor any 
water laid on to either of the wards, nor 
any means of obtaining water after five 
o’clock in the evening. 

If any part or the whole of the prison is 
at any time cleaned, it is done by some of 
the debtors. 

There is no proper place for the reception 
of the dirty water or filth from the wards. 


Fosbroke 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 


but the same is indiscriminately thrown out 
at the iron-grating doors at the end of the 
passage to each ward, thereby occasioning 
a great stench highly disagreeable and un¬ 
wholesome to the prisoners. 

The prisoners are not allowed to see 
I their respective friends or solicitors within 
| the walls of the prison, but are compelled 
to come into a room in the gaoler’s house, 
and there meet their friends or solicitors, 
subject to the continual interruption or 
presence of the gaoler, his wife, or others, 
to the great annoyance of the prisoners and 
their friends, and on the sabbath-day even 
this privilege is not allowed. 

No debtor is allowed to have any trunk, 
portmanteau, dressing-case, or even a 
clothes-bag, with lock and key, within the 
prison, so that the prisoners are obliged, 
whensoever they require any change of 
clothing, to obtain leave to come into the 
room in the gaoler’s house before mention¬ 
ed, and there take them from their port¬ 
manteau, or otherwise; no respectable 
prisoner can therefore have any article of 
? convenience or value with him, without 
being obliged either to carry it about his 
j person, or leave it exposed in his cell, or in 
i an ill-constructed small cupboard, where 
j he is also obliged to keep his provisions, 
&c.; and so great is the injustice in the 
' prison, that smugglers not only receive 
| fourpence-halfpenny per day, but are also 
allowed a quart of strong beer or ale each 
man, while the debtors are not permitted 
to have strong beer or ale even by paying 
for it. 

When a debtor is removed by a writ of 
habeas corpus to London, a distance of 
! thirty-six miles, and for which one shilling 
per mile is allowed by law to the gaoler, 
the sum of two pounds five shillings has 
been demanded and taken by the gaoler. 

A marked inattention to the complaints 
or remonstrances repeatedly made by vari¬ 
ous prisoners, together with the general 
bad state of the prison, and the excessive 
and unnecessary harshness of the regula¬ 
tions, rendered it imperative on the petition- 
i ers to attempt to lay their grievances before 
the house, in the fervent hope that the 
house would be pleased to cause inquiry to 
be made into the truth of the several alle¬ 
gations contained in the petition, which 
the petitioners pledge themselves to prove, 
if permitted, by affidavit or otherwise, as 
the house should direct. 

The petitioners humbly prayed, that a 
speedy remedy might be applied to their 
complaints as to the house in its wisdom 
should seem meet. 


ODE 

To a Sparrow alighting before the 
Judges’ Chambers in Serjeant’s Inn, 
Fleet-street. j 

Written in half an hour , while attending 
a Summons. 

I 

Art thou solicitor for all thy tribe, 

That thus I now behold thee ?—one that comes 
Down amid bail-above, an under-scribe, 

To sue for crumbs ?— 

Away ! ’tis vain to ogle round the square,— 

I fear thou hast no head— 

To think to get thy bread 

Where lawyers are I 

Say—hast thou pull’d some sparrow o’er the coals 
And flitted here a summons to indite ? 

I only hope no curs’d judicial kite 
Has struck thee off the rolls 1 
I scarce should deem thee of the law—and yet 
Thine eye is keen and quick enough—and still 
Thou bear’st thyself with perk and tiny fret:— 

But then how desperately short thy bill 1 
How quickly might’st thou be of that bereft? 

A sixth “ tax’d off” —how little would be left. 

Art thou on summons come, or order bent ? 

Tell me—for I am sick at heart to know ! 

Say,—in the sky is there “ distress for rent,” 

That thou hast flitted to the courts below? 

If thou wouldst haul some sparrow o’er the coals. 

And wouldst his spirit hamper and perplex— 

Go to John Body—he’s available— 

Sign—swear—and get a bill of Middlesex 
Returnable (mind,- bailable 1) 

On Wednesday after th* morrow of All Souls. 

Or dost thou come a sufferer ? I see— 

I see thee “ cast thy fcai/-ful eyes around;” 

Oh, call James White, and he will set thee free. 

He and John Baines will speedily be bound,— 

In double the sum 
That thcu wilt come 

And meet the plaintiff Bird on legal ground 
But stand, oh, stand aside,—for look, 

Judge Best, on no fantastic toe. 

Through dingy arch,-—by dirty nook,— 

Across the yard into his room doth go •— 

And wisely there doth read 
Summons for time to plead.— 

And frame 
Order for same. 

Thou twittering, legal, foolish, feather’d thing, 

A tiny boy, with salt for latitat. 

Is sneaking, bailiff-like, to touch thy wing;— 

Canst thou not see the trick he would be at ? 

Away ! away ! and let him not prevail. 

I do rejoice thou’rt off! and yet I groan 
To read in that boy’s silly fate my own * 

I am at fault! 

For from my attic though I brought my salt 
I’ve fail’d to put a little on thy tale I 


462 
































TIIE TABLE BOOK 



Sfitnent Door of 33romIep CI)tirri). 


On our visit to Bromley church, as soon 
as the modern outer gates of the porch were 
unlocked, we were struck by the venerable 
appearance of the old inner oak door ; and, 
instead of taking a view of the church, of 
which there are several prints, Mr. Williams 
made a drawing of the decayed portal, from 
whence he executed the present engraving. 
On the hinge-side of the engraving, there 
is a representation of the outer edge of the 
door. 


This door formerly hung on the western 
stone jamb; but, for warmth, and greater 
convenience, the churchwardens, undet 
whose management the edifice was last 
repaired, put up a pair of folding-dooif 
covered with crimson cloth; yet, with 
respectful regard, worthy of imitation ir 
other places, they preserved this vestige ot 
antiquity, and were even careful to display 
its time-worn front. For this purpose the 
door has been attached to the eastern jamU. 


rr'i 


2 H 


463 
















































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


so that if it were shut its ornamented side 
would be hidden; instead whereof, it is 
kept open by a slight fastening against the 
eastern form, or settle, within the porch. 


It may be remembered by readers of the 
Avery Day Book * that, on St. Mark’s eve, 
our ancestors “ watched the church-porch ,” 
as they do to the present day in some parts 
of Yorkshire and the north of England, from 
eleven o’clock at night till one in the morn¬ 
ing. This done thrice, on the third year 
they were supposed to have seen the ghosts 
of those who were to die the next year pass 
by into the church. When any one sickens 
that is thought to have been seen in this 
manner, it is presently whispered about 
that he will not recover, for that such or 
such an one, who watched on St. Mark’s 
eve, says so. This idle superstition is in 
such force, that if the patients themselves 
hear of it, they almost despair of recovery : 
many are said to have actually died by 
their imaginary fears. The like irrational 
belief and fond practice prevail on St. 
John’s eve. “ I am sure,” says a writer in 
the “ Connoisseur,” “ that my own sister 
Hetty, who died just before Christmas, 
stood in the church-porch last Midsummer 
eve, to see all that were to die that year in 
our parish ; and she saw her own appari¬ 
tion.” It is told of a company of the^e 
“ watchers,” that one of them fell into a 
sound sleep, so that he could not be waked, 
and while in this state his ghost or spirit 
was seen by the rest of his companions 
knocking at the church-door. 

In relation to this church-watching on 
St. Mark’s and St. John’s eve, there is a 
narrative in the “ Athenian Oracle,” pub¬ 
lished by John Dunton :—“ Nine others 
besides myself went into a church-porch, 
with an expectation of seeing those who 
should die that year; but about eleven 
o’clock I was so afraid that I left them, and 
all the nine did positively affirm to me, that 
about an hour after, the church-doors flying 
open, the minister, (who it seems was very 
much troubled that night in his sleep,) with 
such as should die that year, did appear in 
order: which persons they named to me, 
and they appeared then all very healthful; 
but six of them died in six weeks after, in 
the very same order that they appeared.”f 


Before mention of the “ chu-rch-porch,” 

• See the Every Day Book , on St. John's eve, &c. 

♦ Brand. 


it might have been more ordeily to hav 
noticed the “ church-t/aref-porch.” There 
is one at Bromley, though more modern 
than the fine “ lich-gate” at Beckenham 
already engraved and described.* Sir John 
Sinclair records of some parishioners in the 
county of Argyll, that “ though by no 
means superstitious, (an observation which 
m the sequel seems very odd,) they still 
retain some opinions handed down by their , 
ancestors, perhaps from the time of the 
Druids. It is believed by them, that the 
spirit of the last person that was buried 
watches round the church-yard till another i 
is buried, to whom he delivers his charge.” 
Eurther on, in the same work,f is related, 
that “ in one division of this county, where 
it was believed that the ghost of the person 
last buried kept the gate of the church-yard 
till relieved by the next victim of death, 
a singular scene occurred, when twobuiials 
were to take place in one church-yard on 
the same day. Both parties staggered for¬ 
ward as fast as possible to consign their 
respective friend in the first place to the 
dust: if they met at the gate, the dead 
were thrown down till the living decided, 
by blows, whose ghost should be condemn¬ 
ed to porter it.” 


Bromley church-door is a vestige; for on 
examination it will be found not perfect. 
It is seven feet four inches in height, and 
in width four feet eight inches : the width 
of the door-way, between the stone jambs, 
is two inches more; the width of the door 
itself, therefore, has been reduced these two 
inches; and hence the centre of the orna¬ 
ments in relief is not in the centre of the 
door in its present state. It is a good spe¬ 
cimen of the fast-decaying, and often pre¬ 
maturely removed, fine doors of our old 
churches. The lock, probably of like age 
with the door, and also of wood, is a mas¬ 
sive effectual contrivance, two feet six 
inches long, seven inches and a half deep, 
and five inches thick ; with a bolt an inch 
in height, and an inch and a half in thick¬ 
ness, that shoots out two inches on the appli¬ 
cation of the rude heavy key, which as to form 
and size is exactly depictured in the follow¬ 
ing page. It seemed good to introduce the 
engraving, both in respect to the antiquity 
of the original, and to the information it 
conveys of the devices of our ancestors 
for locking-up. 


• In vol. i. p. 715. 

+ Statistical Account of Scotland. 


464 














THE TABLE BOOK. 



Snrimt Step of Bt omlrp Cfjturl). 


Keys varied in their form according to 
the age wherein they were made, and the 
purposes for which they were used. An¬ 
ciently, the figure of the key of the west 
door of the church was put in the register. 
This was mostly done on the delivery of 
the church keys to the “ ostiarii,” who were 
officers, created with much ceremony, to 
whom the keys were intrusted : the bishops 
themselves delivered the keys, and the dea¬ 
cons the doors of the respective churches.* 


While W. drew the door of Bromley 
church I had ample opportunity to make 
measurements and look about; and I par¬ 
ticularly noticed a capital large umbrella of 
old construction, which I brought out and 
set up in the church-yard : with its wooden 
handle, fixed into a movable shaft, shod 
with an iron point at the bottom, and struck 
into the ground, it stood seven feet high ; 
the awning is of a green oiled-canvass, such 
as common umbrellas were made of forty 
years ago, and is stretched on ribs of cane. 
It opens to a diameter of five feet, and 
forms a decent and capacious covering for 
the minister while engaged in the burial- 
service at the grave. It is in every respect 
a more fitting exhibition than the watch- 
oox sort of vehicle devised for the same 

• Fosbroke’s Eacy. of Antiquities. 


purpose, and in some church-yards trundled 
from grave to grave, wherein the minister 
and clerk stand, like the ordinary of New¬ 
gate and a dying malefactor at the new 
drop in the Old Bailey. An unseemly 
thing of this description is used at St. 
George’s in the Borough. 


Tb" church of Bromley, an ancient 
spacious edifice with a square tower, has 
been much modernised, yet to the credit of 
the inhabitants it retains its old Norman 
font. It is remarkable, that it is uncertain 
to what saint it was dedicated : some as¬ 
cribe it to St. Peter and St. Paul; others 
to St. Blaise; but it is certain that Browne 
Willis, with all his industry and erudite re¬ 
search, was unable to determine the point. 
This I affirm from a MS. memorandum 
before me in his hand-writing. It abounds 
with monuments, though none are of very 
old standing. There was formerly a tomb 
to Water de Ilenche, “ persone de Biom- 
leghe, 1360.”* Among the mural ta¬ 
blets are the names of Elizabeth, wife to 
“ the great moralist ” Dr. Johnson; Dr. 
Hawkesworth, a resident in Bromley, po¬ 
pular by his “ Adventurer;” and Dr. 
Zachary Pearce. The latter was success¬ 
ively rector of St. Bartholomew’s by tha 

• Weever 


463 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Royal Exchange, vicar of St. Martin’s in 
the Fields, dean of Winchester, bishop of 
Bangor, dean of Westminster, and bishop 
of Rochester. His principal literary la¬ 
bours were editorial—“ Longinus de Subh- 
mitate,” “ Cicero de Officiis,” and “ Cicero 
de Oratore.” He wrote in the “ Specta¬ 
tor,” No. 572, upon “ Quacks,” and No. 
633 upon “ Eloquence;” and No. 121 in 
the “ Guardian,” signed “ Ned Mum.” 
The chief of this prelate’s other works were 
Sermons. There is a cenotaph to him in 
Westminster Abbey; a distinction he was 
entitled to by his learning and virtues. 

Dr. Zachary Pearce is remarkable for 
having desired to resign h.s deanery and 
bishopric. In 1763, being then seventy- 
three years old, he told his majesty in his 
closet that he found the business of his 
stations too much for him; that he was 
afraid it would grow more so as he ad¬ 
vanced in years, and desired to retire, that 
he might spend more time in his devotions 
and studies. Afterwards, one of the law 
lords doubted the practicability of resign¬ 
ing a bishopric, but on further considera¬ 
tion the difficulty disappeared. The king 
then gave his consent, and the bishop kissed 
hands upon it; but lord Bath requesting 
the bishopric and deanery of the king for 
Dr. Newton, then bishop of Bristol, the 
ministry thought that no church dignities 
should pass from the crown but through 
their hands, and opposed the resignation, 
as the shortest way of keeping the bishopric 
from being disposed of otherwise than they 
liked. On this occasion the law lord, earl 
Mansfield, who had been doubtful, and 
who soon after had seen clear, doubted 
again, and Dr. Pearce was told by the king 
he must think no more about resigning the 
bishopric. In 1768 he resigned the deanery 
of Westminster, and wrote 

THE WISH 

From all Decanal cares at last set free, 

(O could that freedom still more perfect be) 

My sun’s meridian hour, long past and gone ; 

Dim night, unfit for work, comes hast’ningon 
In life’s late ev’ning, thro’ a length of day, 

I find me gently tending to decay : 

How shall I then my fated exit make? 

How best secure my great eternal stake ? 

This my prime wish, to see thy glorious face, 

0 gracious God, in some more happy place ; 

Till then to spend my short remains of time 
In thoughts, which raise the soul to .ruths sublime; 
To live with innocence, with peace and love, 

A 3 do those saints who dwell in bliss above . 

By prayers, tne wings which faith to reason lends, 

O now my soul to Heav’n’s high throne ascends: 


While here on earth, thus on bended cnee. 

0 Power divine, I supplicate to thee ; 

May I meet Death, when his approach is made. 

Not fond of life, nor of his dart afraid ; 

Feel that my gain, which I esteem’d a loss ; 

Heav’n is the gold refin’d, earth but the dross. 

Bishop Pearce lived and laboured till 
June 29, 1774, when he died in the eighty- 
fourth year of his age. 


There is a neat monument by Nollekens 
over the north gallery of the church, with, 
a remarkable inscription:—“ Sacred to the 
memory of Thomas Chase, Esq. formerly 
of this parish, born in the city of Lisbon 
the 1st of November, 1729; and buried 
under the ruins of the same house where 
he first saw the light in the ever-memorable 
and terrible earthquake which befell that 
city the 1st of November, 1755: when 
after a most wonderful escape, he by de¬ 
grees recovered from a very deplorable 
condition, and lived till the 20th of Nov 
1788, aged 59 years.” 


On the outside of the church a monu¬ 
mental stone, fixed in the wall, records a 
memorable and affecting instance of grati 
tude in noble terms :— 

Near this Place lies the Body of 
ELIZABETH MONK, 

Who departed this Life 
On the 2?th Day of August, 1753, 

Aged 101: 

She w r as the Widow of John Monk, late of this 
Parish, Blacksmith, 

Her second Husband, 

To whom she had been a wife near fifty Years, 

By whom she had no Children; 

And of the Issue of the first Marriage none lived 
to the second; 

But VIRTUE 

Would not suffer her to be Childless: 

An Infant, to whom, and to whose Father and 
Mother she had been Nurse 
(Such is the Uncertainty of temporal Prosperity) 
Became dependent upon Strangers 
for the Necessaries of Life 1 
To him she afforded the Protection of a Mother. 
This parental Charity 
Was returned with filial Affection; 

And she was supported, in the Feebleness of Age, 
by him whom she had cherished in 
the Helplessness of Infancy 
LET IT BE REMEMBERED, 

That there is no Station in which Industry will 
not obtain Power to be liberal. 

Nor any Character on which Liberality will not 
confe" Honor 


466 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


She had been long prepared, by a simple and 
unaffected Piety, 

For that awful moment, which, however delayed. 

Is universally sure. 

How few are allowed an equal Time of Probation I 
How many, by their Lives, 
appear to presume upon more 1 

To preserve the memory of this person ; and yet 
more, to perpetuate the lesson of her life, this stone 
was erected by voluntary contribution. 


An intelligent inhabitant of Bromley, in 
the year 1747, mentions a discovery, with 
some accompanying remarks, appropriate 
to the present notice :— 

“ In the year 1733, the present clerk of 
the parish church of Bromley in Kent, by 
his digging a grave in that church-yard, 
close to the east end of the chancel wall, 
dug up a funeral crown, or garland, 
which is most artificially wrought in filla- 
gree work with gold and silver wire, in 
resemblance of myrtle, (with which plant 
the funebrial garlands of the ancients were 
composed,*) whose leaves are fastened to 
hoops of larger wire of iron, now something 
corroded wilh rust, but both the gold and 
silver remain to this time very little differ¬ 
ent from their original splendour. It was 
also lined with cloth of silver, a piece of 
which, together with part of this curious 
garland, I keep as a choice relic of anti¬ 
quity. 

“ Besides these crowns, (which were 
buried with deceased virgins,) the ancients 
had also their depository garlands, the use of 
which was continued even till of late years 
(and perhaps are still retained in many 
parts of this nation, for my own knowledge 
of these matters extends not above twenty 
or thirty miles round London,) which gar¬ 
lands, at the funerals of the deceased, were 
carried solemnly before the corpse by two 
maids, and afterwards hung up in some 
conspicuous place within the church, in 
memorial of the departed person, and were 
(at least all that I have seen) made after 
the following manner, viz. the lower rim or 
circlet was a broad hoop of wood, where- 
unto was fixed, at the sides thereof, part of 
two other hoops crossing each other at the 
top, at right angles, which formed the upper 
part, being about one-third longer than the 
width; these hoops were wholly covered 
with artificial flowers of paper, dyed horn, 
or silk, and more or less beauteous, accord¬ 
ing to the skill or ingenuity of the per¬ 
former. In the vacancy of the inside, from 


• gjj Thomas Brown’s Misc. Tracts, p. £9 


the top, hung white paper, cut in form oi 
gloves, whereon was wrote the deceased’s 
name, age, &c. together with long slips o'l 
various coloured paper or ribbons. These 
were many times intermixed with gilded or 
painted empty shells of blown eggs, as 
farther ornaments; or, it may be, as em-! 
blems of the bubbles or bitterness of this 
life; whilst other garlands had only a soli¬ 
tary hour-glass hanging therein, as a more 
significant symbol of mortality. 

“ About forty years ago these garlands 
grew much out of repute, and were thought 
by many as very unbecoming decorations 
for so sacred a place as the church; and at 
the reparation or new beautifying several 
churches where I have been concerned, I 
was obliged, by order of the minister and 
churchwardens, to take the garlands down, 
and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden 
to hang up any more for the future. Yet 
notwithstanding, several people, unwilling 
to forsake their ancient and delightful cus¬ 
tom, continued still the making of them, 
and they were carried at the funerals, as 
before, to the grave, and put therein upon 
the coffin over the face of the dead; this I 
have seen done in many places.’’* 


(garrtrk fpiapd. 

No. XXVII. 

[From the “ Gentleman of Venice,” a 
Tragi-Comedy by James Shirley, 1655.] 

Giovanni, of noble extraction , but 
brought up a Gardener , and ignorant of 
any greater birth , loves Bellaura , a Prin¬ 
cess ; and is beloved again. 

Bellaura. Giovanni. 

Bell. How now, Giovanni; 

What, with a sword! You were not used to appear 
Thus arm'd. Your weapon is a spade, I take it. 

Gio. It did become my late profession, Madam: 

But I am changed— 

Bell. Not to a soldier ? 

Gio. It is a title, Madam, will much grace me; 

And with the best collection of my thoughts 
I have ambition to the wars. 

Bell. You have ? 

Gio. O ’tis a brave profession and rewards 
All loss we meet, with double weight in glory ; 

A calling, Princes still are proud to own; 

And some do willingly forget their crown3. 

To be commanded. ’Tis the spring of all 
We here entitle fame to; Emperors, 


* Gentleman’s Magasin*. 


467 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


And all degrees of honours, owing all 
Their names to this employment; in her vast 
And circular embraces holding Kings, 

And making them ; and yet so kind as not 
To exclude such private things as I, who may 
Learn and commence in her great arts.—My life 
Hath been too useless to my self and country ; 

'Tis time I should employ it, to deserve 
A name within their registry, that bring 
The wealth, the harvest, home of well-bought honour. 
Bell. Yet I can see 

Through all this revolution, Giovanni, 

Tis something else has wrought this violent change. 
Pray let me be of counsel with your thoughts, 

And know the serious motive ; come, be clear. 

1 am no enemy, and can assist 
Where I allow the cause. 

Gio. You may be angry, 

Madatn, and chide it as a saucy pride 
In me to name or look at honour ; nor 
j Can I but know what small addition 
Is my unskilful arm to aid a country. 

Bell. I may therefore justly suspect there is 
Something of other force, that moves you to 
; The wars. Enlarge my knowledge with the secret, 
j Gio. At this command I open my heart. Madam. 

I must confess there is another cause, 

Which I dare not in my obedience 
Obscure, since you will call it forth ; and vet 
1 know you will laugh at me— 

Bell. It would ill 
Become my breeding, Giovanni— 

Gio. Then, 

Know, Madam, I am in love. 

Bell. In love with whom ? 

Gio. With one I dare not name, she is »o much 
Above my birth and fortunes. 

Bell. I commend 

Your flight. But does she know it ? 

G o. I durst never 

Appear with so much boldness to discover 
My heart’s so great ambition ; it is here still 
A strange and busy guest. 

Belt. And you think absence 
May cure this wound— 

Gio. Or death— 

Bell. I may presume 
You think she’s fair— 

Gio. I dare as soon question your beauty, Madam, 
The only ornament and star of Venice, 

Pardon the bold comparison ; yet there is 
Something in you, resembles my great Mistress. 

She blushes— (aside). 

Such very beams disperseth her bright eye. 

Powerful to restore decrepit nature; 

But when she frowns, and changes from her sweet 
Aspect, (as in my fears 1 see you now, 

Off.-nded at my boldness), she does blast 
Poor Giovanni thus, and thus I wither 
At heart, and wish myself a thing lost iu 
My own forgotten dust. 

C L. 


JAMES THOMSON. 

A volume, entitled the “ English Gentle¬ 
man’s Library Manual,’* contains the fol¬ 
lowing remarkable anecdotes respecting the 
author of “ The Seasons.” 

Memoranda communicated nr James 
Robertson, Esq. of Richmond, in 
Surrey, late Surgeon to the House¬ 
hold at Kkw, October 17, 1791, to 
Thomas Parke, Esq. the Poet, and by 
him to the Earl of Buchan. 

Parke. Have you any objection, sir, to 
my taking down memorandums to a con¬ 
versation ? 

Robertsoji. Not in the least, I will pro¬ 
cure you pen, ink, and paper immediately 
I understand, sir, you knew Thomson 
long ? 

I became acquainted with him in the 
year 1726, when he published his poem of 
Winter. He lived opposite to me, in Lan- 
caster-court, in the Strand. I went to the 
East Indies soon after, which caused a 
chasm in our acquaintance; but, on my 
return, our intimacy was strengthened, and 
continued to the hour of his death. I do 
not know any man, living or dead, I ever 
esteemed more highly, and he was attached 
to me. I had once a complaint of a con¬ 
sumptive nature, which confined me much 
at home, and he was so good as to come 
often from Kew-lane to sit with me. 

Did you know Amanda? 

Know her ? Yes, sir, 1 married her sister. 
Amanda was a Miss Young, daughter to' 
captain Gilbert Young, of the Gulyhili fa¬ 
mily, in Dumfriesshire, and was married i 
afterwards to admiral Campbell. She was ' 
a fine sensible woman, and poor Thomson 
was desperately in love with her. Mr.! 
Gilbert Young, her nephew, left my house 
this very morning. Thomson, indeed, was 
never wealthy enough to marry. 

Mr. Collins, the brewer, has told me, 
that he was so heedless in his money con¬ 
cerns, that in paying him a bill for beer, he 
gave him two bank notes rolled together 
instead of one. Collins did not perceive 
the mistake till he got home, and when he 
returned the note Thomson appeared per¬ 
fectly indifferent about the matter, and 
said he had enough to go on without it! 
Mr. Robertson smiled at this anecdote, and 
said it was like him. 

He was not, I believe, one of the weep¬ 
ing philosophers. He was no Heraclitus? 

No, he was not, indeed. I remember his 1 
being stopped once between London and 
Richmond, and robbed of his watch, aw* 


468 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


when I expressed my regret for his loss, 

Pshaw, damn it, ’ said he, “ I am glad 
they took it from me, ’twas never good for 
any thing.” 

Was he national in his affections ? 

He had no prejudices whatever; he was 
fhe most liberal of men in all his senti¬ 
ments. 

I have been told that he used to associate 
with parson Cromer, and some other con- 
vivials, at the Old Orange Tree, in Kew- 
jane ? 

Relaxation of any kind was to him fre¬ 
quently desirable, and he could conform to 
any company. He was benevolent and 
social, both in his writings and in his life ; 
as his friend, Dr. Armstrong, said on ano¬ 
ther occasion, he practised what he p reach- 
ed. # Lord L/s character of him as an 
author was perfectly just, that in his last 
moments he had no cause to wish any thing 
blotted he had ever written. 

1 hear he kept very late hours ? 

No, sir, very early; he was always up at 
sunrise, but then he had never been in 
bed. 

Did you ever correspond with him ? 

Very seldom. We were so much to¬ 
gether there was little opportunity or occa¬ 
sion for it. 

You do not happen to hare any reliques 
of his hand-writing? 

I don’t think I have ; but when I get my 
j breath a little better I will look among my 
papers to try if I can find any. 

The kind old gentleman was warmed 
with the subject, and even set forward to 
his escritoire in the pursuit, but returned 
only with a letter from the late Dr. Arm¬ 
strong, which he flattered himself contained 
something relative to Thomson. In this he 
was mistaken. It was a rhapsody of thanks 
in return for being presented with a large 
bottle of spirits ; but it was well worth an 
airing. This, said Mr. R., will show you 
the intimate terms I was upon with Johnny 
Armstrong, who wrote that beautiful poem, 
the “ Art of Preserving the Health.” lie 
was a very ingenious and excellent man. 

Did you know Dr. Patrick Murdoch, 
who wrote Thomson’s Life ? 

Ay, very well, and esteemed him. Pat- 
tie, as I always called him, had a good 
heart. 

Pope, as I have heard, used often to visit 
Thomson ? 

Yes, frequently. Pope has sometimes 
said, Thomson, I’ll walk to the end of your 
garden, and then set off to the bottom of 
Kew-foot-lane and back. Pope, sir, courted 
Thomson, and Thomson was always ad¬ 


mitted to Pope whether he had company or 
not ; but Pope had a jealousy of every 
eminent writer; he was a viper that gnaw¬ 
ed the file. 

Was Pope a great talker? 

Pope, when he liked his company, was 
a very agreeable man. He was fond nf 
adulation, and when he had any dislike 
was a most bitter satirist. 

Thomson, I think, was very intimate 
with David Mallet, the editor of Boling- 
broke ? 

Sir, that person’s name was properly 
“ Malloeh;” but I used to call him “ Mo¬ 
loch” in our festive moments, and Thomson 
enjoyed the jest. Sir, he had not Thom¬ 
son’s heart; he was not sound at the core; 
he made a cat’s-paw of Thomson, and 1 
did not like the man on that account. 

Thomson had two cousins or nephews, 
who were gardeners, did they live with 
him ? 

No, they did not live with him, they lived ! 
upon him. He was so generous a man, that ' 
if he had but two eggs he would have given 
them both away 

Were you acquainted with Mr. Gray, 
who lived at Richmond Hill? 

Yes, I knew a John Grav, who was a 
victualler. He purchased Thomson’s col- i 
ection of prints and drawings after his 
decease, but I believe purely out of osten- 1 
tation. 

You must have had great influence over 
him, sir, from several circumstances you 
have mentioned, but wish to be suppressed ? J 

Without ostentation or vanity, sir, 1 really 
very often have wondered how I came to 
have so much, and the rest of his friends 
wondered too; for I do say it most sincerely, 1 
that I never could find out what made 
Thomson and many of these geniuses so 
partial to me as they appeared. 

Then, sir, I suspect you are the only one 
who could not make the discovery ? 

Sir, I was not fishing for a compliment, 

I do assure you. 

If you had, sir, I should not have snatch¬ 
ed so eagerly at your bait. 

1 suppose you attended Thomson in 3 
medical as well as in a social capacity ? 

Yes, Armstrong and myself were with 
him till his last moments. I was in the 
room with him when he died. A putiid 
fever carried him off in 'ess than a week.I 
He seemed to me to be desirous not to 
live, and I had reason to think that my 
sister-in-law was the occasion of this. He 
could not bear the thoughts of her being 
married to anoth r. 

Pray did you attend his funeral 1 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Indeed I did, and a real funeral it was 
to me, as Quin said when he spoke the pro¬ 
logue to “ Coriolanus”—“ 1 was in truth 
no actor there.” 

Did you hear Quin speak that prologue, 
sir? 

Yes, I could not have been absent. 

Were you the only intimate friend who 
paid the last tribute of respect to Thomson’s 
'emains ? 

No, sir, Quin attended, and Mallet, and 
another friend, whose name I do not recol¬ 
lect. He was interred in the north-west 
corner of Richmond church, just where the 
christening pew now stands. I pointed out 
the place to the sexton’s widow, that she 
might show 7 it to strangers. 

Did you know Andrew Millar, the book¬ 
seller ? 

I knew him well. He took a box near 
Thomson’s, in Kew-lane, to keep in with 
him as an author who might be profitable 
to him. Andrew was a good-natured man, 
and not an unpleasant companion, but he 
was a little contracted in mind by his busi¬ 
ness, and had the dross of a bookseller about 
him. 

Did you know Paterson ? 

Yes. Paterson had been clerk to a 
counting-house in the city, went for some 
time abroad, and on his return was ama¬ 
nuensis to Thomson, was his deputy as 
| surveyor-general to the Leeward Islands, 
i and succeeded him in that office, but he did 
not live long to enjoy it, I believe not more 
than two years. 

Collins, the poet, and Hammond, author 
of the “ Love Elegies,” visited Thomson ? 

Yes. Ah ! poor Collins, he had much 
genius, but half mad. Hammond was a 
gentleman, and a very pleasant man. Yet 
Thomson, I remember, one day called him 
a burnished butterfly. Quin, the comedian, 

| was a sincere friend of Thomson ; he was 
naturally a most humane and friendly man, 
and only put on the brute when he thought 
it was expected from him by those who gave 
him credit for the character. 

Was the anecdote of Quin and Thomson 
true ? 

Yes, I believe it was. 

Boswell surmised that Thomson was a 
much coarser man than is commonly al¬ 
lowed ? 

Sir, Thomson was neither a petit-maitre 
nor a boor; he had simplicity without rude¬ 
ness, and a cultivated manner without being 
courtly. He had a great aversion to letter¬ 
writing, and did not attempt much of prose 
composition of any kind. His time for 
composition was generally at the dead of 


night, and was much in his summer-house, * 
which, together with every memorial of 
his residence, is carefully preserved by th* 
honourable Mrs. Boscawen. 

Did you know, sir, of any other attach¬ 
ments of Thomson’s, except that to his 
Amanda ? 

No, I believe he was more truly attached 
to my little wife and her sister than to any 
one else, next to Amanda. Mr. H., of 
Bangor, said he was once asked to dinner 
by Thomson, but could not attend. One 
of his friends, who was there, told him that 
there was a general stipulation agreed on 
by the whole company, that there should 
be no hard drinking. Thomson acquiesced, 
only requiring that each man should drink 
his bottle. The terms were accepted un¬ 
conditionally, and when the cloth was re¬ 
moved, a three-quart bottle was set before 
each of his guests. Thomson had much of 
this kind of agreeable humour. Mr. Aik- 
man, the painter, and Dr. De la Cour, a 
physician and ingenious writer, were inti¬ 
mate and beloved friends of Thomson. 
Mr. Aikman was a gentleman of competent 
estate, and was always friendly to Thom 
son. 

Sir, I cordially thank you for this kind¬ 
ness, in suffering yourself to be teased with 
interrogations; and when lord Buchan’s 
tablet on the grave of the poet shall be im¬ 
posed in Richmond church, I shall hope to 
see you tripping across the green to take a 
peep at it. 

Sir, if I can crawl across for such a grati¬ 
fication, I shall certainly do it. 

We then twice shook hands and parted. 
Intelligent old gentleman! Little was 1 
aware that his lengthened eve of life was 
so very near its close ! He was taken seri¬ 
ously ill a few hours after I left him, Mon¬ 
day, October 24, and on the Friday follow¬ 
ing he died, and was buried on Saturday, 
the 4th of November, by the south side o» 
Richmond church. 

Mors ultima linea rerum est. 

(Signed) T. P. 


QUIPOES. 

The Peruvians had a method of express¬ 
ing their meaning by narrow knotted ri¬ 
bands of various colours, which they called 
“ Quipoesa certain number of knots Oi 
one colour, divided by so many of another 
expressed particular meanings; and served 
these simple and innocent people in place 
of the art of writing, p 


470 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


SPANISH MYSTERIES. 

j Of all the dramatic works of Lope de 
Vega, the Lives of the Saints are in every 
respect the most irregular. Allegorical 
characters, buffoons, saints, peasants, stu¬ 
dents, kings, God, the infant Jesus, the 
devil, and the most heterogeneous beings 
that the wildest imagination could bring 
together, are introduced. Music seems 
always to have been an indispensable ac¬ 
cessary. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedy, 
entitled the Life of Saint Nicolas de Tolen- 
tino,* commences with a conversation 
maintained by a party of students, who 
make a display of their wit and scholastic 
learning. Among them is the future saint, 
whose piety shines with the brighter lustre 
when contrasted with the disorderly gaiety 
of those by whom he is surrounded. The 
devil disguised by a mask joins the party. 
A skeleton appears in the air; the sky 
opens, and the Almighty is discovered sit¬ 
ting in judgment, attended by Justice and 
Mercy, who alternately influence his deci¬ 
sions. Next succeeds a love intrigue be¬ 
tween a lady named Rosalia, and a gentle¬ 
man named Feniso. The future saint then 
reenters attired in canonicals, and delivers 
a sermon in redondillas. The parents of 
the saint congratulate themselves on pos¬ 
sessing such a son; and this scene forms 
the conclusion of the first act. At the 
opening of the second a party of soldiers 
are discovered ; the saint enters accompa¬ 
nied by several monks, and offers up a 
prayer in the form of a sonnet. Brother 
Peregrino relates the romantic history of 
his conversion. Subtle theological quiddities 
ensue, and numerous anecdotes of the lives 
of the saints are related. St. Nicolas prays 
again through the medium of a sonnet. He 
then rises in the air, either by the power of 
faith, or the help of the theatrical machi¬ 
nery; and the Holy Virgin and St. Augus¬ 
tin descend from heaven to meet him. The 
sonnet by which St. Nicolas performs this 
miracle is the most beautiful in this sacred 
farce. In the third act the scene is trans¬ 
ferred to Rome, where two cardinals exhibit 
the holy sere-cloth to the people by torch¬ 
light. Music performed on clarinets adds 
to the solemnity of this ceremony, during 
which pious discourses are delivered. St. 
Nicolas is next discovered embroidering the 
habit of his order; and the pious observa¬ 
tions which he makes, while engaged in 
this occupation, are accompanied by the 
chanting of invisible angels. The music 

* St. Nicolas de Tolentino ’s a saint of modern 


attracts the devil, who endeavours to tempt 
St. Nicolas. The next scene exhibits souls 
in the torments of purgatory. The devil 
again appears attended by a retinue ol 
lions, serpents, and other hideous animals; 
but in a scene, which is intended for bur¬ 
lesque, ( graciosamente ,) a monk armed with 
a great broom drives off' the devil and his 
suite. At the conclusion of the piece the 
saint, whose beatification is how complete, 
descends from heaven in a garment be¬ 
spangled with stars. As soon as he touches 
the earth, the souls of his father and mother 
are released from purgatory, and rise 
through a rock; the saint then returns 
hand-in-hand with his parents to heaven, 
music playing as they ascend.* 


PORTUGUESE MYSTERIES. 

One of the spiritual dramas of Gil Vi¬ 
cente, performed at Lisbon, commences 
with shepherds, who discourse and enter a 
chapel, which is decorated with all the 
apparatus necessary for the celebration of 
the festival of Christmas. The shepherds 
cannot sufficiently express their rustic ad¬ 
miration of the pomp exhibited in the 
chapel. Faith (La Fe) enters as an alle¬ 
gorical character. She speaks Portuguese, 
and after announcing herself to the shep¬ 
herds as True Faith, she explains to them the 
nature of faith, and enters into an historical 
relation of the mysteries of the incarnation. 
This is the whole subject of the piece. 

Another of these dramas, wherein the 
poet’s fancy has taken a wider range, pre¬ 
sents scenes of a more varied nature. Mer¬ 
cury enters as an allegorical character, and ! 
as the representative of the planet which 
bears his name. Fie explains the theory of 
the planetary system and the zodiac, and 
cites astronomical facts from Regiomonta¬ 
nus, in a long series of stanzas in the old 
national style. A seraph then appears, 
w ho is sent down from heaven by God, in 
compliance with the prayers of Time. The 
seraph, in the quality of a herald, proclaims 
a large yearly fair in honour of the Holy 
Virgin, and invites customers to it. A devil 
next makes his appearance with a little 
stall which he carries before him. He gets 
into a dispute with Time and the seraph, 
and asserts, that among men such as they | 
are, he shall be sure to find purchasers for, 
his wares. He therefore leaves to every 
customer his free choice. Mercury then 
summons eternal Rome as the representa- 


• Bouterwek. 


471 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


five of the church. She appears, and offers 
for sale Peace of Mind, as the most precious 
of her merchandise. The devil remon¬ 
strates, and Rome retires. Two Portu¬ 
guese peasants now appear in the market: 
one is very anxious to sell his wife, and 
observes, that if he cannot sell her, he will 
give her away for nothing, as she is a wicked 
spendthrift. Amidst this kind of conversa¬ 
tion a party of peasant women enter, one 
of whom, with considerable comic warmth, 
vents bitter complaints against her hus¬ 
band. She tells, with a humorous simplicity, 
that her ungrateful husband has robbed her 
garden of its fruits before they were ripe; 
that he never does any thing, but leads a 
sottish life, eating and drinking all day, &c. 
The man who has already been inveighing 
against his wife immediately recognises 
her, and says,—“That is my slippery help¬ 
mate.’’ During this succession of comic 
scenes the action does not advance. The devil 
at last opens his little stall and displays his 
stock of goods to the female peasants; but 
one of them, who is the most pious of the 
party, seems to suspect that all is not quite 
right with regard to the merchandise, and 
she exclaims—“Jesus! Jesus! true God 
and man !” The devil immediately takes 
to flight, and does not reappear; but the 
seraph again comes forward and mingles 
with the rustic groups. The throng con¬ 
tinues to increase; other countrywomen 
with baskets on their heads arrive; and 
the market is stored with vegetables, poul¬ 
try, and other articles of rural produce. 
The seraph offers Virtues for sale ; but they 
, find no purchasers. The peasant girls ob- 
■ serve, that in their village money is more 
sought after than virtue, when a young man 
wants a wife. One of the party, however, 
says, that she wished to come to the market 
1 because it happened to fall on the festival 
of the mother of God ; and because the 
Virgin does not sell her gifts of grace, but 
distributes them gratis. This observation 
crowns the theological morality of the piece, 
which terminates with a hymn of praise, in 
the popular style, trr honour of the Holy 
Virgin.* 


POACHING. 

A poor itinerant player, caught perform¬ 
ing the part of a poacher, and being taken 
before the magistrates assembled at a quar¬ 
ter sessions for examination, one of them 


• Bouterwek. 


asked him what right he had to kill a hare! 
when he replied in the following ludicrous 
parody on Brutus’s speech to the Romans, 
in defence of the death of Caesar:— 

“ Britons, hungry-men, and epicures! 
hear me for my cause; and be silent—that 
you may hear; believe me for mine honour, 
and have respect to mine honour, that you 
may believe: censure mein your wisdom; 
and awake your senses that you may the 
better judge. If there be any in this as¬ 
sembly, any dear friend of this hare, to him 
I say, that a player’s love for hare is no 
less than his. If, then, that friend demand 
why a player rose against a hare, this is 
my answer,—not that I loved hare less, but 
that I loved eating more. Had you rather 
this hare were living, and I had died starv¬ 
ing—than that this hare were dead, that I 
might live a jolly fellow ? As this hare was , 
pretty, I weep for him; as he was nimble, ! 
I rejoice at it; as he was plump, I honour 
him; but, as he was eatable, I slew him. 
There are tears, for his beauty ; joy, for his 
condition; honour, for his speed; and 
death, for his toothsomeness Who is here 
so cruel, would see a starved man? If any, 
speak, for him have I offended. Who is 
here so silly, that would not take a tit bit? 
If any, speak, for him have I offended. 
Who is here so sleek, that does not love his 
belly ? If any, speak, for him have I of¬ 
fended.” 

“ You have offended justice, sirrah,” 
cried one of the magistrates, out of all 
patience at this long and strange harangue, 

“ Then,” cried the culprit, guessing at ! 
the hungry feelings of the bench, “ since 
justice is dissatisfied, it must needs have 
something to devour — Heaven forbid I 
should keep any gentleman from his dinner 
—so, if you please, I’ll wish your worships 
a good day, and a good appetite.” 


HAPPY UNION. 

Quin used to say, that of all the bans 
of marriage he ever heard, none gave him 
such pleasure as the union of delicate Ann 
Chovy with good John Dory. This senti¬ 
ment was worthy of such a disciple ot 
Apieius. 

S S 3. 




472 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Jfme 

LEITH HILL, NEAR DORKING. 

Extracted from a letter from Mr. Dennis 

to Mr. Serjeant, near seventy years 

ago. 

In a late journey which I took into the 
wild of Sussex, I passed over a hill, which 
showed me more transporting sights than 
ever I had seen before, either in England 
or Italy. The prospects which in Italy 
| pleased me most were the Valdarno from 
the Apennines of Rome, and the Mediter¬ 
ranean from the mountain of Viterbo; of 
Rome at forty, and the Mediterranean at 
fifty miles distant from it; and that of 
the famous Campagna of Rome from Tivoli 
and Frescati, to the very foot of the moun¬ 
tain Viterbo, w ithout any thing to intercept 
your sight. 

But from an hill which I passed in my 
late journey into Sussex, I had a prospect 
more extensive than any of these, and 
which surpassed them at once in rural 
charms, in pomp, and magnificence. The 
hill which I speak of is called Leith-hill, 
and is about five miles southward from 
Dorking, about six miles from Box-hill, and 
near twelve from Epsom. It juts itself out 
about two miles beyond that range of hills, 
which terminate the north downs to the 
south. After conquering the hill itself the 
sight is enchantingly beautiful. Beneath 
lie open to our view all the wilds of 
Surrey and Sussex, and a great part of that 
of Kent, admirably diversified in every part 
of them with woods, and fields of corn and 
pasture, and everywhere adorned with 
stately rows of trees This beautiful vale 
is thirty miles in breadth, and sixty in 
length, terminating on the south by the 
majestic range of hills and the sea. About 
noon on a serene day you may, at thirty 
miles distance, see the waters of the sea 
through a chasm of the mountains. And 
that which, above all, makes it a noble and 
wonderful prospect is, that at the same time 
you behold this noble sight, by a little turn 
of your head towards the north, you look 
full over Box-hill, and see the country be¬ 
yond it, between that and London, and St. 

I Paul’s, at twenty-five miles distance, with 
Highgate and Hampstead beyond it all. It 
may perhaps appear incredible to some, 
that a place which affords so great and so 
surprising a prospect should have remained 
so long in obscurity, and that it is unknown 
to the very visitors of Epsom and Box-hill. 
But, alas ! we live in a country more fertile 


of great things, than of men to admire 
them. 

Whoever talked of Cooper’s-hill, till sir 
John Denham made it illustrious?—How 
long did Milton remain in obscurity, while 
twenty paltry authors, little and vile com¬ 
pared to him, were talked of and admired h 
But in England, nineteen in twenty like by I 
other people’s opinions, and not by theii 
own. 


PARSIMONY. 

Augustine Pentheny, Esq. who died on 1 
the 23d of November, 18»0, in the eighty- 
third year of his age, at an obscure lodging 
in Leeson-street, Dublin, was a miser of 
the most perfect drawing that nature ever 
gave to the world. He was born in the 
village of Longwood, county of Meath, 
and became a journeyman-cooper. Very 
early in life he was encouiaged to make a 
voyage to the West Indies, to follow his 
trade, under the patronage of his maternal 
uncle, another adventurer of the name of 
Gaynor, better known among his neigh¬ 
bours by the name of “ Peter Big Brogues,” 
from the enormous shoes he was mounted 
in on the day he set out on his travels. 
Peter acquired an immense fortune, and 
lived to see his only child married to sir G. 
Colebrook, chairman to the East India 
Company, and a banker in London, to 
whom Peter gave with his daughter iw© 
hundred thousand pounds. His nephew, 
Anthony, acquired the enormous sum of 
three hundred thousand pounds in the 
islands of Antigua and Santa Cruz. • 

Anthony Petheny saw mankind only 
through one medium—money. His vital 
powers were so diverted from generous or 
social objects by the prevailing passion of 
gold, that he could discover no trait in any 
character, however venerable or respecta¬ 
ble, that was not seconded by riches; in 
fact, any one that was not rich he considered 
as an inferior animal, neither worthy of 
notice, nor safe to be admitted into society. 
This feeling he extended to female society, 
and, if possible, with a greater degiee of 
disgust A woman he considered only as 
an incumbrance on a man of property, and 
therefore he could never be prevailed upon 
to admit one into his confidence. Wedlock 
he utterly and uniformly rejected. IIis 
wife was the public funds, and his children 
dividends; and no parent or husband ever 
paid more deference or care to the objects 
of his affection. lie was never known to 
diminish his immense hoard, by rewarding 




473 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


a generous action; or to alleviate distress, or 
accidental misfortune, by the application of 
a single shilling. It could scarcely be ex¬ 
pected that a man would give gifts or be¬ 
stow gratuities, who was a niggard of com¬ 
forts to himself. The evening before he 
died, some busy friend sent a respectable 
physician to him. The old miser evinced 
no dislike, until he recollected the doctor 
might expect a fee; this alarmed him, and 
immediately raising himself in the bed, he 
addressed his “ medical friend ” in the fol¬ 
lowing words: “ Doctor, I am a strong 
man, and know my disorder,* and could 
cure myself, but as Mr. Nangle has sent 
you to my assistance, I shall not exchange 
you for any other person, if we can come 
to an understanding; in fact, I wish to 
know what you will charge for your attend¬ 
ance until I am recovered.” The doctor 
answered “ eight guineas.’ 7 “ Ah ! sir,” 
said the old man, “ if you knew my disor¬ 
der you would not be exorbitant; but to 
put an end to this discussion, I will give 
you six guineas and a half.” The doctor 
assented, and the patient held out his arm 
with the fee, to have his pulse considered, 
and laid himself down again. 

Old Pentheny’s relations were numerous, 
but, in his opinion, wholly unqualified, by 
want of experience in the management of 
money, to nurse his wealth, and therefore 
he bequeathed the entire of it to a rich fa¬ 
mily in the West Indies, with the generous 
exception of four pounds annually to a 
faithful servant, who had lived with him 
twenty-Tour years. In his will he expresses 
great kindness for “ poor John,” and says 
he bequeaths the four pounds for his kind 
services, that his latter days might be spent 
in comfortable independence ! lie appoint¬ 
ed WallerNangle, Esq. and major O’Farrell, 
his executors, and the right hon. David La 
Touche and lord Fingal, trustees. Like 
Thellusson, he would not allow his fortune 
to pass to his heirs immediately, as he 
directed that the entire should be funded 
for fourteen years, and then, “ in its im¬ 
proved state,” be at the disposal of the 
heirs he had chosen 


ON A LADY, 

\ Great Cardplayer, who married a 
Gardener. 

Trumps erer ruled the charming maid, 

Sure all the world must pardon her. 

The Destinies turn'd up a spade — 

She married John the gardener. 


JBferobm'es 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. III. 

The Innate Ideas of Descartes and 
Leibnitz, derived from Plato, Hera¬ 
clitus, Pythagoras, and the Chal¬ 
deans—the System of Mallebranche 
from the same Source, and St. Au¬ 
gustine. 

The innate perception of first truths, 
maintained by Descartes and Leibnitz, 
which raised such warm and subtle dis¬ 
putes among metaphysicians, is a doctrine 
derived from Plato. That great philoso¬ 
pher, who acquired the surname of divine, 
by having written best on the subject ol 
Deity, entertained a very peculiar senti¬ 
ment respecting the origin of the soul. He 
calls it “ an emanation of the divine es¬ 
sence, from whom it imbibed all its ideas ; 
but that having sinned, it was degraded 
from its first estate, and condemned to a 
union with boay, wherein it is confined as 
in a prison ; that its forgetfulness of its 
former ideas was the necessary conse¬ 
quence of this penalty.” He adds, that 
“ the benefit of philosophy consists in re¬ 
pairing this loss, by gradually leading back 
the soul to its first conceptions, accustom¬ 
ing it by degrees to recognise its own ideas, 
and by a full recollection of them to com¬ 
prehend its own essence, and the true 
nature of things.” From that Platonic 
principle of the soul’s “ divine emanation,” 
it naturally followed, that, having formerly 
had within itself the knowledge of every 
thing, it still retained the faculty of recall¬ 
ing to mind its immortal origin and prime¬ 
val ideas. Descartes and Leibnitz reasoned 
in the very same manner, in admitting 
eternal and first truths to be imprinted on 
the soul:—they substitute indeed the crea¬ 
tion and preexistence of souls, in place of 
the “ divine emanation ” of them taught by 
Plato; but they defend their system by the 
same sort of arguments. 

Mallebranche entered the lists in defence 
of Descartes's principles, and took upon 
him to support an opinion respecting the 
nature of ideas, which caused universal 
astonishment by its apparent singularity 
and was treated as almost extravagant; al¬ 
though he advanced nothing but what might 
be defended by the authority of the finest 
geniuses of antiquity. After having defined 


474 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


jdeas to be “ the immediate, or nearest 
objects of the mind when it perceives any 
ihing. ” Mallebranche demonstrates the 
reality of their existence, by displaying 
their qualities, which never can belong to 
nothing, that have no properties. He 
then distinguishes between sentiments and 
ideas; considers the five different ways, 
whereby the mind comes at the view of ex¬ 
ternal objects ; shows the fallacy of four of 
them, and establishes the preeminence of 
the fifth,'as being that alone which is con¬ 
formable to reason, by saying, that it is 
absolutely necessary God should have in 
himself the ideas of all essences, otherwise 
he never could have given them existence. 
He undertakes to prove, that God, by his 
presence, is nearly united to our souls; in¬ 
somuch, that he may be called the place of 
spirits, as space is of bodies; and thence 
he concludes, that the soul may discern in 
God whatever is representative of created 
things, if it be the will of God to communi¬ 
cate himself in that manner to it. He re¬ 
marks, that God, or the universal intelli¬ 
gence, contains in himself those ideas which 
illuminate us; and that his works having: 
been formed on the model of his ideas, we 
cannot better employ ourselves than in 
contemplating them, in order to discover the 
nature and properties of created things. 

Mallebranche was treated as a visionary 
for having advanced these sentiments, al¬ 
though he accompanied them with the most 
solid and judicious proofs that metaphysics 
could afford; but he was never charged 
with plagiarism, though his system and 
manner of proof exist literally in ancient 
authors. After reciting passages from the 
“ Oracula Chaldaeorum,” which he reveres 
as a divine oracle, he says, “The gods here 
declare where the existence of ideas is to 
be found, even in God himself, who is their 
only source; they being the model accord¬ 
ing to which the world was formed, and the 
spring from which every thing arose. 
Others, by applying immediately to the 
divine ideas themselves, are enabled to dis¬ 
cover sublime truths; but as for our part, 
we are content to be satisfied with what 
the gods themselves have declared in 
favour of Plato, in assigning the name of 
ideas to causes purely intellectual; and 
affirming, that they are the archetypes of 
the world, and the thoughts of the supreme 
father; that, in effect, they reside in the 
paternal intellect, and emanate from him 
to concur in the formation of the world/’ 

Pythagoras and his disciples understood 
almost the same thing by their numbers, 
that Plato did by his ideas. The Pythago- 


rists expressed themselves with regard to 
numbers in the same terms as Plato uses, 
calling them “ ru ovrut ovru, real existences, 
the only things truly endowed with essence, 
eternally invariable.’’ They give them also 
the appellation of incorporeal entities, by 
means of which all other beings participate 
of existence. 

Heraclitus adopted those first principles 
of the Pythagoreans, and expounded them 
in a very clear and systematic manner. 
“ Nature,’’ says he, “ being in a perpetual 
flow, there must belong to it some perma¬ 
nent entities, on the knowledge of which 
all science is founded, and which may serve 
as the rule of our judgment in fleeting and 
sensible objects.” 

Democritus also taught, that the images 
of objects are emanations of the Deity, and 
are themselves divine; and that our very 
mental ideas are so too. Whether the 
doctrine be true or erroneous is not here a 
subject of inquiry : the present purpose 
being merely to show the analogy between 
the principles of Mallebranche and those of' 
the ancients. 

Plato, who, of all the ancient philoso¬ 
phers, deservedly ranks the highest, for 
the clearness and accuracy wherewith he 
hath explained and laid open this system, 
gives the appellation of “ideas” to those 
eternal intellectual substances, which were, 
with regard to God, the exemplary forms 
or types of all that he created; and are, 
with regard to men, the object of all science, 
and of their contemplation when they 
would attain to the knowledge of sensible 
things. “ The world,” according to Plato, 
“ always existed in God’s ideas; and when 
at length he determined to produce it into 
being, such as it is at present, he created it 
according to those eternal models, forming 
the sensible into the likeness of the intel¬ 
lectual world.” Admitting, with Heracli¬ 
tus, the perpetual fluctuation of all sensible 
things, Plato perceived that there could be 
no foundation for science, unless there were 
things real and permanent to build it upon, 
which might be the fixed object of know¬ 
ledge, to which the mind might have re¬ 
course, whenever it wanted to inform itself 
of sensible things. We clearly see that this 
was Plato’s apprehension of things ; and 
we need only look at the passages quoted 
from him to be convinced, that whatever 
Mallebranche said on the subject, he d<* 
rived from Plato. 

Mallebranche would not have beers 
railed against as impious, had his antago. 
nists known to whom he was indebted fo 1 
his opinions and reasonings; and that St, 


475 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Augustine himself had said, “ Ideas are 
eternal and immutable ; the exemplars, or 
archetypes of all created things; and, in 
short, exist in God.” In this respect he 
differs somewhat from Plato, who separated 
them from the divine essence: but we may 
easily discern a perfect conformity between 
the father of the church and the modern 
philosopher. 

Leibnitz was in some measure of the 
opinion of father Mallebranche; and it was 
i natural that he should be, for he derived 
his principles from the same ancient 
jsources. Ilis “monads” were “entities 
truly existing; simple substances; the 
eternal images of universal nature.” 


In this inquiry, concerning the discoveiies 
and thoughts of the ancients attributed to 
the moderns, it has appeared advisable that 
their views of the mind, or intellectual 
system, should precede their consideration 
of sensible qualities, and the system of the 
universe. To persons unaccustomed to 
such investigations, the succeeding papers 
will be more interesting. 


DISTRESSES OF MEN OF GENIUS. 

Pope Urban VIII. erected an hospital 
for the benefit of decayed authors, and 
called it “ The Retreat of the Incurables,” 
intimating that it was equally impossible 
to reclaim the patients from poverty or 
poetry. 

Homer is the first poet and beggar of 
note among the ancients: he was blind, 
sung his ballads about the streets, and his 
mouth was oftener filled with verses than 
with bread. 

Plautus, the comic poet, was better off; 
for he had two trades: he was a poet for 
his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in 
order to gain a living. 

Terence was a slave, and Boethius died 
in a jail. 

Among the Italians, Paulo Burghese, 
almost as good a poet as Tasso, knew four¬ 
teen different trades, and yet died because 
he could get no employment in either of 
them. 

Tasso was often obliged to borrow a 
crown from a friend, to pay for a month’s 
subsistence. He has left us a pretty sonnet 
to his cat, in which he begs the light of her 
eyes to write by, being too poor to buy a 
candle. 

Bentivoglio, whose comedies will la*t 
with the Italian language, dissipated a 


noble fortune in acts of benevolence, fel 
into poverty in his old age, and was refused 
admittance into an hospital which, in his 
better days, he had himself paid for build- 
ing. 

In Spain, the great Cervantes died ot 
hunger; and Camoens, equally celebrated 
in Portugal, ended his days in an hospital. 

In France, Vaugelas was surnamed “ the 
Owl,” from having been obliged to keep 
within all day, and only venturing out by- 
night, through fear of his creditors. In 
his last will, he bequeathed eveiy thing 
towards the discharge of his debts, and de¬ 
sired his body to be sold, to that end. 

Cassander was one of the greatest ge¬ 
niuses of his time, but barely able to pro¬ 
cure his livelihood. 

In England, the last days of Spenser, 
Otway, Butler, and Dryden are our national 
reproach. 

s. s. s. 


ON CHANGE. 

No. II. 

For the Table Book. 

Noah is now a tailor. No. 63, Pall-mall. 

Ham, a watchmaker. No. 47, Skinner-street, 
Snow-hill. 

Isaac, a fishmonger, No. 8, Cullum-street. 

Jacob, an umbrella and parasol maker. No. 
42, Burlington Arcade. 

Israel is a surgeon in Keppell-street, Rus- 
sel-square. 

Joseph is a pencil manufacturer, No 7, 
Oxford-street. 

Joshua, a grocer, No. 155, Regent-street. 

Simon, a ship broker, No. 123, Fenchureh- 
street. 

Joel, an auctioneer, No. 44, Clifton-street, 
Finsbury. 

Paul, a manufacturer of mineral waters, 
No. 5, Bow-street, Covent-garden. 

Matthew, a brush maker, No. 106, Upper 
Thames-street. 

Mark, a malt factor, No. 74, AfarA-lane. 

Luke, a boot maker. No. 142, Cheapside; 
and 

John, a solicitor, No. 6, Palsgrave-place, 
Temple-bar. 

July , 1827 Saji Sam’s Son. 


47(5 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 
THE GRETNA GREEN PARSONS. 


The first person that twined the bands 
of Hymen this way is supposed to have 
been a man named Scott, who resided at 
the Rigg, a few miles from the village of 
Gretna, about 1750 or 1760. He was ac¬ 
counted a shrewd, crafty fellow, and little 
mure is known of him. 

George Gordon, an old soldier, started 
up as his successor. He always appeared 
on marriage occasions in an antiquated full 
military costume, wearing a large cocked 
hat, red coat, jack boots, and a ponderous 
sword dangling at his side. If at any time 
he was interrogated “ by what authority he 
joined persons in wedlock?” he boldly an¬ 
swered, “ 1 have a special license from 
government, for which I pay fifty pounds 
per annum.” He was never closely ex¬ 
amined on the subject, and a delusion pre 
vailed during his life, that a privilege of the 
kind really existed. 

Several persons afterwards attempted to 
establish themselves in the same line, but 
none were so successful as Joseph Paisley, 
*vho secured by far the greatest run of 
•usiness, in defiance of every opposition, 
t was this person who obtained the appel¬ 
lation of the “ Old blacksmith,” probably 
on account of the mythological conceit of 
Vulcan being employed in rivetting the 
hymeneal chains. Paisley was first a smug¬ 
gler, then a tobacconist, but never, at any 
time, a blacksmith He commenced his 
mock pontifical career about 1789. for 
many years he was careful not to be pub¬ 
licly seen on such occasions, but stole 
through by-paths to the house where he 
was called to officiate, and he there gave a 
certificate miserably written, and the ortho- 
I graphy almost unintelligible, with a feigned 
signature. An important trial arose out of 
one of his marriages; and on being sum¬ 
moned to London in consequence, to un¬ 
dergo an examination, he was so much 
alarmed that he was induced to consult a 
gentleman of the Scotch bar on the occa¬ 
sion. His legal adviser stated as his opi- 
non, that using a feigned name was de¬ 
cidedly a misdemeanour, and recommended 

I the mock parson to effect, if possible, the 
destruction of the original certificate, and 
substitute another in which he should ap¬ 
pear by his own name, and merely as a 
witness to the parties’ declaration that they 
were married persons. Afterwards, he in¬ 
variably adopted the plan of merely sub¬ 
scribing his own name as a witness in 
future; and this has been the usual course 
of his successors. From that period he 


made no secret of his profession, but openly 
walked the street when called upon to 
officiate, dressed in his canonicals, with the 
dignity of a bishop 1 He was long an ob- 
; ect of curiosity to travellers. He was tall, 
and had been well proportioned, but at his 
death he was literally an overgrown mass 
of fat, weighing twenty-five stone. He 
was grossly ignorant, and insufferably coarse 
in his manners, and possessed a constitu¬ 
tion almost proof against the ravages of 
spirituous liquors; for thouah an habitual 
drinker, he was rarely ever seen drunk : for 
the last forty years of his life he daily dis¬ 
cussed a Scotch pint, equal to two English 
quarts, of brandy. On one occasion, a 
bottle companion, named “ Ned the turn¬ 
er,” sat down with him on a Monday 
morning to an anker of strong cogniac, and 
before the evening of the succeeding Satur¬ 
day they kicked the empty cask out at the 
door; neither of them were at any of the 
time drunk, nor had they had the assistance 
of any one in drinking. 

After the decease of Paisley, the field 
lay more open for competition in the 
trade, and the different candidates resorted 
to different means to acquire the best share. 
Ult imately the post-boys were taken into 
partneislnp, who had the power of driving 
to whichever house they pleased : each 
mock-parson had h's stated rendezvous; 
and so strong did this description of oppo¬ 
sition run, that at last the post-boys ob¬ 
tained one entire half of the fees, and the 
business altogether got worse. The rates 
were lowered to a trifle, and the occupation 
may now be said, in common with others, 
to have shared the effects of bad times and 
starvation prices. 

There are two principal practitioners at 
present, one of whom was originally a 
chaise-driver; the other, David Laing, an 
old soldier, who figured as a witness on the 
trial of the Wakefields. At home they 
exhibit no parade of office; they may be 
seen in shabby clothes at the kitchen fire¬ 
sides of the pot-houses of the village, the 
companions of the sots of the country, and 
disrespected by every class. 


A BLACK DREAM. 

A number of years bygone, a black man, 
named Peter Cooper, happened to marry one | 
of the fair towns-women of Greenock, who j 
did not use him with that tenderness tna» 


477 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


he conceived himself entitled to. Having 
tried all other arts to retrieve her lost affec¬ 
tions in vain, Peter at last resolved to work 
upon her fears of punishment in another 
world for her conduct in this. Pretending, 
therefore, to awake one morning extrava¬ 
gantly alarmed, his helpmate was full of 
anxiety to know what was the matter; and 
having sufficiently, as he thought, whetted 
her curiosity, by mysteriously hinting that 
“ he could a tale unfold,” at length Peter 
proceeded as follows :—“ II—11 ob a dream 
last night. I dream I go to Ilebben and 
rap at de doa, and a gent’man com to de 
doa wid black coat and powda hair. Whoa 
dere ?—Peeta Coopa.—Whoa Peeta Coopa ? 
Am not know you.—Not knovva Peeta 
Coopa! Look de book, sa.—He take de 
oook, and he look de book, and he could’na 
find Peeta Coopa.— Den I say, Oh! lad, 
oh ! look again, finda Peeta Coopa in a 
coma.—He take de book, an he look de 
book, an at last he finda Peeta Coopa in 
lilly, lilly (little) corna.—‘ Peeta Coopa,— 
cook ob de Royal Charlotte ob Greenock.’ 
Walk in, sa.—Den I walk in, and dere was 
every ting—all kind of vittal—collyflower 
too—an I eat, an I drink, an I dant, an I 
ting, an I neva be done; segar too, by 
Gum.—Den I say, Oh! lad, oh ! look for 
Peeta Coopa wife. He take de book, an 
he look all oba de book, many, many, many 
a time, corna an all; an he couldna finda 
Peeta Coopa wife. Den I say, Oh! lad, 
oh ! look de black book ; he take de black 
book, an he look de black book, and he 
finda Peeta Cooopa wife fust page,—‘ Peeta- 
Coopa-wife, buckra- woman, bad-to-her-hus- 
band.’ ”* 


A MUCH-INJURED MAN. 

George Talkington, once a celebrated 
horse-dealer at Uttoxeter, who died on the 
8th of April, 1826, at Cheadle, Cheshire, 
in his eighty-third year, met with more 
accidents than probably ever befell any 
other human being. Up to the year 1793 
they were as follows : — Right shoulder 
broken ; skull fractured, and trepanned ; 
eft arm broken in two places; three ribs 
on the left side broken ; a cut on the fore¬ 
head ; lancet case, flue case, and knife 
forced into the thigh; three ribs broken on 


es, July 7. 1827, f rom Greenock Advertiser. 


the right side; and the right shoulder, 
elbow, and wrist dislocated ; back seriously 
injured; cap of the right knee kicked off; 
left ancle dislocated; cut for a fistula; 
right ancle dislocated and hip knocked 
down ; seven ribs broken on the right and 
left sides; kicked in the face, and the left j 
eye nearly knocked out; the back again, 
seriously injured; two ribs and breast-bone 
broken; got down and kicked by a horse, | 
until he had five holes in his left leg ; the j 
sinew just below the right knee cut through, 
and two holes in that Leg, also two shock¬ 
ing cuts above the knee; taken apparently 
dead seven times out of different rivers. 

Since 1793, (when a reference to these 
accidents was given to Mr. Madely, sur¬ 
geon, of Uttoxeter,) right shoulder dislo¬ 
cated and collar-bone broken; seven ribs 
broken ; breast-bone laid open, and right 
shoulder dislocated ; lefi shoulder disloca-| 
ted, and left arm broken; two ribs broken; i 
and right thigh much bruised near the 
pope’s eye. In 1819, then in his seventy- | 
sixth year, a lacerated wound in the calf of 
the leg, which extended to the foot, mortifi¬ 
cation of the wound took place, which ex¬ 
posed all the flexor tendons of the foot, also 
the capsular ligaments of the ancle joint; 
became delirious, and so continued upwards 
of three weeks: his wonderful recovery 
from this accident was attributed chiefly to 
the circumstance of a friend having sup¬ 
plied him with a quantity of old Madeira, 
a glass of which he took every two hours 
for eight weeks, and afterwards occasion¬ 
ally. Since then, in 1823, in his eightieth 
year he had a mortification of the second 
toe of the right foot, with exfoliation of the 
bone, from which he recovered, and at last 
died from gradually declining old age. He i 
was the father of eighteen children, by one 
wife, in fifteen years, all of whom he sur- ! 
vived, and married again at the age of 
seventy-four.* 


GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION. 

A farmer’s son, just returned from a 
boarding school, was asked “if he knew 
grammar ?"—“ Oh yes, father!” said the 
pupil, “ I know her very well;— Grammer 
sits in the chair fast asleep.” 

P. 


• Oxford and University Herald, April 29, liSSS 
Communicated by J. J. A. F. 


478 




























Man loves knowledge, and the beams of Truth 
More welcome touch his understanding’s eye. 

Than all the blandishments of sound his ear, 

Than all of tast® his tongue. AJiennde. 


A LOVER OF ART TO HIS SON. 

My dear Alfred, 

Could you see my heart you would know 


my anxious feelings for your progress m success. 


study. If I could express myself in words 
of fire I would burn in lessons upon your 
mind, that would inflame it to ardent de¬ 
sire, and thorough conviction, of attaining 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


9 ^ketrf). 





















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Our talented friend, v/ho permits you 
the use of his collection of models and 
casts, and does you the honour to instruct 
you by his judgment, assures me that your 
outlines evince an excellent conception of 
form. To be able to make a true outline 
Df a natural form, is to achieve the first 
great step in drawing. 

You remember my dissatisfaction to- 
waids some engravings of hands and feet 
that were given you by the person who 
would have continued to instruct you, if I 
had not been dissatisfied. The hands in 
these prints were beautifully finished, but 
their form was incorrect; the feet were not 
representations of any thing in nature; and 
yet these deformities were placed before 
you to begin with. If I had not taught 
you from your infancy the value and use 
of sincerity, and the folly and mischief 
of falsehood, you might have been at this 
time a liar, and become a depraved and 
vicious character; instead of being, as you 
are, an upright and honest youth, and be¬ 
coming, as I hope you ill, a virtuous and 
honourable man. Had you continued the 
copying of engraved lies of the limbs, your 
drawings would have been misrepresenta¬ 
tions of the human figure. You will dis¬ 
cover my meaning if you consider an old 
precept, “ Never begin any thing without 
considering the end thereof." 

Your affectionate father, 

* 


4iam'r& ^lagsf. 

No. XXVIII. 

[ From the “ Devil’s Law Case a Tragi¬ 
comedy, by John Webster, 1623.] 

Clergy-comfort. 

[ must talk to yon, like a Divine, of patience.— 

1 have heard some talk of it very much, and many 
Times to their auditors’ impatience ; hut I pray. 

What practice do they make on’t in their lives ? 

They are too full of choler with living honest,— 

And some of them not only impatient 
Of their own slightest injuries, but stark mad 
At one another’s preferment. 

Sepulture. 

Tiro Bellmen, a Capuchin; Romelio, and 
others. 

Cap. For pity’s sake, you that have tears to shed, 
3igh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead. 


For two unfortunate Nodes,* whose sad fate 
Leaves them both dead and excommunicate. 

No churchman’s pray’r to comfort their last groaas 
No sacred seed of earth to hide their bones ; 

But as their fury wrought them out of breath. 

The Canon speaks them guilty of their own death. 
Rum. Denied Christian burial 1 I pray, what does 
that ? 

Or the dead lazy march in the funeral ? 

Or the flattery in the epitaph?—which shown 
More sluttish far than all the spiders webs. 

Shall ever grow upon it: what do these 
Add to our well-being after death ? 

Cap. Not a scruple. 

Rom. Very well then—* 

I have a certain meditation, 

(If I can think of,} somewhat to this purpose;— 

I’ll say it to you, while my mother there 
Numbers her beads.— 

“ You that dwell near these graves and vaults. 

Which oft do hide physicians’ faults. 

Note what a small room does suffice 
To express men’s goods: their vanities 
Would fill more volume in small hand, 

Thau all the evidence of Church Land. 

Funerals hide men in civil wearing, 

And are to the Drapers a good hearing; 

Make th’ Heralds laugh in their black raymeat 
And all die Worthies, die with payment 
To th’ Altar offerings: tbo’ their fame. 

And all the charity of their name, 

’Tween heav’n and this, yield no more light 
Than rotten trees, which shine in th’ night. 

O look the last Act be best in th’ Play, 

And then rest gentle bones ! yet pray. 

That when by the Precise you’re view’d, 

A supersedeas be not sued ; 

To remove you to a place more airy. 

That in your stead they may keep chary 
Stockfish, or seacoal; for the abuses 
Of sacrilege have turn'd graves to vilder uses. 

How then can any monument say. 

Here rest these bones to the Last Day; 

When Time, swift both of foot and feather. 

May bear them the Sexton knows not whither?— 

What care I then, tho’ my last sleep 
Be in the desart, or in the deep ; 

No lamp, nor taper, day and night. 

To give my charnel chargeable light ? 

I have there like quantity of ground ; 

And at the last day I shall be found.”* 

Immature Death. 

Contarino’8 dead. 

O that he should die so soon 1 
Why, I pray, tell me: 

Is not the shortest fever best ? and are r.ot 
Bad plays the worse for their length ? 

• Slain in a duel. 

t Webster was parish-clerk at St. Andrew’s, Hol- 
born. The anxious recurrence to church-matters ; 
sacrilege; tombstones; with the frequent introduction 
of dirges; in this, and his other tragedies, may bs 
traced to his professional sympathies. 


480 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Guilty preferment. 

T have a plot, shall breed. 

Out of the death of these two noblemen ; 

Th’ advancement of our house— 

Oh take heed 

A grave is & rotten foundation. 

Mischiejt 

-are like the visits of Franciscan friars. 

They never come to prey upon us single. 

Last Love strongest, 

— as we love our youngest children best, 

So the last fruit of our affection, 

Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, 

Mo»t violent, most irresistible; 

Since ’tie indeed our latest harvest home. 

Last merry.nent 'fore winter; and we Widows, 

As men report of our beet picture-makers, 

A'e love the Piece we are in hand with better. 

Than all the excellent work we have done befoie 

Mother's anger. 

Leonora. Ha, my Son I 
I'll be a fury to him ; like an Amazon lady, 

I’d cut off this right pap that gave him suck. 

To shoot him dead. I’ll no more tender him. 

Than had a wolf stol’n to my teat in th’ night. 

And robb'd me of my milk. 

Distraction from guilt. 

Leonora (sola ). Ha, ha! What say you ? 

I do talk to somewhat methinks ; it may be, 

I My Evil Genius.—Do not the bells ring ? 

I’ve a strange noise in my head. Oh, fly in 
Come, age, and wither me into l he malice 
Of those that have been happy; let me have 
One property for more than the devil of hell; 

Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily ; 

Let me in this life fear no kind of ill, 

That have no good to hope for. Let me sink, 

Where neither man nor memory may find me. (fallt 
to the ground), 

Confessor ( entering ). You are well employ'd, I 
hope ; the best pillow in th’ world 
For this your contemplation is the earth 
And the best object, Heaven. 

Leonora. I am whispering 
To a dead friend- 

Obstacles. 

.jet those, that would oppose this union, 

Lrow ne’er so subtle, and entangle themselves 
o their own work, like spiders; while we two 
Uaste to our noble wishes ; and presume. 

The nindrance of it will breed more delight,— 

As black copartaments shews gold more bright. 


Falling out. 

To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly 
Ik, to express two that have dearly loved 
And fal'n at variance. 


[I 10 m the u Bride, a Comedy, by Thomar 
Nabbs, 16dO.J 

Antiquities. 

Horten, a Collector. His friend. 

Friend. You are learned in Antiquities: 

Horten. A little, Sir. 

I should affect them more, were not tradition 
One of the best assurances to show 
They are the things we think them. What more 
proofs, 

Except perhaps a little circumstance, 

Have we for this or that to be a piece 
Of Delphos’ ruins? or the marble statues, 

Made Athens glorious when she was supposed 
To nave more images of men than men? 

A weather beaten stone, with an inscription 
That i« not legible but thro’ an optic. 

Tells us its age; that in some Sibyl’s cave 
Three thousand years ago it was an altar, 

Tis satisfaction to our curiosity. 

But ought not to necessitate belief.— 

For Antiquity, 

I do not store up any under Grecian ; 

Your Roman antiques are but modern toys 
Compared to them. Besides they are so counterfeit 
With mouldings, tis scarce possible to find 
Any but copies. 

Friend. Yet you are confident 
Of yours, that are of more doubt. 

Horten. Others from their easiness 
May credit what they please. My trial’s suen 
Of any thing l doubt, all the impostors, 

That ever made Antiquity ridiculous, 

Cannot deceive me. If 1 light upon 
Ought that’s above my skill, 1 have recourse 
To those, whose judgment at the second view 
(If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher’s 
That eye-less; nose-less, mouth-less Statue is, 

And who the workman was ; tho* since his death 
Thousands of years have been revolved. 

Accidents to frustrate Purpcse 

How various are the events that may depend 
Upon one action, yet the end proposed 
Not follow the intention ! accidents 
Will interpose themselves ; like those rash men, 

That thrust into a throng, occasioned 
By some tumultuous difference, where perhaps 
Their busy curiosity begets 
New quairels with new issues. 

C. L. 


481 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


NATURAL CURIOSITIES OF DERBY¬ 
SHIRE. 

Further Extracts from the Journal 
of a Tourist.* 

For the Table Book. 

June 1,1827. 

Visited Chatsworth, the princely resi¬ 
dence of the duke of Devonshire, three 
miles to the north-east of Bakewell. As 
soon as the summit of the neighbouring 
hill is attained, the house and park lie im¬ 
mediately in front in a beautiful valley, 
watered by the Derwent. An addition is 
making to the main building, which is 
large, but not very handsome in its archi¬ 
tectural design ; on approaching it, I 
passed over an elegant stone bridge, close 
to which is an island whereon a fictitious 
fortress is built. The views on all sides 
are strikingly fine, and of great variety ; 
hills and dales, mountains and woods, 
water and verdant pasture lands. It re¬ 
quires “ a poet’s lip, or a painter’s eye, 7 ’ to 
adequately depict the beauties of this en¬ 
chanting place. Perhaps no estate in the 
kingdom furnishes choicer objects for the 
pencil. I do not think, however, that the 
grounds in the immediate vicinity of the 
mansion are so well disposed, or the scenery 
30 rich, nor does the interior offer such 
magnificent works of art, as at Blenheim, 
There is much sculpture, of various degrees 
of merit, distributed about the apartments; 
but the collection is in its infancy, and a 
splendid gallery is in progress for its recep¬ 
tion. The finest production of the chisel 
is Canova’s statue of Napoleon’s mother; 
its natural grace and ease, with the fine 
flowings of the drapery, and the grave 
placidity of the countenance, are solemnly 
majestic—she looks the mother of Napo¬ 
leon. Among the other great attractions 
nere, are a bust of Petrarch’s Laura, ano¬ 
ther of his present majesty, by Chantrey ; 
and a portrait of his majesty by sir Thomas 
Lawrence. 

The next day I continued my route to¬ 
wards Matlock Bath—as beautiful a ride 
as I ever took. The road follows the Wye 
for six miles in a vale, past the aged towers 
of Haddon Hall, and the scenery presents 
every interesting feature that can be coveted 
by the most enthusiastic lover of nature;— 
rugged and beetling crags, gently sloping 
hills, extensive woods, rich meadows and 
fertile vallies, form the composition of 


# See p. 12, 


the views. Handsome villas, farm-houses, 
and neat cottages — living pictures ol 
scarcely minor interest — embellish an-d 
diversify the natural beauties of the delight¬ 
ful scene. 

At the end of the six miles, the road 
turns over a bridge across the Wye, leading 
through the dale (Matlock) to the Bath. 
Tire river here rolls darkly along, its pro¬ 
gress swifter and its depth greater; the 
same rocky barrier that encloses all the I 
dales in this county uplifting its huge masses 
of rocks on either side. The margin of the 
river is thickly studded with large trees, 
close copse-woods clothe the slopes at the 
bottom, and ascend part of the cliffs’ sides 
—wild shrubs branch from the clefts above 
whence innumerable jackdaws whirl their 
flights, and make incessant monotonous 
noise. About a mile before reaching„Matlock 
Bath is a mountain called the High-Tor 
its bare and jagged head rising far above 
the adjoining rocks. I w r as informed that it 
contains a fine natural grotto, but the rive* 
was too deep to wade, and I missed the 
sight. 

On rounding a point, the shining white 
buildings of the Bath appear along the foof 
and some distance up the side of a steep 
lofty hill, called the “ Heights of Abraham.” 
The greater part of the village is situated in 
the valley, but a second may be said to be 
beneath it, through which the river flows : 
its banks are thickly planted with groves of 
trees, and winding paths have been made 
throughout these delightful haunts, for the 
pleasure of the visitors. The cliffs rise 
opposite majestically perpendicular, and as 
finely picturesque as any I saw in Derby¬ 
shire. The “ Heights of Abraham ” are at 
least a quarter of a mile above the highest 
of the houses. A zigzag road through a 
shrubbery leads to the celebrated natural 
cavern near the summit—an immense re¬ 
cess, as grand as Peak’s Hole, but far more 
beautiful; for its sides are formed of a ' 
variety of spars of surprising brilliancy. 

To mineralogists it is the most interesting 
resort in England ; and here collectors, pro¬ 
secuting their discoveries, think themselves 
happy, although deprived of the light of 
heaven for whole days together. The whole 
of this immense mountain is one sparklino 
mass of various spars and ores. 

Ascending this steep road on horseback, 

I found the views, through the shrubs, ot 
the village and valley beneath, the river, 
and the surrounding mountains, incon¬ 
ceivably grand. High-Tor was on the 
left, and Wild-Cat-Tor on the right—be¬ 
yond which the Wye, gleaming in the sunV 


482 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


rays, wound sinuously along the verdant 
vale, till it was so diminished by the dis¬ 
tance as to seem like a bent wire of shining 
silver, and was lost to sight by the inter¬ 
vention of a far-off mountain. 

Of all places this seems to present the 
greatest inducements to the temporary 
visitant; and to anglers it is the ne plus 
ultra of piscatorial recreation. 

After a day’s enjoyment of this charm¬ 
ing spot, I went forward, but the threat¬ 
ening appearance of the weather induced 
me to sojourn at a small public-house 
in one of the smaller dales. Heavy clouds 
arose, and the rain obscured the distant 
hills; running along their summits, having 
the appearance of thick fog. The weather 
clearing, I walked out, and surveyed the 
curious old limestone built “hostel,” with 
the sign of “ A Trout,’’ scarcely decipher¬ 
able from age. Some anglers, whom the 
heavy shower had driven for shelter under 
the cliffs, again appeared, and threw their 
artificial temptations on the surface of a 
stream flowing from the mountain at the 
back of the little inn. Its water turned 
singularly constructed machinery for crush¬ 
ing the lead ore, washed down from a 
neighbouring large mine. Immense frag¬ 
ments of rock, by falling betwixt two iron 
wheels, with teeth fitted closely together, 
are pounded to atoms. A number of men, 
women, and children, were busy shovelling 
it into sieves set in motion by the machine, 
and it separated itself by its own weight 
from the stone or spar that contained it. 

Determined by my curiosity to descend 
into the mine, I procured a miner to accom¬ 
pany me; and following the stream for a 
short distance, reached a small hut near 
the entrance, where I clothed myself com¬ 
pletely in miner’s apparel, consisting of a 
stout woollen cap, under a large, slouched, 
coarse beaver hat, thick trowsers, and a 
fustian jacket, with “ clods,” or miner’s 
shoes. At the mouth of the mine we seated 
ourselves opposite to each other in a narrow 
Alining cait, shaped from the bottom like 
a wedge, attached to a train of others of 
similar make, used for conveying the ore 
from the interior. Having been first fur¬ 
nished with a light each, we proceeded, 
drawn by two horses, at a rapid pace, along 
a very narrow passage or level, cut through 
the limestone rock, keeping our arms with¬ 
in the sledge, to prevent their being jammed 
against the sides, which in many places 
struck the cars very forcibly. In this man¬ 
ner, with frequent alarming jolts, we ar¬ 
rived at a shaft, or descent, into the mine. 
We got out of our vehicles and descended 


by means of ladders, of five fathoms jc 
length, having landing places at the bottom 
of each. The vein of the lead ore was 
two hundred fathoms deep. We therefore 
descended forty ladders, till we found our¬ 
selves at the commencement of another 
passage similar to the first. All the way 
down there was a tremendous and deafen¬ 
ing noise of the rushing of water through 
pipes close to the ear, caused by the action 
of a large steam-engine. The ladders and 
sides of the rock were covered with a dark 
slimy mud. We walked the whole length, 
several hundred yards, along the second 
level, knee deep in water, till we reached 
the spot, or vein, that the workmen were 
engaged on. They were labouring in a 
very deep pit; their lights discovered them 
to us at the bottom. Into this chasm 1 was 
lowered by a wheel, with a rope round my 
body ; and having broken off a piece of 
lead ore with a pickaxe, I was withdrawn 
by the same means. Another set of labour¬ 
ers were procuring ore by the process of 
blasting the rock with gunpowder—I fired 
one of the fusees, and retiring to a distant 
shelter, awaited the explosion in anxious 
alarm ; its reverberating shock was awfully 
grand and loud. My ascent was dreadfully 
fatiguing from the confined atmosphere; 
and I was not a little rejoiced when I could 
inhale the refreshing air, and hail the 
cheering light of day. 

E. J. H. 


august. 

T1IE FRUIT MARKETS OF LONDON 
AND PARIS IN THIS MONTH. 

A gentleman, one of a deputation for 
inquiring into the state of foreign horticul¬ 
ture, visited the Paris fruit and vegetable 
market in the month of August, 1821, and 
having seen Covent Garden market nearly 
a fortnight earlier, under peculiar circum¬ 
stances, was enabled to form an estimate of 
their comparative excellencies. 

The coronation of George IV. on the 
19th of July had caused a glut of fruit in 
the London market, such as had never been 
remembered, and large quantities of the 
fruit, which had not met with the expected 
demand, remained on hand. 

In regard to Pine-apples , Mr. Isaac An¬ 
drews of Lambeth alone cut sixty ripe fruit 
on the occasion, and many hundreds, re¬ 
markable for size and flavour, came frora 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Jistant parts ot the country. One from 
ord Cawdor’s weighed 10 IBs.; and, after 
being exhibited at a meeting of the London 
Horticultural Society, was sent to the Royal 
Banquet. Pine-apples are not to be got at 
Paris. When they are wanted at grand 
entertainments, they are generally procured 
from Covent Garden market by means of 
the government messengers who are con¬ 
stantly passing between the two capitals. 
From our possessing coals, and from our 
gardeners being well versed in the modes 
of raising fruit under glass, it is probable 
that we shall always maintain a superiority 
u the production of this delicious article 
for the dessert. 

The quantity of ripe Grapes exhibited 
for sale in Covent Garden market from the 
middle to the end of July, in the year 
alluded to, would, if told, surpass the be- 
.ief of Parisian cultivators; more especi¬ 
ally when it is added, that the kinds were 
chiefly the Black Hamburgh, the white 
muscat of Alexandria, and the Frontignacs. 
Andrews also took the lead in the grape 
department; insomuch that while very 
good Black Hamburgh grapes, from differ¬ 
ent parts of the country, wrnre selling, 
during the crowded slate of the capital, at 
4s. per lb., his bunches currently obtained 
6s. 6d. per lb. Their excellence consisted 
chiefly in the berries having been well 
thinned and thoroughly ripened. On the 
29th of July great quantities of grapes, 
remarkable for size and excellence, still re¬ 
mained in the market, and were selling at 
3s. and 3s. 6 d. a pound At Paris ripe 
grapes are not to be procured, at this sea¬ 
son of the year, for any sum. On the 14th 
of August, prince Leopold, then on his way 
to Italy, dined with the English ambassa- 
| dor, when a splendid dessert was desirable ; 
but ripe grapes coul not be found at Paris. 

A price equal to 12s. sterling per lb. was 
paid for some unripe bunches, merely to 
make a show, for they were wholly unfit for 
table use. On the 21st of the same month 
the duke of Wellington being expected to 
arrive to dinner, another search for ripe 
grapes was instituted throughout Paris, but 
in vain. In short, the F.nglish market is 
well supplied with fine grapes from the 
middle of June till the middle of Novem¬ 
ber; but, from being raised under glass, 
they are necessarily high priced ; while the 
Paris market offers a copious supply of the 
table Chasselas, from the middle of Sep 
tember to the middle of March, at very 
cheap rates,—from 12 to 20 sous, or 6d. to 
8 d. per pound; the coarse vineyard grapes 
being only Id. a pound. 

I .. - 


The Bigarreau or graffion Cherry was 
still very abundant in G’ovent Garden mar¬ 
ket, and also the black or Dutch guigne : 
at Paris, however, even the late cher¬ 
ries had almost ceased to appear in the 
market. 

In the London market the only good 
Pear was the large English Jargonelle (c: 
epargne.) The Windsor peat was on the 
stalls, but not ripe. The Green chisel, 
(hativeau,) and the skinless, (poire sans 
peau,) were almost the only others I could 
see. The Paris market excelled, being 
well supplied with fine summer pears. The 
Ognolet or summer archduke, was pretty 
common : it is named ognolet , from grow¬ 
ing in clusters on the tree like bunches 
of onions. The large Blanquet, and the 
long-stalked blanquet, (the latter a very 
small fruit,) were also common. The 

Epargne, or Grosse cuisse Madame, was 
plentiful. A fruit resembling it, called 
Poire des deux tetes, was likewise abun¬ 
dant : it was large, sweet, and juicy, quite 
ripe, but without much flavour. The 

Epine-rose, (Caillot or Cayeout,) a very 
flat pear; the Musk-orange, which is of a 
yellow colour only; the Red orange, which 
has the true orange hue; and the Robine, 
or Royal d'£t6, were all plen.iful. The 
small early Rousselet was exceedingly 
common and cheap, being produced abun¬ 
dantly on old standards in all country- 
places. Towards the end of August, the 
Cassolette, a small pear of good flavour, 
and the Rousselet de Rheims, made their 
appearance; and the Poire d’Angleterre (a 
beurr4) began to be called through the 
streets in every quarter of the city. 

Apples were more plentiful at London 
than at Paris. The Dutch Cod 1 in and the j 
Carlisle Codlin were abundant; and the j 
Jenneting, the Summer Pearmain, and the ! 
Ilawthorndean, were not wanting. At j 
Paris very few apples appeared. The Sum¬ 
mer Calville, a small conical dark-red fruit, 
and the Pigeonnet, w'ere the only kinds I 
remember to have seen. 

Plums were more plentiful and in greater 
variety at the Marche des Innocens than at 
Covent Garden. At Paris, the Reine 
Claude, of excellent quality and quite ripe, 
w'as sold at the rate of two sous, or one 
penny, a dozen ; while the same plum 
(green-gage) cost a penny each in London, 
though in an unripe state. The next in 
excellence at Paris was the Prune royale, 
of good size, and covered with the richest 
bloom. The Jaune-hative, the drap dor, 
the Mirabelle, the Musk-damson or Malta 
plum, were common ; likewise the Precoce 


484 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


| de Tours, remarkable for its peculiar dark 
hue; and a deep violet-coloured plum, 
I calle< l Prune noire de Montreuil. The Blue 
1 Perdrigon was just coming in. At Covent 
Garden the Primordian, or jaune-h&tive, 
and the morocco or early damask, were the 
only ripe plums to be seen. 

! Apricots were much more plentiful at 
the Innocens than at Covent Garden. The 
common apricot, the Portugal and the 
Angoumois, which much resemble each 
other, were frequent; these were small, of 
brisk flavour. The Abricot-p6che, how¬ 
ever, not only excelled the others in size, 
but in quality, holding that superiority 
among the Parisian apricots which the 
Moorpaik does among the English; and it 
appeared in considerable abundance. At 
London only the Roman and Moorpark 
were to be found, and the latter was not 
yet ripe. 

In Peaches the French market most de¬ 
cidedly surpassed the English. The quan¬ 
tity of this fruit presented for sale toward 
the middle of August appeared surprisingly 
great. It was chiefly from Montreuil, and 
in general in the most perfect state. Al¬ 
though ripe, scarcely a single fruit had 
: suffered the slightest injury from the attacks 
ot insects. This fact affords satisfactory 
s proof that the plastered walls, being smooth 
i and easily cleaned, are unfavourable to the 
breeding and lodging of such insects as 
often infest our rougher fiuit-\va!ls. The 
fine state of the fruit also shows the un¬ 
common care which must be bestowed by 
the industrious inhabitants of Montreuil to 
prevent its receiving bruises in the gather¬ 
ing or carriage. The principal kinds in 
the market were the small Mignonne; the 
large Mignonne, with some of the excellent 
subvariety called Belle Bauce; the yellow 
^Iberge; the Bellegarde or Gallande; the 
Malta or Italian peach; the red Madeleine 
or De Courson; and the Early Purple. 

Melons appeared in great profusion at 
Paris. In the Marcht? des Innocens and 
Marehd St. Honore the kinds were rather 
select, chiefly different varieties of Cante- 
loup. These were not sold at so cheap a 
rate as might have been expected ; ripe 
and well-flavoured canteloups costing 2, 3, 
or 4 francs each. But in almost every 
street the marchands de melons presented 
themselves; some occupying stalls, some 
; moving about with brouettes or long wheel¬ 
barrows, and others with*hampers on their 
backs, supported on crochets. In general 
those sold in the streets were much cheaper, 
(perhaps not more than half the price ot 
the others.) but of coarse quality, such as 


would scarcely be thought fit for use in 
England. The fruit is frequently long 
kept; and in the heats of August.the odour 
exhaled from the melon-stalls was sickening 
and offensive. The kinds were chiefly the 
following: the Maraicher, a large netted 
melon, so called from being cultivated in 
the marais or sale-gardens; the Melon de 
Ilonfleur, of great size, often weighing from 
20 to 30 lbs.; and the Coulombier, a coarse 
fruit, raised chiefly at the village of that 
name. These were almost the only sorts 
of melon sold in Paris, till our countryman 
Blaikie, about forty-five years ago, intro¬ 
duced the Rock Canteloup and Early Ro¬ 
mans. It may be noticed, that melons of 
all kinds, even the best canteloups, are here 
raised in the open ground, with the aid of 
hand-glasses only, to protect the young 
plants in the early part of the season. In 
Covent Garden market a great many small 
melons, chiefly of the green-fleshed and 
white-fleshed varieties, appeared; but they 
Were uniformly high-priced, though not 
proportionally deaiei than the Parisian 
canteloups, considering that they had all 
been raised on hot-beds under glass-frames. 

Mulberries were much more plentiful at 
Paris than at London. 

At Paris, fresh or recent Figs were, at 
this time, very common and very cheap; it 
was indeed the height of the fig-season, 
and they daily arrived in great quantities 
from Argenteuil. The round white fig 
seems to be the only kind cultivated ; at 
least it was the only kind that came to 
market. No fresh figs can be expected in 
Covent Garden till the end of August, and 
then only small parcels. To make amends 
the London market was supplied with fine 
Gooseberries in profusion, while not one of 
good quality was to be seen at Paris. The 
same thing may be said of Raspberries and 
Currants, which are in a great measure 
neglected in France, or used otdy by con¬ 
fectioners. The Parisians have never seen 
these fruits in perfection ; and it is therefore 
no wonder that, in the midst of a profuse 
supply of peaches, reine claudes, figs, and 
pears, they should be overlooked. There 
exists a strong prejudice against the goose¬ 
berry, which prevents the Parisians from 
giving the improved kinds a fair trial : they 
have no idea that it is possible that goose¬ 
berries should form an excellent article of 
the dessert; they think of them only as tit 
for making tarts, or sauce for mackerel 


• Mr. Pat. Neill. Se<\ Cal. Hort. Soc. in Horticultu¬ 
ral Tour. 


485 









Cfie in 

Belonging to Sir Charles Lockhart, 
of Lee and Carnworth, Lanarkshire. 

This curious piece of antiquity is a stone 
of a dark red colour and triangular shape, 
in size about half an inch each side, set in 
a piece of silver coin ; which, though much 
defaced, by some letters still remaining, is 
supposed to be a shilling of Edwaid I., the 
cross being very plain, as it is on his shil¬ 
lings. It is affirmed, by tradition, to have 
been in the Lee family since the year 1 320 
odd; that is, a little after the death of king 
Robert Bruce, who having ordered his heart 
to be carried to the Holy Land for burial, 
one of the noble family of Douglass was 
sent with it, and is said to have got the 
crowned heart in his arms from that cir¬ 
cumstance. On the other hand, it is alleged 
that the person who carried the heart was 
Simon Locard, of Lee, who about that time 
borrowed a large sum of money from sir 
William de Lendsay, prior of Air, for which 
he granted a bond of annuity of ten pounds 
of silver, during the life of the said sir Wil¬ 
liam de Lendsay, out of his lands of Lee 
and Cartland. The original bond, dated 
1323, and witnessed by the principal nobi¬ 
lity of the country, is among the family 
papers. The sum, which was a great one 
in those days, is thought to have been bor¬ 
rowed for that expedition ; and, on the au¬ 
thority of the story, of his being the person 
who carried the royal heart, it is affirmed, 
that he changed his name to “ Lockheart 
or, as it is sometimes spelled, “ Lockhart,” 
and obtained a heart within a lock for part 
of his arms, with the motto, “ corda serata 
pando.” 

It is said that this Simon Lockhart having 
taken a Saracen prince, or chief, prisoner, his 
wife came to ransom him; and, on counting 
out the money or jewels, the stone in question 
fell out of her purse, and she hastily snatch¬ 
ed it up, whicn Simon Lockhart observing, 
uiSihteu on having it, or retaining his pri¬ 


soner. Upon this the Saracen lady gave it 
him, and told him of its many virtues, 
namely, that it cured all diseases in cattle, 
and the bite of a mad dog both in man and 
beast. 

To effect these wonders the stone is 
Oirped in water, which is given to diseased 
c.v’ tie to drink, and to a person who has been 
bitten; and the wound, or part infected, is 
washed with the water. There are nc 
words used in the dipping of the stone, nor 
any money taken by the servants without 
incurring t-he owner’s displeasure. People 
come from all parts of Scotland, and even 
from Yorkshire, to get the water in which 
the stone is dipped, to give their cattle, 
especially when ill of the murrain and 
black-leg. 

Many years ago, a complaint was made 
to the ecclesiastical courts against the laird 
of Lee, then sir James Lockhart, for using 
witchcraft: a copy of their act is hereto 
annexed. There is no date; but from the 
orthography, and James being the name of 
the laird of Lee, it must at least have been 
in the seventeenth century. 

Copy of an Act of the Synod and 
Assembly. 

“ Apud Glasgoiv, the 25 Octobr. 

“ Synod. Sess. 2. 

“ Quhilk dye, amongest the referries of 
the brethren of the ministrie of Laneik, it 
was propondit to the Synode, that Gawen 
llammiltonne of Ilaplocke had preferit 
an complaint before them against Sir 
James Lockart of Lie, anent the super¬ 
stitious vsing of an stene set in selver for 
the curing of diseased cattell, qlk, the said 
Gawen affirmit, coud not be lawfully vsed, 
and that they had differit to give ony deci- 
sionne therein, till the advice of the Assem- 
blie might be had concerning the same. 
The Assemblie having inquirit of the maner 
of vsing thereof, and particularlie vnder- 
stoode, by examinationne of the said Laird 
of Lie, and otherwise, that the custome is 
onlie to cast the stene in sume water, and 
give the diseasit cattil thereof to drink, and 
qt the sam is dene wtoul vsing onie words, 
such as charmers and sorcerers vse in their 
unlawfull practisess ; and considering that 
in nature they are mony thinges seen to 
work strange effects, q r of no humane witt 
can give a reason, it having pleasit God to 
give vnto stones and herbes special virtues 
for the healing of mony infirmities in man 
and beast,—advises the brethren to surcease 
thir proces, as q’rin they perceive no ground 
of offence ; and admonishes the said Laird 
of Lie in the vsing of the said stone, to tak 

























THE TABLE BOOK.' 


need that it be vsit heirafter \vt the least 
scandal that possiblie maye bie. 

“ Extract out of the books of the Assem- 
blie helden at Glasgow, and subscribed be 
thair clerk, at thair comand. 

“ M. Robert Young, 

“ Clerk to the Assemblie at Glasgoiv.” 

When the plague was last at Newcastle, 
the inhabitants are said to have sent for the 
Lee Penny, and given a bond for a large 
sum in trust for the loan; and that they 
thought it did so much good, that they 
offered to pay the money, and keep the 
Lee Penny, but the owner would not part 
with it. A copy of this bonu is alleged to 
have been among the family papers, but 
supposed to have been spoiled, with many 
more, by rain getting into e charter-room, 
during a long minority, and no family re¬ 
siding at Lee. 

A remarka le cure is alleged to have been 
oerformed about a century ago, on a lady 

aird, of Sauchtonhall, near Edinburgh, 
“ who, having been bit by a mad dog, was 
come the length of a hydrophobia; upon 
which, having sent to beg the Lee Penny 
might be sent to her house, she used it for 
| some weeks, drinking and bathing in the 
water it was dipped in, and was quite re¬ 
covered.”* 

Good reasons are assigned for rejecting 
the story of Locard having been the bearer 
of the heart of Robert Bruce; and there 
are some ludicrous instances of wonderful 
cures performed in the north of England on 
credulous people, by virtue of water wherein 
the Lee Penny was reputed to have been 
I dipped, and yet neither the water nor the 
Lee Penny had crossed the Tweed. 


For the Table Book. 

THE DEVIL’S PUNCII-BOWL.f 

You, — Mr. Editor, — Have journeyed 
from London to Portsmouth, and must 
recollect Hindhead—you will, therefore, 
sympathize with me :—the luxury of riding 
round the rim of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl 
is over! Some few years back the road, 
on one side, was totally undefended against 
casualties of any description—overturning 
! the coach into the bowl (some three or four 

» Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec. 1787, from whence 
these particulars, and the engraving of the Lee Penny, 
ire derived. Further accounts of it from correspond 
ents will be acceptable. 

t A deep valley in Surrey, so called from its circular 
fqrja. It is about forty-one miles from London. 


hundred yards deep) — the bolting of a 
horse — or any other delightful mishap 
which could hurl you to the bottom—all is 
over! They—(the improvers of roads, but 
destroyers of an awful yet pleasing picture,) 
—have cut a new road about fifty or sixty 
fe^t below the former, and raised a bank, 
four feet high, round the edge, so that an 
accident is almost impossible, and no such 
chance as a roll to the bottom will again 
occur! The new road is somewhat shorter 
than the old—the effect completely spoiled 
—the stone to perpetuate the murder of the 
sailor unheeded*—the gibbet unseen—ano 
nothing left to balance the loss of these 
pleasing memorials, but less labour to the 
horses, and a few minutes of time saved in 
the distance! Eighteen years since, the 
usual stoppage, and “ Now, gentlemen, it 
you’ll have the goodness to alight, and 
walk up, you’ll oblige,’’ took place. At 
the present time you are galloped round, 
and have scarcely time to admire the much- 
spoken-of spot. 

The last time I passed the place, on the 
Independent , when conversing on the sub¬ 
ject, our coachee, Robert (or Bob, as he 
delights to be called) Nicholas, related an 
anecdote of an occurrence to himself, and 
which tells much of the fear in which pass¬ 
ing the Devil’s Punch-Bowl was once held. 
You shall have it, as nearly as I can recol¬ 
lect it:— 

An elderly lady, with two or three 
younger ones, and servants, engaged the 
coach to London, but with a special agree¬ 
ment, that the paity should walk round the 
said bowl,—“ As we understand, it is next 
to a miracle to go along that horrid place 
in safety.” On the journey, each change of 
horses was accompanied by an inquiry, 
how far was the dreaded place? a satisfac¬ 
tory answer was, of course, generally given. 
When, at length, the coach arrived at the 
stone-memorial, one-third round the place, 
the coachman alighted, and pretended to 
be making some trifling alterations to the 
harness: his lady-passenger, looking com¬ 
placently into the vast deli beneath her, 
inquired its name. “ Iliggin-bottom, 
ma’am.”—“ What a delightful but singular 
looking spot!’’ was the rejoinder. The 
coach then drove on. On its arrival at the 
next stage, Road-lane, the anxious inquiry, 
“ How far off, sir?’’ was again repeated. 
“ We’re passed, ma’am.”—“ Passed it!— 
in safety !—bless me!—where was It?”— 
“ Where I stopped, and you asked the 

# The old stone was destroyed at the alteration oi 
the road; but a new one has very recently been 
erected oa the new road. 


487 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


name o* (hat < ep dell—that was the 
Devil’s Punch-Bowl—Higgin-bottom’s the 
right name.” The delighted passenger re¬ 
warded the coachman tor his innocent de¬ 
ception, and promised always, on that road, 
to travel under his guardianship. 

-I have spoken of a stone erected 

on the Bowl, and if, in this “ airy nothing,” 
1 do not occupy too much space that, un¬ 
doubtedly, could be better filled, a brief 
recollection of the fact may close this notice 
of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl:— 

An unfortunate sailor, with a trifle in his 
pocket, on the way to Portsmouth, fell in, 
at Esher, with three others, then strangers, 
and, with characteristic generosity, treated 
them on their mutual way. The party were 
seen at the lied Lion, Iioad-lane, together, 
which they left, and journeyed forward. 
On Hindhead they murdered their com¬ 
panion—stripped the body, and rolled it 
down the Devil’s Punch-Bowl. Two men, 
who had observed the party at the Red 
Lion, and who were returning home, not 
long after, on arriving at the spot, observed 
something which appeared like a dead 
sheep; one descended, and was shocked 
to find a murdered man, and recognised 
the sailor: conjecturing who were his de¬ 
stroyers, they followed in haste. On ar¬ 
riving at Sheet, the villains were overtaken, 
when in the act of disposing of their vic¬ 
tim’s apparel. They were apprehended, 
and shortly afterwards hung and gibbeted 
near the spot. When at the place of exe¬ 
cution one of them observed, he only wished 
to commit one murder more, and that 
-hould be on Faulkner, the constable, who 
apprehended him!—The following is (or 
was) the inscription on the stone; and 
many a kind “ Poor fellow I” has been 
breathed as the melancholy tale has ended. 

This Stone 

Was erected in detestation of a barbarous 
Murder, 

Committed near this Spot 
On an 

Unknown Saiuor, 

By Udward Lonogan, Michael Casey, and 
James Marshall, 

September 24, 1786. 

Gen. ix. 6. 

• Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
blood be shed.” 

R. N. P. 


Ten Guineas Reward. 

Whereas some evil-disposed person or 
persons did, in the night of Tuesday, the 
17th instant, maliciously break, deface, 
and injure the stone lately put up at 
Hindhead, by the Trustees ot the Lower 
District of the Sheetbridge Turnpike Road, 
to perpetuate the memory of a murder 
committed there, in the place of one re¬ 
moved by John Hawkins, Esq. 

Whoever will give information of the 
offender or offenders shall on his, her, or 
their conviction receive a Reward of Ten 
Guin eas, which will be paid by Mr. James 
Howard, the Surveyor of the said Road. 

Witley , 26th July, 1827. 


NOTE. 


P. S —Since writing as above, a mutila¬ 
tion of the Sailor’s stone is noticed u, ^ 
Portsmouth paper by the following adver- 


useir.“nt> 


“ You, Mr. Editor,” says my pleasan 
correspondent R. N. P., “you, Mr. Editor, 
have journeyed from London to Ports¬ 
mouth, and must recollect Hindhead—the 
luxury of riding round the rirc of the 
Devil’s Punch-Bowl—the stone to perpetu¬ 
ate the memory of the sailor—the gibbet, 
&c.” Ah me! I travel little beyond books 
and imagination ; my personal journeys 
are only gyration-like portions of a circle, 
scarcely of larger circumference than that 
allowed to a tethered dumb animal. If 
now and then, in either of the four seasons, 
1 exceed this boundary, it is only for a few 
miles into one of the four counties—to a 
woodland height, a green dell, or beside a 
still flowing water—to enjoy the features of 
nature in loneliness and quiet—the sight of 
“ every green thing” in a glorious noontide, 
the twilight, and the coming and going of 
the stars :—on a sunless day, the vapours of 
the sky dissolving into thin air, the flitting 
and sailing of the clouds, the ingatherings 
of night, and the thick darkness. 

No, Mr. R. N. P., no sir, I am very little 
of a traveller, I hav£ not seen any of the 
things you pleasure me by telling of in 
your vividly written letter. I know no 
gibbet of the murderer of a sailor, except 
one of the “ men in chains ” below Green¬ 
wich—whom 1 saw last Whitsuntide two- 
years through the pensioners’ telescopes 
from the Observatory*—was a slaver of his 
messmate; nor though I have heard and 
read of the Devil’s Punch Bowl, have 1 
been much nearer its “ rim ” than the 
gibbet of Jerry Abershaw at Wimbledon 
Common. 

Abershaw was the last of the great high¬ 
waymen who, when people carried monej 

— ■ ■■■■ » — - ■ . - _ — .... — . . 

• Told of in the Every-Dai/ houn 




488 



























•THE TABLE BOOK. 


about them, robbed every night, and some¬ 
times in the open day, on Bagshot, YVim- 
oledon, Finchley, and other commons, and 
high roads, in the neighbourhood of Lon¬ 
don. Some of these highwaymen of the 
“ old school” lived in the wretched purlieus 
of Saffion-hill, and would mount and “take 
the road ’ in the afternoon from the end of 
Field-lane, at Holborn-bridge, as openly as 
travellers setting out from an inn. On the 
order in council, in 1797, which prohibited 
the Bank from paying in specie, gold 
went out, and bank-notes came in ; and as 
these were easily concealed, and when 
stolen were difficult to pass, the business of 
“ the highway ” fell oft, and highwaymen 
gradually became extinct. Jerry Abershaw 
; was the most noted, because he was the 
■ most desperate, and most feared of these 
, marauders, He was a reckless desperado 
1 who, pistol in hand, would literally have 
t( your money, or your life and perhaps 
both. He was as famous in his day as 
Sixteen-string-Jack, or the Flying Highway¬ 
man. He shot several persons; his trial 
excited as much interest as Thurtell’s; and 
the concourse of people at his execution 
was innumerable. It was in the height of 
summer; and the following Sunday being 
tine, London seemed a deserted city ; for 
hundreds of thousands went to see Aber¬ 
shaw hanging in chains. His fame will 
outlast his gibbet, which I suppose has 
been down years ago. The papers tell us, 
that the duke of Clarence, as Lord High 
Admiral, ordered down the pirates’ gibbets 
from the river-side. These were the last 
“ men in chains ” in the vicinage of the 
metropolis. 

* 

July , 1827. 


JERRY ABERSHAW 

AND 

THE MEN IN CHAINS. 

Townsend, the Bow-street officer’s inter¬ 
esting examination before the police com¬ 
mittee of the House of Commons in June, 
1816, contains some curious particulars 
respecting Abershaw, the pirates, “ the dan¬ 
gers of the road," and “hanging matters,” 
toward the close of the last century. 

Q . The activity of the officers of Bow- 
street has infinitely increased of late years ? 

A. No doubt about it; and there is one 


thing which appears to me most extraordi- 
nary, when I remember, in very likely a 
week, there should be from ten to fifteen 
highway robberies. We have not had a 
man committed for a highway robbery 
lately ; 1 speak of persons on horseback-. 
Formerly there were two, three, or four 
highwaymen, some on Hounslow Heath, 
some on Wimbledon Common, some on 
Finchley Common, some on the Romfotd 
Road. I have actually come to Bow-street 
in the morning, and while I have been 
leaning over the desk, had three or four 
people come in and say, ‘ I was robbed l>y 
two highwaymen in such a place ‘ I was 
robbed by a single highwayman in such a 
place.’ People travel now safely, by means 
of the horse-patiol that sir Richard Ford 
planned. Where are there highway rob¬ 
beries now? As I was observing to the 
chancellor, as I was up at his house on the 
Corn Bill: he said, ‘Townsend, 1 knew 
you very well so many years ago.’ I said, 
‘ Yes, my lard ; I remember your coming 
fitst to the bar, first in your plain gown, 
and then as king’s counsel, and now chan¬ 
cellor. Now your lordship sits as chan¬ 
cellor, and directs the executions on the 
recorder’s report; but where are the high¬ 
way robberies now ?' and his lordship said, 
‘Yes, I am astonished.’ There are no 
footpad robberies or road robberies now 
but merely jostling you in the streets. They 
used to be ready to pop at a man as soon 
as he let down his glass. 

Q. You remember the case of Ahershau 

A. Yes ; I had him tucked up where lie 
was; it was through me. I never left a 
court of justice without having discharged 
my own feeling as much in favour of the 
unhappy criminal as l did on the part of 
the prosecution; and I once applied to 
Mr. Justice Buller to save two men out of 
three who were convicted ; and on my ap¬ 
plication we argued a good deal about it. 
I said, ‘ My lord, I have no motive but my 
duty; the jury have pronounced them 
guilty. I have heard your lordship pro¬ 
nounce sentence of death, and I have now 
informed you of the different dispositions 
of the three men. If you choose to execute 
them all I have nothing to say about it; 
but was I you, in the room of being the 
officer, and you were to tell me what 
Townsend has told you, I should think 
it would be a justification of you to re¬ 
spite those two unhappy men, and hang 
that one who has been convicted three 
times before.’ The other men never had 
been convicted before, and the other had 
been three times convicted ; and he verv 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


properly did. And how are juages or jus- 
{ices to know how many times a man has 
been convicted but by the information of 
the officer in whose duty and department 
' it is to keep a register of old offenders. 

I The magistrate sits up there, he knows no¬ 
thing of it till the party is brought before 
| him; he cannot. 

Q. Do you think any advantages arise 
I from a man being put on a gibbet after his 
execution ? 

A . Yes, I was always of that opinion ; 
and I recommended sir William Scott to 
hang the two men that are hanging down 
the river. 1 will state my reason. We 
will take for granted, that those men were 
hanged as this morning, for the murder of 
those revenue officers—they are by law dis¬ 
sected ; the sentence is, that afterwards, the 
body is to go to the surgeons for dissection ; 
there is an end of it—it dies. But look at 
| this : there are a couple of men now hang¬ 
ing near the Thames, where all the sailors 
must come up; and one says to the other, 

‘ Pray what are those two poor fellows there 
for ?’—‘ Why,’ says another, ‘ 1 will go and 
ask.’ They ask. ‘ Why, those two men 
are hung and gibbeted tor murdering his 
majesty’s revenue officers.’ And so the 
thing is kept alive. If it was not for this, 
people would die, and nobody would know 
uiy thing of it. In Abershaw’s case I said 
to the sheriff, ‘ The only difficulty in hang¬ 
ing this fellow, upon this place, is its being 
so near lord Spencer’s house.’ But we went 
down, and pointed out a particular place ; 
he was hung at the particular pitch of the 
hill where he used to do the work. If there 
was a person ever went to see that man 
hanging, I am sure there was a hundred 
thousand. 1 received information that they 
meant to cut him down. I said to sir 
Richard Ford, ‘ I will counteract this; in 
order to have it done right, I will go and 
sit up all night, and have eight or ten 
officers at a distance, for I shall nail these 
fellows ;’ for I talked cant language to him. 
However, we had the officers there, but 
nobody ever came, or else, being so close 
to Kent-street, they would have comedown 
and sawed the gibbet, and taken it all 
away, for Kent-street was a very desperate 
place, though it is not so now. Lord chief 
justice Eyre once went the Home Circuit; 
he began at Hertford, and finished at 
Kingston. Crimes were so desperate, that 
in his charge to the grand jury at Hertford, 
he finished—‘ Now, gentlemen of the jury, 
you have heard my opinion as to the enor¬ 
mity of the offences committed ; be careful 
wl.at bills yon find, for whatever bills you 


find, if the parties are convicted before me, 
if they are convicted for capital offences, I 
have made up my mind, as I go through 
the circuit, to execute every one.’ He did 
so—he never saved man or woman—and a 
singular circumstance occurred, that stands 
upon record fresh in my mind. There were 
seven people convicted for a robbery in 
Kent-street; for calling in a pedlar, and 
after robbing the man, he jumped out of 
window. There were four men and three 
women concerned; they were all convicted, 
and all hanged in Kent-street, opposite the 
door; and, I think, on Kennington Common 
eight more, making fifteen :—all that were 
convicted were hung. 

Q. Do you think, from your long obser 
vation, that the morals and manners of the 
lower people in the metropolis are better or 
worse than formerly ? 

A . I am decidedly of opinion, that, with 
respect to the present time, and the early 
part of my time, such as 1781, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
6, and 7, where there is one person con¬ 
victed now—I may say, I am positively 
convinced—there were five then. We never 
had an execution wherein we did not grace 
that unfortunate gibbet (at the Old Bailey) 
with ten, twelve, to thirteen, sixteen, and 
twenty ; and forty I once saw, at twice; I 
have them all down at home. I remember 
in 1783, when sergeant Adair was recorder, 
there were forty hung at two executions. 
The unfortunate people themselves laugh at 
it now; they call it ‘ a bagatelle.’ I was 
conversing with an old offender some years 
ago, who has now quite changed his life; 
and he said, ‘ Why, sir, where there is one 
hung now, there were five when I was 
young;’ and I said, ‘ Yes, you are right in 
your calculation, and you are very lucky 
that you were spared so long, and have 
lived to be a better man.’ I agree with 
George Barrington—whom I brought from 
Newcastle—and however gre-at lord chief 
baron Eyre’s speech was to him, after he 
had answered him, it came to this climax; 

‘ Now,’ says he, ‘ Townsend, you heard 
what the chief baron said to me; a fine 
flowery speech, was it not?’ ‘Yes:’ ‘But 
he did not answer the question I put to him.’ 
Now how could he? After all that the 
chief baron said to him after he was ac¬ 
quitted—giving him advice—this word was; 
every thing: says he, ‘ My lord, I have; 
paid great attention to what you have been; 
stating to me, after my acquittal: I return 
my sincere thanks to the jury for their 
goodness: but your lordship says, you 
lament very much that a man of my abili¬ 
ties should not turn my abilities to a better 


| 

-- - ~ ■ ■ — - — -- - ■ - — - - ~ .k 


490 








- - 1 .- - — 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


use. Now, my lord, I have only this reply 
to make: I am ready to go into any service, 
to work for my labour, if your lordship will 
but find me a master.’ Why, what was the 
reply to that ? ‘ Gaoler, take the prisoner 
away.’ Why who would employ him? 
It is really farcical. I have heard magi¬ 
strates say, ‘ Young man, really I am 
very sorry for you; you are much to be 
pitied; you should turn your talents to a 
better account; and you should really leave 
off this bad course of life.’ Yes, that is 
better said than done ; for where is there any 
oody to take these wretches ? They have said 
vO me; ‘ Sir, we do not thieve from disposi¬ 
tion ; but we thieve because we cannot get 
employment: our character is damned, and 
nobody will have us and so it is; there 
is no question about it. 


REMARKABLE EPITAPHS. 

At Penryn. 

Here lies William Smith: and what is somewhat 
rarish. 

He was born, bred, and hang’d in this here parish. 


At Staverton. 

Here lieth the body of Betty Bowden, 
Who would live longer but she couden ; 
Sorrow and grief made her decay, 

Till her bad leg carr’d her away. 


At Loch Rausa. 

Here lies Donald and his wife, 
Janet Mac Fee: 

Aged 40 hee, 

And 30 shee. 


On Mr. Bywater. 

Here lie the remains of his relative’s pride. 
Bywater he lived, and by water he died ; 
Though by water he fell, yet by water he’ll rise, 
By water baptismal attaining the skies. 


On a Miser. 

Here lies one who for med’cine would not give 
A little gold, and so his life he lost; 

I fancy now he’d wish again to live. 

Could he but guess how much his fun’ral cost. 

s. s. s. 

^ ST ¬ 


RING HENRY II. 

Described by Giraldus Cambrensis, 

Who accompanied him (as he afterwards 
did King John ) into Ireland , A. D. 1172. 

Henry II., king of England, was of a 
very good colour, but somewhat red; his 
head great and round, his eyes were fiery, 
red, and grim, and his face very high 
coloured; his voice or speech was shaking, 
quivering, or trembling; his neck short, 
his breast broad and big; strong armed ; 
his body was gross, and his belly somewhat 
big, which came to him rather by nature 
than by any gross feeding or surfeiting; 
for his diet was very temperate, and to say 
the truth, thought to be more spare than 
comely, or for the state of a prince; and 
yet to abate his grossness, and to remedy 
this fault of nature, he did, as it were, 
punish his body with continual exercise, 
and keep a continual war with himself. 
For in the times of his wars, which were 
for the most part continual to him, he had 
little or no rest at all; and in times of 
peace he would not grant un»o himself any 
peace at all, nor take any rest: for then 
did he give himself wholly unto hunting ; 
and to follow the same, he would vf*ry 
early every morning be on horseback, and 
then go into the woods, sometimes into the 
forests, and sometimes into the hills and 
fields, and so would he spend the whole 
day until night. In the evening when he 
came home, he would never, or very sel¬ 
dom, sit either before or after supper; for 
though he were never so weary, yet still 
would he be walking and going. And, 
forasmuch as it is very piofitable for every 
man in his lifetime that he do not take too 
much of any one thing, for medicine itself, 
which is appointed for man’s help and 
remedy, is not absolutely perfect and good 
to be always used, even so it befell and hap¬ 
pened to this prince; for, partly by his 
excessive travels, and partly by divers 
bruises in his body, his legs and feet were 
swollen and sore. And, though he had no 
disease at all, yet age itself was a breaking 
sufficient unto him. He was of a reason¬ 
able stature, which happened to none of 
his sons; for his two eldest sons were 
somewhat higher, and his two younget 
were somewhat lower and less than he was. 
If he were in a good mood, and not angry, 
then would he be very pleasant and elo¬ 
quent : he was also (which was a thing very 
rare in those days) very well learned; he 
was also very affable, gentle, and court¬ 
eous ; and besides, so pitiful, that when hi 


491 



































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had overcome his enemy, yet woufd he be 
overcome with pity towards him. In war 
he was most valiant, and in peace he was 
as provident and circumspect. And in the 
wars, mistrusting and doubting of the end 
and event thereof, he would (as Terence 
writeth) try all the ways and means he 
could devise, rather than wage the battle. 
If he lost any of his men in the fight, he 
would marvellously lament his death, and 
seem to pity him more being dead, than he 
did regard or account of him being alive; 
more bewailing the dead, than favouring 
the living. 

In times of distress no man was more 
courteous; and when all things were safe, 
no man more cruel. Against the stubborn 
and unruly, no man more sharp, yet to the 
humble no man more gentle; hard to¬ 
wards his own men and household, but 
liberal to strangers; bountiful abroad, but 
sparing at home ; whom he once hated, he 
would never or very hardly love; and 
whom he once loved, he would not lightly 
be out with him, or forsake him. He had 
great pleasure and delight in hawking and 
huntingwould to God he had been as 
.well bent and disposed unto good devo¬ 
tion !* 

It was said, that after the displeasure 
grown between the king and his sons, by 
the means and through the enticing of the 
;queen their mother, he never was account¬ 
ed to keep his word and promise, but, 

: without any regard or care, was a common 
breaker thereof. And true it is, that, of a 
certain natural disposition, he was light 
and inconstant of his word; and if the 
matter were brought to a narrow strait or 
pinch, he would not stick rather to cover 
his word, than to deny his deed. And for 
this cause, in all his doings, he was very 
provident and circumspect, and a very 
upright and severe minister of justice, al¬ 
though he did therein grieve and make his 
friends to smart. His answers, for the 
most part, were perverse and froward. 
And, albeit, for profit and lucre all things 
are set to sale, and do bring great gains, as 
well to the clergy as the laity, yet they are 
no better to a man’s heirs and executors, 
than were the riches of Gehasi, whose 
greedy doings turned himself to utter ruin 
and destruction. 

He was a great peace-maker, and careful 
keeper thereof himself; a liberal alms- 
giver, and a special benefactor to the Holy 
Land; he loved humility, abhorred pride, 


• Giraldus here illudes to his quarrel with Thomas 

» Beeket. 


and much oppressed his nobility. The 
hungry he refreshed, the rich he regarded 
not. The humble he would exalt, but the 
mighty he disdained. He usurped much 
upon the holy church; and of a certain 
kind of zeal, but not according to know¬ 
ledge, he did intermingle and conjoin pro¬ 
fane with holy things; for why? He ivould 
be all in all himself. He was the child ot 
the holy mother church, and by her ad¬ 
vanced to the sceptre of his kingdom ; and 
yet he either dissembled or utterly forgot 
the same; for he was slack always in com¬ 
ing to the church unto the divine service, 
and at the time thereof he would be busied 
and occupied rather with councils and in 
conference about the affairs of his common¬ 
wealth, than in devotion and prayer. The 
livelihoods belonging to any spiritual pro¬ 
motion, he would, in time of their vacation, 
confiscate to his own treasury, and assume 
that to himself which was due unto Christ. 
When any new troubles or wars did grow, 
or come upon him, then would he lavish 
and pour out all that ever he had in store 
or treasury, and liberally bestow that upon 
a soldier, which ought to have been given 
unto the priest. He had a very prudent 
and forecasting wit, and thereby foreseeing 
what things might or were like to ensue, 
he would accordingly order or dispose 
either for the performance or for the pre¬ 
vention thereof; notwithstanding which, 
many times the event happened to the con¬ 
trary, and he was disappointed of his ex¬ 
pectation : and commonly there happened 
no ill unto him, but he would foretell there¬ 
of to his friends and familiars. 

He was a marvellous natural father to 
his children, and loved them tenderly in 
their childhood and young years; but they 
being grown to some age and ripeness, he 
was as a father-in-law, and could scarcely 
brook any of them. And, notwithstanding 
they were very handsome, comely, and 
noble gentlemen, yet, whether it were that 
he would not have them prosper too fast, 
or whether they had evil deserved of him, 
he hated them; and it was full much 
against his will that they should be his 
successors, or heirs to any part of his in¬ 
heritance. And such is the prosperity of 
man, that as it cannot be perpetual, no 
more can it be perfect and assured : for 
why?—such was the secret malice of for¬ 
tune against this king, that where he should 
have received much comfort, there had he 
most sorrow; where quietness and safety 
—there unquietness and peril; where peace 
—there enmity ; where courtesy—there in¬ 
gratitude; where rest—there trouble. And 


492 





























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whether this happened by the means of 
their marriages, or for the punishment of 
the father’s sins, certain it is, there was no 
good agreement, neither between the father 
and the sons, nor yet among the sons them¬ 
selves. 

But at length, when all his enemies and 
the disturbers of the common peace were 
suppressed, and his brethren, his sons, and 
all others his adversaries, as well at home 
as abroad, were reconciled ; then all things 
happened and befell unto him (though it 
were long first) after and according to his 
own will and mind. And would to God 
he had likewise reconciled himself unto 
God, and by amendment of his life, had in 
the end also procured his favour and 
mercy ! Besides this, which I had almost 
forgotten, he was of such a memory, that 
if he had seen and known a man, he would 
not forget him : neither yet whatsoever he 
had heard, would he be unmindful thereof. 
And hereof was it, that he had so ready a 
memory of histories which he had read, 
and a knowledge and a manner of experi¬ 
ence in all things. To conclude, if he had 
been chosen of God, and been obsequious 
and careful to live in his fear and after his 
laws, he had excelled all the princes of the 
world ; for in the gifts of nature, no one 
man was to be compared unto him.* 


AMSTERDAM —WITHOUT WATER. 

An amusing and lively account of this 
capital, its public institutions, society, 
painters, &c. may be found in a small 
volume, entitled “ Voyage par la Hol¬ 
lander* published by a French visitant in 
1806. This is probably the most recent 
sketch of Amsterdam. With the exception 
of the conversion of the stadt-house into a 
king’s palace, and the establishment of cer¬ 
tain societies, its general aspect and cha¬ 
racter have undergone little change for a 
century past; insomuch that “ Le Guide 
d’Amsterdam,” published by Paul Blad in 
1720, may be regarded as forming a correct 
and useful pocket-companion at the pre¬ 
sent day. The descriptions given of the 
Dutch towns by Mr. Ray in 1663, Dr. 
Biown in 1668, Mr. Misson in 1687, and 


* Extracted (from lord Mountmorris’s History of 
Hie Irish Parliament, vol. i. pag e 33, et infra) l»y 
* The Veiled Spirit.” 


Dr. Northleigh in 1702, are applicaole ir 
almost every particular to the same towns 
at the present day; so comparatively sta¬ 
tionary has Holland been, or so averse arf 
the people to changes. 

That fuel should be scarce and dear in 
Amsterdam, the capital of a country desti¬ 
tute of coal-mines, and growing very little 
wood, might be expected ; but, surrounded 
and intersected by canals as the city is, it 
is surprising that another of the necessaries 
of life, pure water, should be a still scarcer 
commodity: yet such is the case. There 
is no water fit for culinary purposes in 
Amsterdam but what is brought by boats 
from the Vecht, a distance of fifteen miles ; 
and limpid water is brought fiom Utrecht, 
more than twice that distance, and sold in 
the streets by gallon measures, for table 
use, and for making of tea and coffee.* 


For the Table Book. 

REASON, 

If not Rhyme. 

Dame Prudence whispers marry not 
’Till you have pence enough to pay 
For chattels, and to keep a cot, 

And leave a mite for quarter-day. 

Beside chair, table, and a bed. 

Those need, who cannot live on ai>. 

Two plates, a basket for the bread. 

And knives and forks at least two pair. 

When winter rattles in the sky 
Drear is the bed that wants a rug. 

And hapless he whose purse is dry 
When sickness calls for pill and drug. 

So, Bess, we’ll e’en put off the day 

For parson C-to tie us fast— 

Who knows bnt luck, so long away. 

May come and bide with us at last ? 

Hope shall be onrs the tedious while; 

We’ll mingle hearts, our lips shall join 
T’ll only claim thy sweetest smile. 

Only thy softest tress be mine. 

Veritf 


• Horticultural Ton r. 


4 '- 13 















THE TABLE BOOK 


For the Table Book. 

SONG, 

IMITATED FROM THE GERMAN OF HoLTY. 
Wer wollte sich mit Grillen plagen, icc. 


Who—who would think of sorrowing 
In hours of youth and blooming spring. 

When bright cerulean skies are o’er us, 

And sun-lit paths before us— 

Who—who would suffer shade to steal 
Over the forehead’s vernal light, 

Whilst young Hope in her heav’n-ward flight 
Oft turns her face round to reveal 

Her bright eye to the naptur’d sight— 

Whilst Joy, with many smiles and becks, 

Bids us pursue the road he takes. 

-Still, as erst, the fountain plays. 

The arbour’s green and cool, 

And the fair queen of night doth gaze 
On earth, as chastely beautiful 
As when she op’d her wond’ring eyes 
First—on the flowers of Paradise. 

Still doth, as erst, the grape-juice brighten 
The heart in fortune’s wayward hour— 

And still do kindred hearts delight in 
Affection's kiss in evening-bower. 

Still Philomela’s passionate strain 
Bids long-fled feelings come again. 

The world, to me, is wond’rous fair— 

So fair, that should I cease to hold 
Communion with its scenes so dear, 

I’d think my days were nearly to'ld. 

R. W. D. 


SWEETHEART SEEING. 

St. Mark’s Eve.—In Chancery, Au¬ 
gust 2, 1827. In a cause, “ Barker v. Ray,*’ 
a deponent swore, that a woman, named 
Ann Johnson, and also called “ Nanny 
Nunks,” went to the deponent, and said to 
her, “ I’ll tell you what I did to know if I 
;ould have Mr. Barker. On St. Mark’s 
night I ran round a haystack nine times, 
with a ring in my hand, calling out, * Here’s 
the sheath, but where’s the knife ? ’ and, 
when I was running round the ninth time, 
I thought I saw Mr. Barker coming home; 
hut he did not come home that night, but 
was brought from the Blue Bell, at Bever¬ 
ley, the next day.” 


THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING. 

Controversy. 

A man who is fond of disputing, will, 
in time, have few friends to dispute with. 

Speech. 

Truth is clothed in white. But a lie 
comes forth with all the colours of the 
rainbow. 

Adversity, a good Teacher. 

Those bear disappointments the best, 
who have been the most used to them. 

Example 

When a misfortune happens to a friena 
look forward and endeavour to prevent the 
same thing from happening to yourself. 

Standard of Value. 

The worth of every thing is determined 
by the demand for it. In the deserts ol 
Arabia, a pitcher of cold water is of more 
value than a mountain of gold. 

Luck and Labour. 

A guinea found in the street, will not do 
a poor man so much good as half a guinea 
earned by industry. 

Earning the best getting. 

Give a man work, and he will find 
money. 

Early Hours. 

Since the introduction of candles, luxury 
has increased. Our forefathers rose with 
the lark, and went to bed with the sun. 

Indications of the State-pulse. 

A jolly farmer returning home in his 
own waggon, after delivering a load of 
corn, is a more certain sign of nationa 1 
prosperity, than a nobleman riding in his 
chariot to the opera or the playhouse. 

Overwise and otherwise. 

A man of bright parts has generally more 
indiscretions to answer for than a block¬ 
head; 


494 













_some monitor unseej, 

Calls for the song.—the call shall be obey’d ; 

For ’tis that silent monitor, I ween. 

Which led my youth, to many a green-wood shade; 

Show’d me the spring, in thousand blooms array'd, 

And bade me look towards Heaven’s immensity : 

This is a power that schoolmen never made, 

That comes all unsolicited and free, 

To fire the youthful bard—lo 1 this is Poesy ! 

The So rip of the Patriot- 

liobrit Jlfltllbousfe 

_The talented author of the poem scarcely known to fame, and not at fc. 

from whence the motto is extracted is to fortune. His uno%tentatiou* little 

























































THE TABLE BOOK. 



volume, entitled u The Song of the Patriot, 
Sonnets, and Songs,” was thrown accident¬ 
ally in my way; and its perusal occasions 
me to acquaint the readers of the Table 
Book with its uncommon merit. I do not 
know any thing concerning the poet 
beyond what I have derived trom printed 
particulars, which I now endeavour to dif¬ 
fuse. That he is highly esteemed by a 
discriminating brother bard in his native 
I county, is apparent by the following beau¬ 
tiful address to him in the Nottingham 
Mercury :— 

Stanzas. 

A v thoughts are of a solitary place, 

Where twilight dwells, where sunbeams rarely fall; 

> nd there a wild-rose hangs in pensive grace. 

Reflected in a fountain clear and small; 

Above them rise dark shadowy trees and tall, 

V hilst round them grow rank night-shades in the 
gloom, 

> 'hich seem with noxious influence to pall 
Thft fountain’s light, and taint the flower’s perfume ; 

As fainly they would mar what they might not ont» 
bloom. 

These, mind me, Millhouse ! of thy spirit’s ligh„. 

That twilight makes in life so dark as thine ! 

And though I do not fear the rose may blight, 

Or that the fountain’s flow may soon decline ; 

Hope, is there none, the boughs which frown maligq. 
High over-head, should let in heaven’s sweet face ; 

Yet shall not these their life unknown resign, 

For nature’s votaries, wandering in each place, 

Shail find their secret shade, and marvel at the}r 
grace. 

It appears from a small volume, pub¬ 
lished in 1823, entitled “ Blossoms—by 
Robert Millhouse—being a Selection of 
Sonnets from his various Manuscripts,’' 
that the Rev. Luke Booker, LL.D. vicar 
of Dudley, deemed its author “ a man 
whose genius and character seemed to merit 
the patronage of his country, while his 
pressing wants, in an equal degree, claimed 
its compassion.” The doctor “ presumed 
to advocate his case and his cause” before 
the “ Literary Fund,” and a donation 
honourable to the society afforded the poet 
temporary relief. This, says Millhouse, 
was “ at a time when darkness surrounded 
me on every side.” In a letter to Dr. 
Booker, lamenting the failure of a subscrip¬ 
tion to indemnify him for publishing his 
poems, when sickness had reduced a wife 
and infant child to the borders of the grave, 
he says, “ I am now labouring under in¬ 
disposition both of body and mind ; which, 
with the united evils of poverty and a bad 
trad®, have brought on me a species of 


melancholy that requires the utmost exer i 
tions of my philosophy to encounter.* 
About this period he wrote the following 

To a Leafless Hawthorn. 

Hail, rustic tree 1 for, though November’s wind 
Has thrown thy verdant mantle to the ground: 

Yet Nature, to thy vocal inmates kind. 

With berries red thy matron-boughs has crown’d 
Thee do I envy : for, bright April show’rs 

Will bid again thy fresh green leaves expand; 

And May, light floating in a cloud of flow’rs. 

Will cause thee to re-bloom with magic hand. 

But, on my spring, when genial dew-drops fell. 

Soon did life’s north-wind curdle them with trost; 

And, when my summer-blossom op’d its bell. 

In blight and mildew was its beauty lost. 

Before adducing other specimens of 
his talents, it seems proper to give some 
account of the poet; and it can scarcely 
be better related than in the following 

Memoir of Robert Millhouse, by his 
elder Brother, John Millhouse. 

Robert Millhouse was born a*. Notting¬ 
ham the 14th of October, 1788, and was 
the second of ten children. The poverty of 
his parents compelled them to put him to 
work at the age of six years, and when ten 
he was sent to work in a stocking-loom, 
fie had been constantly sent to a Sunday 
school, (the one which was under the parti¬ 
cular patronage of that truly philanthropic 
ornament of human nature, the late Mr. 
Francis Wakefield,) till about the last-men¬ 
tioned age, when a requisition having been 
sent by the rector of St. Peter’s parish, Dr. 
Staunton, to the master of the school, for 
six of his boys to become singers at the 
church, Robert was one that was selected; 
and thus terminated his education, which 
merely consisted of reading, and the first 
rudiments of writing. [ 

When sixteen years old he first evinced 
an inclination for the study of poetry, which 
originated in the following manner.—Being 
one day at the house of an acquaintance, 
he observed on the chimney-piece two 
small statues of Shakspeare and Milton, . 
which attracting his curiosity, he read on a 
tablet in front of the former, that celebrated 
inscription— 

“ The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces. 

The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 

And like the baseless fabric of a vision. 

Leave not a wreck behind 1” 

Its beauty and solemnity excited in his 
rnind the highest degree of admiration 




I 


496 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


At the frst opportunity he related the oc¬ 
currence to me with apparent astonish¬ 
ment, and concluded by saying, “ Is it not 
Scripture ?” In reply, I told him it was a 
passage from Shakspeare’s play of the 
“ Tempest/’ a copy of which I had in my 
' possession, and that he had better read it. 
l or, although he had from his infancy been 
accustomed to survey with delight the 
beautiful scenery which surrounds Not¬ 
tingham, had heard with rapture the sing¬ 
ing of birds, and been charmed with the 
varied beauties of the changing seasons; 
and though his feelings were not unfre- 
quently awakened by hearing read pathetic 
narratives, or accounts of the actions and 
sufferings of great and virtuous men, yet he 
was totally ignorant that such things were 
in any wise connected with poetry. 

He now began to read with eagerness 
such books as 1 had previously collected, 
the principal of which were some of the 
plays of Shakspeare, Paradise Lost, Pope’s 
Essay on Man, the select poems of Gray, 
Collins, Goldsmith, Prior, and Parnell, two 
volumes of the Tatler, and Goldsmith’s 
Essays, all of the cheapest editions. But, 
ere long, by uniting our exertions, we were 
enabled to purchase Suttaby’s miniature 
edition of Pope’s Homer, Dryden’s Virgil, 
Hawkesworth’s translation of Telemachus, 
Mickle’s version of the Lusiad, Thomson’s 
Seasons, Beattie’s Minstrel, &c. These 
w'ere considered as being a most valuable 
acquisition ; and the more so, because we 
had feared we should never be able to 
obtain a sight of some of them, through 
their being too voluminous and expensive. 

In 1810 he became a soldier in the Not¬ 
tinghamshire militia, joined the regiment 
at Plymouth, and shortly afterwards made 
an attempt at composition. 

It will readily be expected that now, 
being separated, we should begin to cor¬ 
respond with each other ; and one day, on 
opening a letter which 1 had just received 
from him, I was agreeably surprised at the 
sight of his first poetical attempt, the 
“ Stanzas addressed to a Swallow which 
was soon after followed by the small piece 
written “ On finding a Nest of Robins.” 
Shortly after this the regiment embarked at 
Plymouth, and proceeded to Dublin ; from 
which place, in the spring of 1812, I re¬ 
ceived in succession several other efforts of 
his muse. 

Being now desirous of knowing for cer¬ 
tain whether any thing he had hitherto p: o- 
duced was worthy to appear in print, he 
requested me to transmit some of them to 
lie editor of the Nottingham Review', with 


a desire that, if they met with his appro 
bation, he would insert them in his paper; 
with which request that gentleman very 
promptly complied Having now a greater 
confidence in himself, he attempted some- i 
thing of a larger kind, and produced, in the j 
summer of 1812, the poem of “ Nottingham 
Park.” 

In 1814 the regiment was disembodied, 
when he again returned to the stocking- 
loom, and for several years entirely neg¬ 
lected composition. In 1817 he was placed 
on the staff of his old regiment, now the 
Royal Sherwood Foresters; and in the 
following year became a married man. The 
cares of providing for a family now increase^ 
his necessities : he began seriously to reflect 
on his future prospects in life ; and per¬ 
ceiving he had no other chance of bettering 
his condition than by a publication, and 
not having sufficient already written to 
form a volume, he resolved to attempt 
something of greater magnitude and im¬ 
portance than he had hitheito done ; and 
n February, 1819, began the poem of 
“ Vicissitude.” The reader will easily con¬ 
ceive that such a theme required some 
knowledge of natural and moral philoso¬ 
phy, of history, and of the vital principles 
ofreli ion. How far he has succeeded in 
this poem is not for me to say ; but certain 
it is, as may be expected from the narrow¬ 
ness of his education, and his confined 
access to books, his knowledge is very 
superficial : however, with unceasing ex¬ 
ertions, sometimes composing while at 
w ork under the pressure of poverty and ill- 
health, and at other times, when released 
fiom his daily labour, encroaching upon 
the hours which ought to have been allotted 
to sleep, by the end of October, 1820, the 
work was br ought to a conclusion. 

To his brother’s narrative should he 
added, that Robert Millhouse’s “ Vicissi¬ 
tude,” and other poems, struggled into the 
world wdth great difficulty, and were suc¬ 
ceeded by the volume of “ Blossoms.” The 
impression of both was small, their sale 
slow, and their price low ; and nearly as 
soon as each work was disposed of, the 
produce was exhausted by the w ants of the 
author and his family. 

F'resh and urgent necessities have re¬ 
quired fresh exertions, and the result is 
“ The Song of the Patriot, Sonnets, and 
Songs,” a four-shilling volume, “ printed j 
for the Author and sold by R. Hunter,; 
St. Paul’s Church-yard, and J. Dunn, Not-1 
tingham.” The book appeared in the j 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


autumn of last year, after poor Millhouse 
had suffered much privation from the bad 
state of the times. It was published with 
a slender list of subscribers—only seventy- 
seven !—and, though intended to improve 
his situation, has scarcely defrayed the bills 
of the stationer and printer. 

The author of “ The Song of the Pa¬ 
triot ” anticipated the blight of his efforts, 
tn the commencement of that poem, he 
says:— 

--’Tis difficult for little men 

To raise their feeble pigmy heads so high, 

As to attract the glance of passing ken 
Where giant shoulders intercept the sky ; 

And ah ! ’tis difficult for such as I, 

To wake fit strains where mighty minstrels sing,' 
Perhaps, even this, shall hut be born and die: 

Not fated to enjoy a second spring. 

Betlike some hawk-struck bird, expire on new-fledg’d 
wing. 

In this poem there are stanzas expressed 
with all a poet’s fire, and all a patriot’s 
heartfelt devotion to his country. 

Land of my fathers! may thy rocky coast 
Long be the bulwark of thy free-born race ; 

Long may thy patriots have just cause to boast 
That mighty Albion is their native place; 

Still be thy sons unequall’d in the chase 
Of glory, be it science, arts, or a/ms , 

And first o’erweening conquerors to disgrace , 

Yet happier far, when Peace in all her charras, 

Drives out from every land the din of war’s alarms. 

Potent art thou in poesy—Yet there still 
Is one thing which the bard hath seldom scann’d ; 
That national, exalting local thrill, 

Which makes our home a consecrated land : 

’Tis not enough to stretch the Muses’ wand 
O’er states, where thy best blood has purchas’d fame ; 

Nor that thy fertile genius should expand 
To cast o’er foreign themes the witching flame : 

This hath thy lyre perform’d, and won a glorious 
name. 

Be every hill and dale, where childhood wanders, 

And every grove and nook, the lover knows. 

And every stream, and runlet that meanders, 

And every plain that covers freedom’s foes 
The dwelling-place of Song,—and where repose 
The great immortal worthies of our isle 
Be hallow’d ground—and when the pilgrim goes 
Tc hail the sacred dust, and muse awhile. 

Be heard the free-born strain to blanch the tyrant’s 
smile. 

The patriotism of that people, traces of 
whose victories are observable in many of 
our customs, has been well discriminated. 
“ In the most virtuous times of the Roman 
republic their country was the idol, at whose 
*hi-ine her greatest patriots were at all limes 


prepared to offer whole hecatombs of hu¬ 
man victims : the interests of other nations 
were no further regarded, than as they eoultf 
be rendered subservient to the gratification 
of her ambition; and mankind at large 
were considered as possessing no rights, 
but such as might w’ith the utmost pro¬ 
priety be merged in that devouring vortex. 
With all their talents and their grandeur, 
they were unprincipled oppressors, leagued 
in a determined conspiracy against the 
liberty and independence of mankind.”* 
Every English patriot disclaims, on behalf 
of his country, the exclusive selfishness of 
Roman policy; and Millhouse is a patriot 
in the true sense of the word. His “ Song 
of the Patriot” is a series of energetic 
stanzas, that would illustrate the remark. 
At the hazard of exceeding prescribed 
limits, two more are added to the specimens 
already quoted. 

A beacon, lighted on a giant bill; 

A sea-girt watch-tower to each neighbouring state; 

A barrier, to control the despot’s will; 

An instrument of all-directing fate 
Is Britain; for whate’er in man is great. 

Full to that greatness have her sons attain’d ; 

Dreadful in war to hurl the battle’s weight; 

Supreme in arts. In commerce unrestrain’d ; 

Peerless in magic song, to hold the soul enchain’d. 

In wealth and po-vver stupendous is our isle ! 

Obtain’d by Labour’s persevering hand : 

And heaven-born Liberty extends her smile 
To the remotest corners of our land : 

The meanest subject feels her potent wand; 

Peasant and peer are by one law controll'd ; 

And this it is, that keeps us great and grand : 

This is the impulse makes our warriors bold. 

And knits more close the bond our fathers seal’d of old 

The prevailing feature in Robert Mill- 
house’s effusions is of a domestic nature. 
He loves his country, and deems his birth¬ 
place and the hearth of his family its bright¬ 
est spots. One of his sonnets combines 
these feelings :— 

Home. 

Scenes of my birth, and careless childhood hours . 

Ye smiling hills, and spacious fertile vales ! 

Where oft I wander’d, plucking vernal flowers. 

And revell’d in the odour-breathing gales; 

Should fickle Fate, with talismanic wand, 

Bear me afar where either India glows, 

Or fix my dwelling on the Polar land, 

Where Nature wears her ever-during snows* 

Still shall your charms my fondest themes adorn 
When placid evening paints the western sky. 


* Robert Hall 











. . .. ' N 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


And when Hyperion wakes the blushing Morn, 

To rear his gorgeous sapphire throne on high. 

For, to the guileless heart, where’er we roam. 

No scenes delight us like our much-lov’d Home. 

A man so humble, with such acquire¬ 
ments as have been here exemplified, and 
so unfortunate as to have derived little from 
their exercise but pain and disappointment, 
may be imagined to have penned the fol- 
fowing address in distress and despond* 
ency :— 

To Genius. 

O born of heaven, thou Child of magic Song J 

What pangs, what cutting hardships wait on thee, 
When thou art doom’d to cramping Poverty ; 

The pois’nous shafts from Defamation’s tongue,— 

The jeers and tauntings of the blockhead throng. 

Who joy to see thy bold exertions fail; 

While Hunger, pinching as December’s gale, 

Brings moody dark Despondency along. 

And, should’st thou strive Fame’s lofty mount to 
scale. 

The steps of its ascent are cut in sand ; 

And half-way up,—a snake-scourge in her hand, 

Lurks pallid Envy, ready to assail: 

And last, if thou the top, expiring, gain. 

When Fame applauds, thou hearest not the strain. 

In this sheet there is not room to further 
make known, or plead at greater length, 
the claims of Robert Millhouse to notice 
and protection. I should blush for any 
reader of poetical taste, with four shillings 
to spare, who, after perusing the preceding 
extracts, would hesitate to purchase the 
poet’s last little volume. I should more 
than blush for the more wealthy, who are 
reputed patrons of talent, if they decline to 
seek out and effectually succour him. I 
am, and am likely to remain, wholly unac¬ 
quainted with him: my only wish is to 
induce attention to a talented and estima¬ 
ble individual, who is obscure and neg¬ 
lected, because he is unobtrusive and 
modest. 

August 8, 1827. * 


AN INFERNAL PALINDROME. 

[. Palindrome . A word or sentence which is the same 
read backward as forwards: as, madam; or this 
sentence Subi dura a rudibus. Johnson .j 

Whence did Geoffry Crayon derive “ The 
Poor Devil Author/' the title to one of his 
“ Tales of a Traveller,” but from a legendary 
story, according to which the devil is ac¬ 
quainted with versification, although his 
lints are constructed in'a very remarkable 
manner; ior they can be read forward and 


backward, and preserve the same sense. 
There is a specimen of this “ literary in¬ 
genuity ” in the present volume of the 
Table Book , (col. 28.) The “ Lives of the 
Saints” afford another, viz :— 

St. Martin (of whom there is an account 
in the Every-Day Book, vol. i. p. 1469) 
having given up the profession of a soldier, 
and being elected bishop of Tours, when 
prelates neither kept carriages, horses, nor 
servants, had occasion to go to Rome, in 
order to consult his holiness upon some 
important ecclesiastical matter. As he was 
walking gently along the road, he met the 
devil, who politely accosted him, and ven¬ 
tured to observe how fatiguing and in¬ 
decorous it was for him to perform so long 
a journey on foot, like the commonest of 
cockle-shell-chaperoned pilgrims. The saint 
knew well the drift of Old Nick’s address, 
and commanded him immediately to be¬ 
come a beast of burthen, or jumentum; 
which the devil did in a twinkling, by 
assuming the shape of a mule. The saint 
jumped upon the fiend’s back, who, at first, 
trotted cheerfully along, but soon slackened 
his pace. The bishop, of course, had neithei 
whip nor spurs, but was possessed of a 
much more powerful stimulus, for, says the 
legend, he made the sign of the cross, and 
the smarting devil instantly galloped away. 
Soon, however, and naturally enough, the 
father of sin returned to sloth and obsti¬ 
nacy, and Martin hurried him again with 
repeated signs of the cross, till twitched 
and stung to the quick by those crossings 
so hateful to him, the vexed and tired re¬ 
probate uttered the following distich in a 
rage :—- 

Signa te, Signa: temere me tangis et angis : 

Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor. 

That is — “ Cross, cross thyself — thou 
plaguest and vexest me without necessity ; 
for, owing to my exertions, Rome, the ob¬ 
ject of thy wishes, will soon be near.” The 
singularity of this distich consists, as 
hinted above, in its being palindromical; 
or it reads backwards as well as in the 
common way— Angis, the last word of the 
first line, makes signa—et makes te —and 
so on to the beginning. Amor, the last of 
the last line, read backwards, makes Roma 
—ibit makes tibi —and so forth. 

These lines have been quoted imper¬ 
fectly and separately in “ Encyclopedies ” 
and other books, under the words “ Palin- 
dromical verses;” but the reader will not 
easily meet with the legendary tale, which 
gi ves them historical consistence and mean¬ 
ing. 


499 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


<§arrufe 

No. XXIX. 

[From the “ Gentleman Usher,” a Comedy, 
by G. Chapman, 1606.] 

Vincentio , a Prince (to gain him over to 
hi,\ interest in a love-affair) gulls Bassiolo , 
a formal Gentleman Usher to a Great Lord, 
tvith commendations of his wise house-or¬ 
dering at a great Entertainment. 

Vine. — besides, good Sir, your Show did shew so 
well— 

Bass. Did it indeed, my Lord ? 

Vine. O Sir, believe it, 

'Twas the best fashion’d and well-order’d thing. 

That ever eye beheld : and therewithal. 

The fit attendance by the servants used, 

The gentle guise in serving every guest. 

In other entertainments; every thing 
About your house so sortfully disposed, 

That ev’n as in a turn-spit (call’d a Jack} 

One vice* assists another ; the great wheels. 

Turning but softly, make the less to whirr 
About t’neir business ; every different part 
Concurring to one commendable end : 

So, and in such conformance, with rare grace 
Were all things order’d in your good Lord’s house. 
Bass. The most fit Simile that ever was. 

Vine. But shall I tell you plainly my conceit. 
Touching the man that (I think) caused this order? 
Bass. Aye, good my Lord. 

Vine. You note my Simile ? 

Bass. Drawn from the turn-spit- 

Vine. I see, you have me. 

Even as in that quafnt engine you have seen 
A little man in shreds stand at the winder, 

And seems to put in act all things abo him. 

Lifting and pulling with a mighty stir,— 

Yet adds no force to it, nor nothing does : 

So, though your Lord be a brave gentleman. 

And seems to do this business, he does nothing. 

Some man about him was the festival robe 
That made him shew so glorious and divine. 

Bass. I cannot tell, my Lord ; but I should know, 

If any such there were. 

Vine. Should know, quoth you ? 

I warrant, you know well. Well, some there be. 

Shall have the fortune to have such rare men 
(Like brave Beasts to their arms) support their state; 
When others, of as high a worth and breed, 

Are made the wasteful food of them they feed.— 

What state hath your Lord made you for your service? 

****** 

The same Bassiolo described. 

Sard's Daughter. — his place is greet; for he is not 

only 


• Turn. 


My father’s Usher, but the world’s beside. 
Because he goes before it all in foliy. 


[From the “ Bastard,” a Tragedy, Author 
Unknown, 1652.] 

Lover's Frown. 

Roderiguex. Thy uncle. Love, holds still a jealous 
eye 

On all my actions ; and I am advised. 

That his suspicious ears 

Are still behind the hangings ; that the servants 
Have from him in command to watch who visits. 

’Tis safest, in my judgment, in his presence 
That thou forbear to cast a smile upon me, 

And that, like old December, I should look 
With an unpleasant and contracted brow. 

Varina What, can’st thou change thy heart, my 
dear, that heart 

Of flesh thou gav’st me, into adamant. 

Or rigid marble ? can’st thou frown on me ? 

Rod. You do mistake me, sweet, I mean not so 
To change my heart; I’ll change my countenance. 

But keep my heart as loyal as before. 

Var. In truth I cannot credit it, that thou 
Can’st cast a frown on me ; I prithee, try. 

Rod. Then thus: 

(Ac tries, and cannot; they smile on each other) 
Var. I prithee, sweet, betake thyself to school; 

This lesson thou must learn ; in faith thou art out. 

Rod. Well, I must learn, and practice it, or we 
Shall blast our budding hopes. 

Var. Come, try again. 

Rod. But if I try, and prove a good proficient; 

If I do act my part, discretely, you 
Must take it as a play, not as a truth ; 

Think it a formal, not a real frown. 

Var. I shall- 

Rod. Then thus : i’faith, minion. I’ll look to thee. 
(sAe swoons.) 

Rod. Why, how now, sweet I—I did mistrust thy 
weakness : 

Now I have learn’d my part, you are to seek. 

Var. ’Faith, ’twas my weakness ; when I did per 
ceive 

A cloud of rage condensed on thy brow, * 

My heart began to melt. - 


[From “ Love Tricks,” a Comedy, by- 
James Shirley.] 

Passionate Courtship. 

Infortunio. 1 must have other answer, for I lor* 
you. 

Selina. Must! but I don’t see any necessity (hat 
I must love you. I do confess you are 
A proper mao. 


500 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Inf. O do not mock, Selina ; let not excellence. 
Which you are full of, make you proud and scoinfui. 

( am a Gertleman ; though my outward part 
Cannot attract affection, yet some have told me, 

Mature hath made me what she need not shame. 

Yet look into my heart; there you shall see 
What you cannot despise, for there you are 
With all your graces waiting on you ; there 
I-ove hath made you a throne to sit, and rule 
1 >’er Infortunio; all my thoughts obeying. 

And honouring you as queen. Pass by my outside. 

My breast I dare compare with any man. 

Sel. But who can see this breast you boast of so ? 

Inf. O ’tis an easy work ; for though it be 
Not to be pierced by the du.l eye, whose beam 
Is spent on outward shape's, there is a way 
To make a search into its hidden’st passage. 

I know you would not love, to please youi sense. 

A tree, that bears a ragged unleav’d top 
In depth of winter, may when summer comes 
Speak by his fruit he is not dead but youthful. 

Though once he shew’d no sap : my heart’s a plant 
Kept down by colder thoughts and doubtful fears. 

Your frowns like winter storms make it seem dead. 
But yet it is not so ; make it but yours, 

And you shall see it spring, and shoot forth leaves 
Worthy your eye, and the oppressed sap 
Ascend to every part to make it green. 

And pay your love with fruit when harvest comes. 

Sel. Then you confess your love is cold as yet, 

And winter’s in your heart. 

Inf. Mistake me not, Selina, for I say 
My heart is cold, not love. 

Sel. And yet your love is from your heart, I’ll war¬ 
rant. 

Inf. O yon are nimble to mistake. 

My heart is cold in your displeasures only. 

And yet my love is fervent; for your eye, 

Casting out beams, maintains the flame it burns in. 
Again, sweet Love, 

My heart is not mine own, ’tis yours, you have it; 

And while it naked lies, not deign’d your bosom 
To keep it warm, how can it be but cold, 

In danger to be frozen ? blame not it, 

You only are in fault it hath no heat. 

Sel. Well, Sir; I know you have rhetoric, but I 
Can without art give you a final answer. 

Inf O stay, and think awhile ; I cannot relish 
You should say final: sweet, deliberate ; 

It doth concern all the estate 1 have ; 

I mean not dunghill treasure, but my life 
Doth stand or fall to it; if your answer be 
That you can love me, be as swift as light’ning • 

But if you mean to kill me, and reject 
My so long love-devotions, which I’ve paid 
As to an altar, stay a little longer. 

And let me count the riches I shall lose 
By one poor airy word ; first give me back 
That part of Infortunio that is lost 
Vithii your love ; play not the tyrant with me. 

C. L. 


RIDICULE. 

In many cases ridicule might be used in 
the place of severe chastisement, and some¬ 
times with a more lasting effect, especially 
among young people. (>ne scheme of this 
kind was tried with great success by the 
elder Dr. Newcome, w r ho governed a school 
at Hackney about forty years ago. When 
a pupil mistook in the pronunciation of a 
Latin word, he used to make the faulty lad 
repeat after him, before the whole school, 
‘ NosGerinitni, non curamus, quantltatem, 
syllabarum.” Tfie penalty of uttering, in 
false quantity, this absurd assertion, sup* 
posed to be made by a German, importing 
that “ IIis countrymen minded not how 
they pronounced Latin/’ was more dreaded 
by the boys than the ferula or the rod. 


RIDICULOUS SITUATIONS. 

Literary Nurserymen. 

Melancthon studied the gravest points 
of theology, while he lteld his book in one 
hand, and in the other the edge of a cradle, 
which he incessantly rocked. 

“ M. Esprit,’’ a celebrated author and 
scholar, “ has been caught by me,” says 
M. Marville, “ reading Plato with great 
attention, considering the interruption 
which he met, from the necessity of fre¬ 
quently sounding his little child’s whistle ” 

A Princess a-pick-a-pack. 

The great constable of France, A fine de 
Montmorency, a man whose valour and 
military skill was only exceeded by his 
pride, his cruelty, and his bigotry, was 
ordered by Francis I to carry on his shoul¬ 
ders, or any way that he could contrive it, 
his niece, the princess of Navarre, to the 
altar, where she was, against her will, to be 
married to the due de Cleves. Brantome 
observes, that this was a hard task, as the 
little lady was so loaded with jewels, and 
rich brocade of gold and silver, that she 
could scarcely walk. The whole court were 
amazed at the king’s command; the queen 
of Navarre was pleased, as she wished her 
daughter to be humbled, on account of her 
having imbibed Lutheran principles; but 
the constable was much hurt, at being ex 
posed to the ridicule of the whole world 
and said, “ It is henceforward over with 
me ; my favour at court is passed away : 
accordingly, he was dismissed as soon as 
.he wedding was over 


501 






THE TABLE BOOK. 



£f)f (©utntaut. 


Running at the “ Quintain,” an old spoit 
formerly common in England, unexpectedly 
occurs, and is sufficiently described, in the 
following report of a recent fashionable en¬ 
tertainment :— 

Court Circular. 

"Viscount and viscountess Gage gave a 
grand fete on Friday, (August 3, 1827,) at 
their seat at Firle-place, Sussex, to about a 
hundred and sixty of the nobility and gen¬ 
try, at which the ancient game of quintain 
was revived. The sports commenced by 
gentlemen riding with light spiked staves 
at rings and apples, suspended by a string, 
after which they changed their weapons to 
stout poles, and attacked the two quintains, 
which consisted of logs of wood fashioned 
to resemble the head and body of a man, 
and set upright upon a high bench, on 
which they were kept by a chain passing 
through the platform, and having a weight 
suspended to it, so that if the log was not 
struck full and forcibly the figure resumed 
its seat. One was also divided in the mid¬ 
dle, and the upper part being fixed on a 
pivot turned, if not struck in the centre, 
and requited its assailant by a blow with a 
staff, to which was suspended a small bag 
of flour. 

The purses for unhorsing this quintain 
were won by John Slater and Thomas Tre- 
r-eck, Esqrs. The other figure which did 
not turn, opposed a lance towards the as¬ 
sailant’s face, and the rider was to avoid 
the lance, and unhorse the quintain at the 
same time. The purses were won by Shef¬ 
field Neave, Esq. and me hon. John Pel¬ 
ham. 


A third pair of purses were offered fc 
unhorsing the quintain, by striking on a 
coloured bell, which hooped round the 
waist of the figure, thereby raising the 
weight, which was considerable, by a much 
shorter lever than when struck higher up. 
T his was a feat requiring great strength o! 
arm and firmness of seat, and though not 
fairly won according to the rules of the 
game, the purses were ultimately assigned 
to the very spirited exertions of Messrs. 
Cayley and Gardener. 

Viscountess Gage distributed the prizes 
to the conquerors. 

About six o’clock the numerous party 
sat down to a cold collation of upwards of 
three hundred dishes, consisting of every 
delicacy the season could possibly afford, 
including the choicest collection of fruits, 
and wines of the finest quality : after which 
many recontinued the game of quintain; 
others diverted themselves at rifling the 
target. The ladies amused themselves at 
archery. In the evening the assemblage of 
nobility and gentry retired to the grand 
hall, were fashionable quadrilles concluded 
the amusements of the day.* 


Combating the quintain is presumed to 
have preceded jousts and tournaments. It 
was originally nothing more than the trunk 
of a tree, or a post, set up for the practice of 
tyros in chivalry. Afterwards a staff or 
spear was fixed in the earth, and a shield 
being hung upon it was the mark to strike 
at: the dexterity of the performer consisted 

♦ Times. August 7, 1R27 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


.‘-I smiting the shield so as to break the 
ligatures, and throw it to the ground. In 
i process of time this diversion was improved, 

| and instead of the staff and the shield, the 
I resemblance of a human figure carved in 
wood was introduced. To render its ap- 
! pearance formidable it was generally made 
! ;n the likeness of an armed Turk or Sara¬ 
cen, with a shield on his left arm, and 
brandishing a club or sabre with his right. 
The quintain was placed upon a pivot, so 
as to move round with facility. In running 
at this figure the horseman directed his 
lance to strike the forehead, between the 
eyes or on the nose; for if he struck wide 
of those parts, especially upon the shield, 
the quintain turned about with much velo¬ 
city, and unless he was exceedingly careful 
gave him a severe blow upon the back with 
i the wooden sabre; when this occurred it 
! was deemed disgraceful to the performer, 
and excited the laughter and ridicule of the 
I spectators. 


The quintain is more particularly de¬ 
scribed by the late Mr. Strutt in his account 
j of “ The Sports and Pastimes of the People 
of England,’’ a large quarto volume, with 
plates, which, from its increasing scarcity 
and price, is scarcely attainable by the 
general reader. The above representation 
of the armed quintain is one of a series of 
illustrations for a new and correct edition 
of Mr. Strutt’s “ Sports,” which is now 
preparing for the press under the superin¬ 
tendence of the editor of the Table Book. 
It will be accurately printed in octavo. Each 
of the engravings will be fac-simile, and of 
the same size as the engravings in the 
quarto volume. The price of the new edi¬ 
tion will not exceed one-sixth of the cost of 
the original, and it will be published in 
shilling parts. 


DAVID LOVE. 

For the Table Book. 

Died, on Tuesday afternoon, June 12th, 
1B27, David Love; of whom there is a 
portrait, with a memoir, in the Every-Day 
Book , vol. ii. p. 225, with a further notice 
at p. 1575. lie had nearly attained his 
seventy-seventh year; and, till within a 
few weeks of his death, pursued his avoca¬ 
tion of “ walking stationer ” in Nottingham. 
It was unnecessary for him to take out an 
hawkei’s license, as the commi dities ill 


which he dealt were entirely of his own 
manufacture. 

According to the memoirs of David 
Love’s life, (a curious specimen of “ auto¬ 
biography,”) which he published in twenty- 
four penny numbers, in 1824, and which 
he sold very numerously, he was born near 
Edinburgh in the year 1750 ; at three years 
of age he was abandoned by his father, and 
his mother shortly afterwards became blind; 
he led her about, and was an “ unlucky 
urchin;” when older grown he worked in 
a coal-pit, but broke his arm, and was dis¬ 
charged, and commenced hawking tracts 
and small books. At twenty-five he was 
worth upwards of three pounds. Then, 
thinking of settling in the world, he wooed, 
won, and married a young woman : a small 
shop was established, which succeeded at 
first; but finding his fortune wasting, he 
paid his first court to the Muses, by com¬ 
posing two songs, of which the titles only 
are now extant:—“ The Pride and Vanity 
of Young Women, with Advice to Young 
Men, that they may take care who they 
marry;” and “The Pride and Vanity of 
Young men, with Advice to the Maids, to 
beware of being ensnared by their Flatteries 
and enticing Words.” These versifyings he 
printed, and first started at a distant fair. 
Their sale exceeded his expectations; he 
discontinued his shop, paid his debts, and 
soon after (during the American war) en¬ 
listed into the duke of Buccleugh’s regiment 
of South Fencibles. His wife quickly pre¬ 
sented him with a son, w'hich being “ the 
first man child born in the regiment,” the 
duke accepted as his name-son. After ex¬ 
periencing the vicissitudes of a soldier’s 
life, and getting out of the “ black hole” 
two or three times by his verses, he was 
discharged, in consequence of a weakness 
in his arm. He then had his soldier’s poems 
printed, resumed his old trade of walking 
stationer, turned his face to the south, and 
was the more successful the farther he went 
from home. After travelling for some 
years he settled at Gosport, commenced 
bookseller with his old stock of old books, 
and printed a fourpenny volume of origina 

E oems. He then lived for three years ir 
.ondon, and composed many poema 
Bristol was his next place of residence, aw 
there he performed several remarkable cure 
out of an old receipt-book, but was tot. 
conscientious to turn quack doctor. Hen 
he saw his father, who died shortly aflet 
“ a repenting sinner,” aged ninety-three. 
Still travelling, he reached Newbury, in 
Berkshire, where he tells us he was “ con¬ 
verted,” and he dates his “ new birth ” uu 


503 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


f 'ie 17th of April, 1796. Many pages of 
ms work are occupied by his religious ex¬ 
perience, and various texts of scripture, 
vhence he derived consolation. 

In 1804 David Love buried his wife, 
aged fifty-one,) after a long illness, at Bug¬ 
ay, in Warwickshire. He journeyed to 
Leicester, and thence to Nottingham, where 
he from that time continued to reside, ex¬ 
cept at intervals, and where he married 
again. In eighteen months his second wife 
lied suddenly, also at Rugby. The fallow¬ 
ing is the commencement of a long elegy 
era the subject:— 


“ In this vain world my troubles still abound. 

My two wives lie in Rugby burial ground ; 

Both of one name, and both of them one age. 

And in one house both were called off the stage.” 


These lines refer to a singular coincidence 
respecting his wives; both their maiden 
names were Mary Thompson, and both 
were aged fifty-one at their death. In 
1810, May 21, he married his third and 
surviving wife at St. Mary’s church, Not¬ 
tingham ; and, excepting a journey to Edin¬ 
burgh, and another to London, they lived 
in various parts of the town till his decease. 

I Javid’s forte lay principally in religious 
acrostics and hymns, for whieh he had a 
good demand among the pious inhabitants. 
The following is inserted as being a short 
one :-** 


Elegy, written in St Mary’s Church 
yard, Nottingham. 

The sexton tolls the knell of David Love, 

The funeral train treads slowly thro’ the street. 

Old General,* wand in hand, with crape above, 
Conducts the pageant with demeanour meet. 

Now stops the mournful train beside the grave, 

And all the air a solemn stillness holds ; 

Save when the clerk repeats his twanging stave, 

Und on the coffin fall the pattering moulds; 

Save that from yonder grass-surrounded stone. 

The whining schoolboy loudly does complain 
Of such, as crowding round his mossy throne, 

Invade his tottering transitory reign. 

Beneath those rugged stones, that corner’s shade, 

And trodden grass in rough mis-shapen heap, 
(Unless by Friday’s art away convey’d,!) 

In order due, what various bodies sleep. 

The call of “ coals,” the cry of sooty sweep. 

The twist machine t loud lumbering over head ; 

The jacks’ shrill whirring,? oft disturbing sleep— 

No more shall iouse them from their well-flock’d bed 

For them no more the Indian weed shall burn, 

Or bustling landlord fill his beverage rare ; 

No shopmates hail their comrade’s wish’d return, 
Applaud his song, and in his chorus share. 

Perhaps in this hard-beaten spot is laid 
Some head once vers’d in the mechanic powers, 
Hands that the bat at cricket oft have sway’d. 

Or won the cup for gooseberries and flowers. 


To Ann Short, 

IVho said, “ I am short of every thing." 

A m short, O Lord, of praising thee, 

N othing I can do right; 

N eedy and naked, poor I be, 

S hort, Lord, I am of sight: 

H ow short I am of love and grace 
Of every thing I’m short: 

R enew me, then I’ll follow peace 
Through good and bad report. 

In person David was below the middle 
stature ; his features were not unhandsome 
for an old man ; his walk was exceedingly 
slow, deliberately placing one foot before 
the other, in order perhaps to give his cus¬ 
tomers time to hear what he had got; his 
voice was clear, and strongly marked with 
the Scotch accent. He possessed a readi¬ 
ness of wit and repartee, which is often 
united with aspiring talents in lower life. 
A tribute to Love’s memory, written on 
the day of his burial, may not be unac¬ 
ceptable 


Slow through the streets on tottering footsteps borne, 
Muttering his humble ditties he would rove. 

Singing Goose Fair,” | or “ Tread Mill ” where foi 
lorn 

Consign’d by Lincoln ’squires trod David Love. 


* Old General. See Every-Day Book, vol. ii. col. 
1570, for a memoir of this worthy. 

+ Old Friday. The nickname of the ex-deputy 
sexton of St Mary’s parish, who was more than sus- 
ected of participating in re.surreetioning. In Feb. 
827, a discovery was made of some bodies about to be 
removed to Loudon; an examination ensued, when it 
was found that, for many months, the dissecting rooms 
of the metropolis were supplied wholesale Lorn the 
various grounds of the parish ; and for many flays no¬ 
thing was heard of but the opening of graves, which 
were discovered to be empty. 

J Machines for making lace. 

? Part of a stocking-frame, which makes a great 
noise in working. 

H Goose fair. A great holiday fair at Nottingham, 
so called probably from its occurrence immediately 
after Michaelmas day, (viz. on October 2, 3, 4.) and 
the great quantity of seese slaughtered and eaten. 
One of David’s best songs is on this subject, but it is 
entirely local. Popular tradition, however, has as¬ 
signed a far different origin to its name: a farmer who 
for some reason or other (whether grief for the loss of 
his wife, or her intidelity, or from mere curiosity, oi 
dread of the fair sex, or some other reason equally uc 
reasonable, according to various accounts) had brought 
up his three sons in total seclusion, during which they 


504 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


®ne w<*«k I miss’d him from the market-place. 

Along the streets where he was wont to be ; 

Strange voices came, but his I could not trace. 

Before the ’Change, nor by Sheep-lane was he. 

And now with honour due, in sad array 

Slow through the church-yard paths we’ve seen him 
borne; 

Approach and hear (if thou wilt hear) the lay 
In which the bard’s departed worth we mourn. 

Epitaph. 

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth. 

A minstrel old in Nottingham well known, 

In Caledonia was his humble birth. 

But England makes his aged bones her own. 

| Long were his verses, and his life was long. 

Wide, as a recompense, his fame was spread ; 

Ke sold for halfpence (all he had) a song. 

He earn’d by them ( twas all he wish’d) his bread. 

No farther I his merits can disclose. 

His widow dwells where David late abode; 

Go, buy his life, wrote by himself, which shows 
His service to his country, and his God. 

Nottingham , 

June 14, 1827. 


THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING. 

Be Honest. 

If you only endeavour to be honest, you 
are struggling with yourself. 

A Definition. 

Truth is the conformity of expression to 
thought. 

Take Care. 

Equivocation is a mean expedient to 
avoid the declaration of truth, without ver¬ 
bally telling a lie. 

' Keep an Account. 

Our debts and our sins are always great¬ 
er than we think of. 

never saw woman. On their arriving at man’s estate, 
ne brought their, to the October fair, promising to 
buy each of them whatever he thought best. They 
gazed about them, asking the names of whatever they 
saw, when beholding some women walking, dressed in 
white, they demanded what they were; the farmer, 
somewhat alarmed at the eagerness of the question, 
replied, “ Pho, those silly things are geese.” When, 
without waiting an instant, all three exclaimed, “ Oh 
father, buy me a goose." 


There’s no such thing as III Luck. 

It is true that some misfortunes are m 
evitable; but, in general, they proceed 
from our own want of judgment and fore¬ 
sight. 

Our Enjoyments are conditional. 

If we had it in our power to gratify 
every wish, we should soon feel the effects 
of a surfeit. 

Our real Wants are few. 

The stomach tires of every thing but 
bread and water. 

Moderate your Desires. 

Take away your expensive follies, and 
you will have little occasion to complain of 
hard times. 

Many a Little makes a Mickle 

When a shopkeeper lias company, he 
may have two candles ; but when alone, 
one candle will be sufficient for common 
purposes. The saving will nearly find his 
wife in shoes. 

AstheTwig is bent, the Tree inclines. 

If you give your children an improper 
education, their future misfortunes will lie 
at your door. 

There are true and false Facts. 

History should be read with caution. It 
often presents us with false and delusive 
pictures; and, by the gay colouring of the 
artist, excites our admiration of characters 
really odious. 


Ilferofamrsf 

of the 

ancients and moderns. 

No. IV. 

Of Sensible Qualities. 

The most eminent philosophers of anti¬ 
quity, Democritus, Socrates, Aristippus the 
chief of the CyrenaVc sect, Plato, Epicurus, 
and Lucretius, affirmed, that cold and heat, 
odours and colours, were no other than 
sensations excited in our minds, by the dif¬ 
ferent operations of the bodies surrounding 
us, and acting on our senses; even Aristoilf 


505 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


iii nself was of opinion, that u sensible 
qualities exist in the mind.” Yet when 
Descartes, and after him Mallebranche, 
taught the very same truths, they were 
ascribed to these moderns, owing to the 
outcry they made, as if the opposite error, 
which they attacked in the schoolmen, had 
been that of all ages; and nobody deigned 
to search whether, in reality, it was so or 
not. Were we to bring into review all that 
the ancients have taught on this subject, we 
should be surprised at the clearness with 
which they have explained themselves, and 
at a loss to account how opinions came to 
be taken for new which had been illus¬ 
trated in their writings with such force and 
precision. 

Democritus was the first who disarray¬ 
ed body of its sensible qualities. lie 
affirmed, that “ the first elements of things 
having in them naturally neither whiteness 
nor blackness, sweetness nor bitterness, 
heat nor cold, nor any other quality, it 
thence follows, that colour, for example, 
exists only in our imagination or percep¬ 
tion of it; as also, that bitterness and 
sweetness, which exist only in being per¬ 
ceived, are the consequences of the differ- 
nt manner in which we ourselves are 
ffected by the bodies surrounding us, there 
reing nothing in its own nature yellow or 
vhite, or red, sweet or bitter.” He indi¬ 
cates what kind of atoms produce such and 
such sensations : round atoms, for example, 
.he taste of sweetness; pointed and crook¬ 
ed, that of tartness; bodies composed of 
angular and coarse parts, introducing them¬ 
selves with difficulty into the pores, cause 
the disagreeable sensations of bitterness 
md acidity, &c. The Newtonians imitate 
this reasoning everywhere, in explaining 
the different natures of bodies. 

extus Empiricus, explaining the doc¬ 
trine of Democritus, says, “ that sensible 
qualities, according to that philosopher, 
have nothing of reality but in the opinion 
of those who are differently affected by 
them, according to the different dispositions 
of their organs; and that’ from this differ¬ 
ence of disposition arise the perceptions of 
sweet and bitter, heat and cold; and also, 
that we do not deceive ourselves in affirm¬ 
ing that we feel such impressions, but in 
concluding that exterior objects must have in 
them something analogous to our feelings.” 

Protagoras, the disciple of Democritus, 
carried farther than ever Democritus did 
th? consequences of his system; for ad¬ 
mitting with his master the perpetual mu¬ 
tability of matter which occasioned a con¬ 
stant change in things, he thence concluded, 


that whatever we see, apprehend, or touch, 
is just as they appear; and that the only 
true rule or criterion of things, was in the 
perception men had of them. From Pro¬ 
tagoras, bishop Berkeley seems to have 
derived his idea, i; that there is nothing in 
external objects but what the sensible qua¬ 
lities existing in our minds induce us to 
imagine, and of course that they have no 
other manner of existence ; there being no 
other substratum for them, than the minds 
by which they are perceived, not as modes 
or qualities belonging to themselves, but as 
objects of perception to whatever is perci¬ 
pient.” 

We should think we were listening to 
the two modern philosophers, Descartes 
and Mallebranche, when we hear Aristip¬ 
pus, the disciple of Socrates, exhorting men 
“ to be upon their guard with respect to 
the reports of sense, because it does not 
always yield just information; for we do 
not perceive exterior objects as they are in 
themselves, but only as they affect us. We 
know not of what colour or smell they may 
be, these being only affections in ourselves. 
It is not the objects themselves that we are 
enabled to comprehend, but are confined 
to judge of them only by the impressions 
they make upon us; and the wrong judg¬ 
ments we form of them in this respect is 
the cause of all our errors. Hence, when 
we perceive a tower which appears round, 
or an oar which seems crooked in the 
water, we may say that our senses intimate 
so and so, but ought not to affirm that the 
distant tower is really round, or the oar in 
the water crooked : it is enough, in such a 
case, to say with Aristippus and the Cyre- 
nai'c sect, that we receive the impression of 
round ness from the tower, and of crooked¬ 
ness from the oar; but it is neither neces¬ 
sary nor properly in our power to affirm, 
that the tower is really round, or the oar 
broken ; for a square tower may appear 
round at a distance, and a straight stick 
always seems crooked in the water.” * 

Everybody talks of whiteness and sweet¬ 
ness, but they have no common faculty to 
which they can with certainty refer impres¬ 
sions of this kind. Every one judges by 
his own apprehensions, and nobody can 
affirm that the sensation which he feels 
when he sees a white object, is the same 
with what his neighbour experiences in re¬ 
gard to the same object. He who has large 
eyes will see objects in a different magni- 


* Peter Huet, the celebrated bishop of Avrauches 
in his “ Essay on the Weakness of the Human Under 
standing,” argues to the same effect, and almost in the 
same words. Ed. 


506 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


tude from him whose eyes are little, and he 
who hath blue eyes, discern them under 
different colours from him who hath grey; 
whence it comes, that we give common 
names to things, of which, however, we 
judge very variously. 

Epicurus, admitting the principles of 
Democritus, thence deduces “ that colour, 
cold, heat, and other sensible qualities are 
not inherent in the atoms, but the result of 
their assemblage ; and that the difference 
between them flows from the diversity of 
their size, figure, and arrangement; inso¬ 
much, that any number of atoms in one 
disposition creates one sort of sensation; 
and in another, another: but their own 
primary nature remains always the same.” 

The moderns have treated this matter 
with much penetration and sagacity, yet 
they have scarcely advanced any thing but 
what had been said before by the ancient 
philosophers just quoted, and by others 
who might be cited to the same effect. 

For the Table Book. 

MR. EPHRAIM WAGSTAFF, 

HIS WIFE AND PIPE. 

About the middle of Shoemaker-row, 
near to Broadway, Blackfriars, there re¬ 
sided for many years a substantial hard- 
vvareman, named Ephraim Wagstaff. He 
was short in stature, tolerably well favoured 
in countenance, and singularly neat and 
clean in his attire. Everybody in the 
neighbourhood looked upon him as a 
“ warm ” old man ; and when he died, the 
property he left behind him did not bely 
the preconceived opinion. It was all per¬ 
sonal, amounted to about nineteen thou¬ 
sand pounds; and, as he was childless, 
it went to distant relations, with the excep¬ 
tion of a few hundred pounds bequeathed 
to public charities. 

The family of Ephraim Wagstaff, both 
on the male and female sides, was respect¬ 
able, though not opulent. His maternal 
grandfather, he used to say, formed part of 
the executive government in the reign of 
George I., whom he served as petty con¬ 
stable in one of the manufacturing dis¬ 
tricts during a long period. The love of 
office seems not to have been hereditary in 
the family; or perhaps the opportunities 
of gratifying it did not continue; for, with 
that single exception, none of his ancestors 
could boast of official honours. The origin 
of the name is doubtful. On a first view, 
it seems evidently the conjunction of two 
names brought together by marriage or for¬ 


tune. In the “ Tatler ” we read about die 
staff in a variety of combinations, under 
one of which tire popular author of that 
work chose to designate himself, and there¬ 
by conferred immortality on the name of 
Bickerstaff Our friend Ephraim was no 
great wit, but he loved a joke, particularly 
if he made it himself; and he used to say, 
whenever he heard any one endeavouring 
to account for his name, that he believed 
it originated in the marriage of a Miss 
Staff to some Wag who lived near her ; 
and who, willing to show his gallantry, 
and at the same time his knowledge of 
French customs, adopted the fashion of 
that sprightly people, by adding her family 
name to his own. The conjecture is at 
least probable, and so we must leave it. 

At the age of fifty-two it pleased heaven 
to deprive Mr. Wagstaff of his beloved 
spouse Barbara. The bereavement formed 
an era in his history. Mrs. Wagstaff was 
an active, strong woman, about ten years 
older than himself, and one sure to be 
missed in any circle wherein she had once 
moved. She was indeed no cipher. Her 
person was tall and bony, her face, in 
hue, something between brown and red, 
had the appearance of having been scorch¬ 
ed. Altogether her qualities were truly 
commanding. She loved her own way 
exceedingly ; was continually on the alert to 
have it; and, in truth, generally succeeded. 
Yet such was her love of justice, that she 
has been heard to aver repeatedly, that she 
never (she spoke the word never empha¬ 
tically) opposed her husband, but when he 
was decidedly in the wrong. Of these 
occasions, it must also be mentioned, she 
generously took upon herself the trouble 
and responsibility of being the sole judge. 
There was one point, however, on which it 
would seem that Mr. Wagstaff had con¬ 
trived to please himself exclusively; al¬ 
though, how he had managed to resist so ef¬ 
fectually the remonstrances and opposition 
which, from the structure of his wife’s 
mind lie must necessarily have been doom 
ed to encounter, must ever remain a secret 
The fact was this: Ephraim had a peculiarly 
strong attachment to a pipe; his affection 
for his amiable partner scarcely exceeding 
that which he entertained for that lively 
emblem of so many sage contrivances and 
florid speeches, ending like it—in smoke 
In the times of his former wives (for twice 
before had he been yoked in matrimony) 
he had indulged himself with it unmolest¬ 
ed. Not so with Mrs. Wagstaff the third. 
Pipes and smoking she held in unmitigated 
abhorrence: but having, by whatever 


507 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


means, been obliged to submit to their in¬ 
troduction, she wisely avoided all direct 
attempts to abate what she called among 
her friends “ the nuisanceand, like a 
skilful general, who has failed of securing 
victory, she had recourse to such stratagems 
as might render it as little productive as 
possible to the enemy. Ephraim, aware 
how matters stood, neglected no precaution 
to guard against his wife’s manoeuvres— 
meeting, of course, with various success. 
M my a time did her ingenuity contrive an 
accident, by which his pipe and peace of 
mind were at once demolished; and, al¬ 
though there never could be any difficulty 
in replacing the former by simply sending 
out for that purpose, yet he has confessed, 
that when he contemplated the possibility 
of offering too strong an excitement to the 
shrill tones of his beloved’s voice, (the only 
pipe she willingly tolerated,) he waved 
that proceeding, and submitted to the sacri¬ 
fice as much the lesser evil. At length 
M rs. Wagstaff was taken ill, an inflamma¬ 
tion on her lungs was found to be her 
malady, and. that crisis appeared to be fast 
approaching, when 

The doctor leaves the house with sorrow. 
Despairing of his fee to-morrow. 

The foreboding soon proved correct; and, 
every thing considered, perhaps it ought 
not to excite much surprise, that when 
Ephraim heard from the physician that 
there was little or no chance of her recovery, 
he betrayed no symptoms of excessive 
emotion, but mumbling something unin¬ 
telligibly, in which the doctor thought he 
caught the sound of the words “ Christian 
duty of resignation,” he quietly filled an 
additional pipe that evening. The next 
day Mrs. Wagstaff expired, and in due 
time her interment took place in the church¬ 
yard of St. Ann, Blackfriars, every thing 
connected therewith being conducted with 
the decorum becoming so melancholy an 
event, and which might be expected from a 
man of Mr. Wagstaff’s gravity and ex¬ 
perience. The funeral was a walking one 
from the near vicinity to the ground ; and 
but for an untimely slanting shower of rain, 
no particular inconvenience would have 
i been felt by those who were assembled on 
that occasion; that casualty, however, 
caused them to be thoroughly drenched; 
and, in reference to their appearance, it 
; was feelingly observed by some of the by¬ 
standers, that they had seldom seen so 
many tears on the faces of mourners.— 

To be continued —(perhaps.) 

Nemo. 


AN ULTRA-MARINER. 

According to father Feyjoo, in the month 
of June, 1674, some young men were walk¬ 
ing by the sea-side in Bilboa, and one of 
them, named Francis de la Vega, of about 
fifteen years of age, suddenly leaped into 
the sea, and disappeared presently. His 
companions, after waiting some time, and 
he not returning, made the event public, 
and sent an account of it to De la Vega’s 
mother, at Lierganfes, a small town in the 
archbishopric of Burgos. At first she dis¬ 
credited his death, but his absence occa¬ 
sioned her fond doubts to vanish, and she 
mourned his untimely loss. 

About five years afterwards some fisher¬ 
men, in the environs of Cadiz, perceivec 
the figure of a man sometimes swimming, 
and sometimes plunging under the water. 
On the next day they saw the same, and 
mentioned it as a very singular circum¬ 
stance to several people. They threw their 
nets, and baiting the swimmer w’ith some 
pieces of bread, they at length caught the 
object of their attention, which to their i 
astonishment they found to be a well-formed 
man. They put several questions to him 
in various languages, but he answered none. 
They then took him to the convent of St. 
Francis, where he was exorcised, thinking 
he might be possessed by some evil spirit. 
The exorcism was as useless as the ques¬ 
tions. At length, after some days, he pro¬ 
nounced the word Lierganbs. It happened 
that a peison belonging to that towm was 
present when he uttered the name, as was 
also the secretary of the Inquisition, who 
wrote to his correspondent at Lierganbs, 
relating the particulars, and instituting in¬ 
quiries relative to this very extraordinary 
man ; and he received an account of the 
young man who had disappeared in the 
manner before related. 

On this information, it was determined 
that the marine man should be sent to 
Lierganbs; and a Franciscan friar, w ho was 
obliged to go there on other business, un 
dertook to conduct him the following year. 
When they came within a quarter of a 
league of the town, the friar ordered the 
young man to go before and show him the 
way. He made no answer, but led the 
friar to the widow De la Vega’s house 
She recollected him instantly, and embrac¬ 
ing him, cried out, “ This is my son, that 1 
lost at Bilboa!” Two of his brothers who 
were present also knew him immediately, 
and embraced him with equal tenderness. 
He, however, did not evince tne least sen- 


503 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


1 sibility, or the smallest degree of surprise. 
He spoke no more at Lierganhs than at 
Cadiz, no.' could any thing be obtained 
from him relative to his adventure. lie 
had entirely forgotten his native language, 
except the words pan, vino, tabaco , “bread, 
wine, tobacco;” and these he uttered in¬ 
discriminately and without application. 
They asked him if he would have either of 
these articles ; he could make no reply. 

For several days together he would eat 
large quantities of bread, and foi as many 
days following he would not take the least 
food of any kind. If he was directed to 
do any thing, he would execute the com¬ 
mission very properly, but without speak¬ 
ing a word : he would carry a letter to 
where it was addressed, and bring an 
answer back in writing. He was sent one 
day with a letter to St. Ander; to get there 
it was necessary to cross the river at Pa- 
drenna, which is more than a league wide in 
that spot; not finding a boat in which he 
could cross it, he threw himself in, swam 
over, and delivered the letter as directed. 

At this time Francis de la Vega was 
nearly six feet in height, and well formed, 
with a fair skin, and red hair as shoit as a 
new-born infant’s. He always went bare¬ 
footed, and had scarcely any nails either on 
his hands or feet. He never dressed him¬ 
self but when he was told to do it. The 
same with eating; what was offered to 
him he accepted, but he never asked for 
food. 

In this wav he remained at his mother’s 
for nine years, when he again disappeared, 
without any aDparent cause, and no one 
knew ho at. It may be supposed, however 
that the motive or feeling which induced 
his first disappearance influenced the se¬ 
cond. Some time afterwards it was reported 
that an inhabitant of Lierganfes again saw 
Francis de la Vega in some port of Astu¬ 
rias ; but this was never confirmed. 

When this very singular man was first 
taken out of the sea at Cadiz, it is said 
that his body was entirely covered with 
scales, but they fell off soon after his com¬ 
ing out of the water. They also add, that 
different parts of his body were as hard as 
shagreen. 

Father Feyjoo adds many philosophical 
reflections on the existence of this pheno¬ 
menon, and on the means by which a man 
may be enabled to live at the bottom of the 
sea. He observes, that if hrancis de la 
Vega had preserved his reason and the use 
of speech, he would have given us more 
instruction and information in marine af¬ 
fairs, than all the naturalists combined. 


ANTIPATHIES. 

F.rasmus, though a native of Rotterdam, 
had such an aversion to fish, that the smel 1 
of it threw him into a fever. 

Ambrose Par6 mentions a gentleman, 
who never could see an eel without faint¬ 
ing. 

There is an account of another gentle¬ 
man, who would fall into convulsions at the 
sight of a carp. 

A lady, a native of France, always faint¬ 
ed on seeing boiled lobsters. Other persons 
of the same country experienced the same 
inconvenience from the smell of roses, 
though they were particularly partial to the 
odour of jonquils or tuberoses. 

Joseph Scaliger and Peter Abono never 
could drink milk. 

Cardan was particularly disgusted at the 
sight of eggs. 

Uladislaus, king of Poland, could not 
bear to see apples. 

If an apple was shown to Chesne, secre¬ 
tary to Francis I., he bled at the nose. 

A gentleman, in the court of the emperor 
Ferdinand, would bleed at the nose on 
hearing the mewing of a cat, however great 
the distance might be from him. 

Henry III. of France could never sit in 
a room with a cat. 

The duke of Schomberg had the same 
aversion. 

M. de Lancre gives an account of a very 
sensible man, who was so terrified at seeing 
a hedgehog, that for two years he imagined 
his bowels were gnawed by such an animal. 

The same author was intimate with a 
very brave officer, who was so terrified at 
the sight of a mouse, that he never dared 
to look at one unless he had his sword in 
his hand. 

M. Vangheim, a great huntsman in 
Hanover, would faint, or, if he had suffi¬ 
cient time, would run away at the sight of 
a roasted pig. 

John Hoi, a gentleman in Alcantara, 
would swoon on hearing the word lana , 
wool, pronounced, although his cloak was 
woollen. 

The philosophical Boyle could not con¬ 
quer a stiong aversion to the sound of 
water running through a pipe. 

La Mothe Ie Vayer could not endure the 
sound of musical instruments, though he 
experienced a lively pleasure whenever it 
thundered. 

The author of the Turkish Spy tells ns 
that he would rather encounter a lion in 
the deserts of Arabia, provided he had but 
a sword in his hand, than feel a spider 


509 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


crawnng on him in tne dark. He observes, 
that tnere is no reason to be given for these 
secret dislikes. He humorously attributes 
them to the doctrine of the transmigration 
of the soul; and as regarded himself, he 
supposed he had been a fly, before he came 
into his body, and that having been fre¬ 
quently persecuted with spiders, he still 
retained the dread of his old enemy. 


THE LACTEALS IN A MOLE. 

A curious observer of nature will be de- 
.ighted to know, that the lacteal vessels 
are more visible in a mole, than in any 
animal whatever. The view, however, is 
not of long duration. These vessels me 
rendered visible by the mode of killing the 
animal, which is by a wire gin that com¬ 
presses the thoracic duct, thereby prevent¬ 
ing the ascent of the chyle upwards. The 
time of demonstration is about half an 
hour after death. This curious fact was 
unknown to anatomists, till mentioned by 
Dr. A. Hunter, in his volume of maxims 
on men and manners. 


LOUIS GONZAGA 

TO 

MARIE MANCINI 
Florence, 1649. 

II cantar che net anima si sente, 

II pin ne sente l’alma, il men l’oreechio. 


I worshippe thee thou silverre starve. 

As thron’d amid the vault of blue. 
Rushes thy (jueenlye splendoure farre, 
O’er mountain top and vale of dewe. 

Yette more I love thy infante ray. 

As risinge from its easterne cave. 
With circlinge, fearfulle, fonde delaye, 
It seemes to kisse the crimsone wave. 

I love the proud and solemne sweepe 
Of harpe and trumpette’s harmonye, 
Like swellinges of the midnighte deepe, 
Like anthemes of the opening skye. 

But lovelier to my heart the tone 
That dies along the twilighte’s winge 
lust heard, a silver sigh, and gone. 

As if a spiritte touch’d the string*. 


Sweete Mane I swiftlye comes the nocufl 
That gives thy beattfye all its rayc.-'. 

And thou shalte be the rose, alone. 

And heartes shall wither in its blaze. 

Yette there are eyes had deeper loved 
That rosebudde in its matine-beain. 

The dew droppe on its blushe unmoved— 

And shalle mye love be all a dreame . 

PULCI. 


POINTS OF CHARACTER. 

A Prime Minister. 

The late sir Robert Walpole was from 
his youth fond of field sports, and retained 
his attachment to them until prevented by 
the infirmities of age from their further en¬ 
joyment. He was accustomed to hunt in 
Richmond Park with a pack of beagies. 
Upon receiving a packet of letters, he 
usually opened that from his gamekeeper 
first; and in the pictures taken of him, he 
preferred being drawn in his sporting 
dress. 

A Prelate. 

Bishop Juxon, who attended Charles I. 
on the scaffold, retired after the king’s death 
to his own manor of Little Compton, in 
Gloucestershire, where, as Whitlocke tells 
us in his Memorials, “ he much delighted 
in hunting, and kept a pack of good hounds, 
and had them so well ordered and hunted, 
chiefly by his own skill and direction, that 
they exceeded all other hounds in England 
for the pleasure and orderly hunting of 
them.” 5 

A Huntsman. 

Mr. Wool ford, a sporting gentleman, as 
remarkable for politeness in the field as for 
the goodness of his fox-hounds, was one 
evening thus addressed by his huntsman: 
“ An’ please your honour, sir,” twirling his 
cap and quid at the same time, “ I should 
he glad to be excused going to-morrow to 
Woolford-wood, as I should like to go to 
see my poor wife buried.” “ I am sorry for 
thee, Tom,” said his master, “ we can do one 
day without thee: she was an excellent 
wife.” On the following morning, how¬ 
ever, Tom was the first in the field. “ Iley- 
day !” quoth Mr. W., “ did not I give you 
leave to see tne remains of your poor wife 
interred ?” “ Yes, your honour, but I 

thought as how we should have good sport, 
as it is a fine morning; so I desired our 
Dick, the dog-feeder, to see her earth 9 4 ~ 


510 


















i¥lp Dref;. 


For the Table Book. 

Every one will agree with me, that this 
| .s the favourite article of furniture. Every 
one is fond of it as of an old friend—a 
faithful and trustworthy one—to whom has 
Deen confided both joys and sorrows. It is 
Host likely the gift of some cherished, per- 
i naps departed being, reminding us by its 
food qualities of the beloved giver. We 
have no scruple in committing our dearest 
| secrets to its faithful bosom—they are never 


divulged. The tenderest billet-doux, the 
kindest acknowledgments, the sw r eetest 
confessions of a mistress—the cruellest ex¬ 
pressions and bitterest reproaches of a 
friend lost to us for ever through the false 
and malignant representations of an enemy 
—or perhaps the youthful effusions of oui 
own brain, which we occasionally draw 

forth from the recesses of the most secretlv 

•/ 

contrived pigeon-hole , and read over a la 
cUfrobte, with a half blush (at our self-love) 
and a smile partly painful from revived 


THE TABLE BOOK 





















































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


recollections of days gone, never to return.— 
j all these we may unhesitatingly deposit in 
j this personification of deskretion. 

The very posture assumed at a desk be¬ 
speaks confidence and security The head 
inclined over it, and the bosom leaning in 
gentle trustingness against this kind and 
patient friend. 

J By this description I would present to the 
“ mind’s eye” of the reader a plain unosten¬ 
tatious piece of furniture, of too simple an 
exterior to be admitted any wfiere than in 
the study — square in shape, mahogany, 
bound with brass at the corners, a plate of 
the same metal on the top, of just a suffi¬ 
cient size to contain one’s own initials and 
! those of the giver. I detest those finicking 
machines one finds wrapped up in an oil¬ 
skin case in a drawing-room; made of 
rosewood, inlaid with silver, or mother-of- 
pearl, and lined with blue velvet. It seems 
like an insult to the friendly character of a 
desk, to dress him smartly, seat him in a 
I fine apartment, and refuse to avail yourself 
of the amicable services he tenders you.— 
The contents of these coxcombical ac¬ 
quaintances are seldom better than its fair 
owner’s private journal, (which no one 
thinks worthy of perusal—herself of course 
excepted,) her album, and scrap-book, the 
honourable Mr. Somebody’s poetical effu¬ 
sions, and the sentimental correspondence 
of some equally silly young lady, her deai- 
, est friend. 

Then there is the clerk’s desk in a count- 
ing-house—there are no pleasant associa¬ 
tions connected with that mercantile scaf¬ 
folding, with its miniature balustrades at 
the top, partly intersected with accounts, 
bills, and papers of all sorts, (referring to 
business,) and surrounded by files clinging 
by their one hook. Above all this is seen 
the semicircular scalp of a brown wig, 
which, as it is raised to reply to your ques¬ 
tion, gradually discovers two eyes scowling 
at you from beneath a pair of glaring spec¬ 
tacles, a little querulous turned-up nose, 
and a mouth whose lines have become 
rigid with ill-humour, partly occasioned by 
a too sedentary life. 

j Again, there is the pulpit desk, with its 
arrogant crimson cushion—telling a tale of 
cleiical presumption. 

Lastly, there is the old bachelor’s desk, 
j. (Nay, do not curl up the corners of your 
pretty mouths at me, sweet ladies—it may 
be worth while to take a peep at it—at 
least, I cannot prevail upon myself to omit 
j it in this notice of desks.) It is of the 
plain and quiet description formerly men¬ 
tioned, and very neatly and orderly ar¬ 


ranged, both inside and out. The latter n 
kept bright and shining by the indefati¬ 
gable hands of Sally the housemaid ; who, 
while she breathes upon the plate to give 
it a polish, at the same time breathes a wish 
(to herself) that her breath possessed the 
magic power of unfastening locks, and so 
enabling her to see “ what the old gentle¬ 
man keeps in this here box to make him 
so fond on it.’* The interior he takes in-^ 
finite care to keep in complete and exact 
order himself. Each particular compart¬ 
ment has its appropriate contents consigned 
to it. The fold-down nearest to him, as he 
sits at it, contains a small miniature within 
a red morocco case, of a placid and gentle¬ 
faced girl, whose original sleeps for ever in 
the bosom of the cold earth—a little box, 
containing a ring set with brilliants, and 
enclosing a lock of her hair—all her letters 
carefully tied up with green ribbon — a 
miniature edition of Shakspeare, and Mil- 
ton, with his name written in them in her 
hand-writing. In the opposite fold, near 
the receptacle for the pens, wafers, ink, &c. 
are his own little writings, (for we are to 
suppose him fond of his pen, aqd as having 
occasionally indulged that fondness,) of all 
of which he preserves neat copies, some 
private memoranda, and an old pocket- 
book, given to him by his old friend and 

school-fellow, admiral-, when he left 

England that year as a midshipman. 

In the drawer are different letters from 
his friends; and, perhaps, at the very back 
of it, a little hoard of gold pieces, bright 
and new from the mint. 

As I now lean upon my old friend and 
companion — my desk — I render it my 
grateful acknowledgments for the many 
pleasant hours I have spent over it; and , 
also for its having been the means of my i 
passing an agreeable quarter of an hou | 
with my gentle reader, of whom I now take 
a courteous leave. 

July, 1827. M. H. 


WRITING DESKS. 

There is not any mention of writing-desks , 
among the ancients. They usually wrote 
upon the knee in the manner wherein An¬ 
gelica Kauffman represents the younger 
Pliny, as may be seen in a modern engrav¬ 
ing; and yet it appears from Stolberg, 
quoted by Mr. Fosbroke, that desks re¬ 
sembling ours have been found in Her¬ 
culaneum. Writing-desks in the middle 
ages slanted so much, as to form an angle 
of forty-five degrees : their slant till wiihio 
the last two centuries was little less. 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


r 


Copograplnana* 

WILTS’ LOCAL CUSTOM. 
DANCING ROUND THE HARROW. 

i 

To the Editor. 

Dear sir,—I hand you the following 
authentic particulars which happened in 
the pleasant village of S****n B * * * * r, 
riiiQ gave rise to “ dancing round the har¬ 
row it worthy of being chronicled in the 
Table Book , they are yours. 

John Jone*. not finding his lovesuit sqc- 
oessful win. his masits- • daughter, because 
ner father, a ra..wc<, reouked him, took 
umbrage, threw down his whip on the 
| ‘ harrow ” in the field, left the team, and, 
sans cerernonie, went to sea. 

The farmer and his daughter Nancy were 
| variously affected by this circumstance.— 

!Comfortable letters ” were hoped for, 
news w'as expected from some corner of the 
world, but no tidings arrived as to the fate 
or designs of honest John. Village gossips 
often talked of the poor lad. The farmer 
himself, who was a good sort of man, began 
to relent; for Nancy’s cheeks were not so 
rosy as formerly ; she was dull at milking 
time Observers at church whispered,— 
“ IIow altered Nancy R* appears!’’ * * * 
After a lapse of about six years appear¬ 
ances change favourably. John returns 
from sea auspiciously—meets his Nancy 
with open arms—her father finds him dis¬ 
posed to make her happy—John requests 
! forgiveness, and is pardoned—his steadiness 
[ and attachment are tried and approved— 
an( j—suffice it to say—John and Nancy 
are married. He assists her father in the 
duties of the farm as his years decline, 
while she supplies the absence of her mo¬ 
ther, buried in the family grave of the 
church-yard of her native village. * * * * 
As soon as the wedding took place, a 
« harrow” was brought on the grass-plot in 
the fore-close, when the villagers invited 
danced round it till daybreak. * * * * 
This “ dancing round the harrow ” was 
kept on several anniversaries of the wed¬ 
ding-day ; a young family and the o 1 ^ pro¬ 
jector’s decease occasioned its discontinu¬ 
ance ; but, on each of these occasions, John 
does not forget to present, instead, a not 
less acceptable offering, a good supper to 
Vns workfolks in remembrance of his ad- 
rance in life 

I am, dear sir, 

Goat and Boots, Yours very truly, 
August 3, 1827. Jehoiada. 


For the Table Book. 

BAKEWELL, DERBYSHIRE. 

Ancient Monuments and Inscriptions 
in the Church. 

Upon the tablet over the mural monu¬ 
ment in the chantry of the Iluly Cross, is 
the following inscription : 

Godfrey Foljambe, Knight, and Avena his 
wife, (who afterwards married Richard 
de Greene, Knight,) Lord and Lady of 
the Manors of Hassop, Okebrook, Elton, 
Stanton, Darlev, Oveihall, and Lokhawe, 
founded this Chantry in honor of the 
Holy Cross, in the 39th year of the Reign 
of King Edward the 3rd, 1 366. Godfrey 
died on Thursday next after the Feast of 
the Ascension of our Lord, in the 60th year 
of the reign of the same King; and Ave¬ 
na died on Saturday next after the Feast 
of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin • 
Mary, in the 6th year of the reign of 
Richard 2nd, 1383. 

N. B. The Dates are taken from the Es¬ 
cheat Rolls, which contain the Inquisitum 
post mortem, 50th Edward 3. No. 24. 

Iu the Vestry , there is an effigy in ala¬ 
baster, of sir Thomas Wendersley de Wen- 
dersley, who was mortally wounded at the 
battle of Shrewsbury, 4th Henry IV., 1403, 
and was buried at Bakevvell, where formerly 
were several shields of the arms of his 
family carved in wood. (See Biailsford’v 
“ Monumental Inscriptions of Derby¬ 
shire.”) 

Adjoining the vestry are several hand¬ 
some monuments of the Vernon and Man¬ 
ners’ families. 

In the centre is the tomb or cenotaph of 
sir George Vernon, inscribed thus : 

Here lyeth Sir George Vernon, Knight, 
deceased, y e daye of An» 156 and 
Dame Margaret his Wife, dowghter of 
Sr Gylbeit Tayllboys, deceased the 
daye of 156 and also Dame Mawde 
bis Wyffe, dowghter to Sir Ralphe Larig- 
foot, deceased the daye of Ano 1566. 
whose solles God p—don— 

On the right is a monument to sir John 
Manners, with this inscription : 

Here lyeth Sir John Manners, of IJaddon, 
Knh Second Sonne of Thomas Erie of 
Rutland, who died the 4th of June, 1611, 
and Dorothy his Wife, one of the Dawgh- 
ters and heires of Sir George Vernon, of 
Haddon, Knh who deceased the 2 Itl 
day of June, in the 26th yeere of th* 
Rayne of Queene Elizabeth, 1584. 


513 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


To the right of the window, on a mural 
monument, is the following : 

Heere lyeth buryed John Manners, Gent n 
3 Sohe of Sir John Mahers, Knight, who 
dyed the 16th day of July, in the Yeere 
of our Lord God 1590, being of the Age 
of 14 yeeres. 

To the left is an elegant monument to 
sir John Maners, with this inscription : 

George Manners of Haddon, Kn*. here 
awaits the resurrection of the just in 
Christ. He married Grace, second 
daughter of Henry Pierrepoint, Knb who 
afterwards bore him 4 sons and 5 daugh¬ 
ters, and lived with him in Holy Wed¬ 
lock 30 years, she caused him to be 
buried with his forefathers, and then 
placed this monument at her own ex¬ 
pence, as a perpetual Memorial of their 
conjugal faith, and she united the figure 
of his body with hers, having resolwed 
that their bones and ashes should be laid 
together. He died 23rd Aph 1623, aged 

54—She died-aged- 

Beneath this monument, on an alabaster 
grave-stone on the floor, are some figures 
engraved round them, with an inscription, 
now obliterated, and the arms of Eyre im¬ 
paled with Mordaunt. 

In the Chancel. 

Upon an alabaster tomb, repaired, and 
the inscription cut, and filled up with black 
in 1774, (by Mr. Watson.) 

Here lies John Vernon, son and heir of 
Henry Vernon, who died the 12th of 
August 1477, whose soule God pardon. 

August , 1827. E. J. H. 


For the Table Book. 

ERASMUS. 

Quwritur, unde tibi sit nomen Erasmus ? Eras-mus. 

Resp. 

6i sum Mus ego, te judice Summus ero. 

Jonnnis Audoeni, lib. vii. epig. 34. 


That thou wast great Erasmus none dispute ; 

Vet, by the import of thy name, wast small: 
Vor none its truth can readily refute 
Thou wast— a Mouse, —Eras-Mus after all. 

The Reply of Erasmus. 

Hence, if a Mouse, thy wit must this confess .— 
l will be Sum-mus Can’st thou mane me less ? 

J. R. P. 


(garrtdt f)lap0. 

No. XXX. 

[From a “ Woman’s a Weathercock,” a 
Comedy, by Nathaniel Field, 1612 .] 

False Mistress. 

Scuamore alone ; having a letter in his 
hand from Bellafront, assuring him of her 
faith. 

Scud. If what I feel I could express in words, 
Methinks I could speak joy enough to men 
To banish sadness from all love for ever. 

O thou that reconcilest the faults of all 
Thy frothy sex, and in thy single self 
Confines ! nay has engross’d, virtue enough 
To frame a spacious world of virtuous women! 

Had’st thou been the beginning of thy sex, 

I think the devil in the serpent’s skin 

Had wanted cunning to o’er-come thy goodness; 

And all had lived and died in innoceiicy. 

The whole creation—. 

Who’s there ?—come in— 

Nevill (entering.) What up already, Scudmore ? 
Scud. Good morrow, my dear Nevill ? 

Nev. What’s this ? a letter! sure it is not so— 

Scud. By heav’n, you must excuse me. Come, 1 
know 

You will not wrong my friendship, and your Planner* 
To tempt me so. 

Nev. Not for the world, my friend. 

Good morrow— 

Scud. Nay, Sir, neither must you 
Depart in anger from this friendly han 
I swear I love you better than all men. 

Equally with all virtue in the world : 

Yet this would be a key to lead you to 
A prize of that importance— 

Nev. Worthy friend, 

I leave you not in anger,—what d’ye mean ?— 

Nor am I of that inquisitive nature framed. 

To thirst to know your private businesses. 

Why, they concern not me: if they be ill, 

And dangerous, ’twould grieve me much to know 
them ; 

If good, they be so, though I know them not: 

Nor would I do your love so gross a wrong. 

To covet to participate affairs 

Of that near touch, which your assured love 

Doth not think fit, or dares not trust me with. 

Scud. How sweetly doth your friendship play witi 
mine. 

And with a simple subtlety steals my heait 
Out of my bosom 1 by the holiest love 
That ever made a story, you are a man 
With all good so replete, that I durst trust yon 
Ev’n with this secret, were it singly mine. 

Nev. I do believe you. Farewell, worthy friend. 
Scud. Nay, look you, this same fashion does not 
please me. 


514 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


You were not wont to make your visitation 
So short, and careless. 

Nev. ’Tis your jealnsy. 

That makes you think it so; for, by my soul. 

You’ve given me no distaste in keeping from me 
All things that might be burdensome, and oppress me.— 
In truth, I am invited to a Wedding; 

And the morn faster goes away from me. 

That I go toward it: and so good morrow— 

Sctcd. Good morrow. Sir. Think I durst show it 
you— 

Nev. Now, by my life, I not desire it. Sir 
Nor ever lov’d these prying list’ning men, 

That ask of others ’states and passages : 

Not one among a hundred but proves false. 

Envious and sland’rous, and will cut that throat 
He twines his arms about. I love that Poet, 

That gave us reading “ Not to seek ourselves 
Beyond ourselves.” Farewell. 

Scud. You shall not go. 

I cannot now redeem the fault I have made 
To such a friend, but in disclosing all. 

Nev. Now, if you lore me, do not wrong me so ; 

I see you labour with some serious thing, 

And think, like fairies’ treasure, to reveal it 
Will burst your breast,—’tis so delicious. 

And so much greater than the continent. 

Scud. O you have pierced iny entrails with your 
words. 

And I must now explain all to your eyes. (Gives him 
the Letter.) 

Read; and be happy in my happiness. 

Nev. Yet think on’t; keep thy secret and thy friend 
Sure and entire. Oh give not me the means 
To become false hereafter ; or thyself 
A probable reason to distrust thy friend. 

Though he be ne’er so near. I will not see it. 

Scud. I die, by heav’n, if you deny again. 

I starve for counsel; take it, look upon it. 

If you do not, it is an equal plague 
As if it been known and published. 

For God’s sake, read; but with this caution,— 

By this right hand, by this yet unstain’d sword. 

Were you my father flowing in these waves, 

Or a dear son exhausted out of them, 

Should you betray the soul of all my hopes. 

Like the two Brethren (though love made them Stars) 
We must be never more both seen again. 

Nev. I read it, fearless of the forfeiture :— 

Yet warn you, be as cautelous not to wound 
My integrity with doubt, on likelihoods 
From misreport, but first exquire the truth, (reads.') 
Scud. She is the food, the sleep, the air I live by— 
Nev. (having read the Letter.) 0 heav’n, we speak 
like Gods, and do like Dogs 1— 

Scud. What means my— 

N 3 V. This day this Bellafront, this rich heir 
Is married unto Count Frederick; 

And that’s the Wedding I was going to. 

Scud. I prithee do not mock me;—married !— 

Nev. It is no matter to be plaid withal; 

But yet as true, as women all are false. 

Scud. O that this stroke were thunder to my breast, 
for, Nerill, thou hast spoke my heart in twain; 


And with the sudden whirlwind of thy breath 
Hast ravish’d me out of a temperate soil, 

And set me under the red burning zone. 

Nev. For shame, return thy blood into thy face 
Know’st not how slight a thing a Woman is ? 

SctuJ. Yes ; and how serious too.— 

Scudmore, afterwards , forsaken. 

Scud. Oh God ! 

What an internal joy my heart has felt. 

Sitting at one of these same idle plays. 

When I have seen a Maid’s Inconstancy 
Presented to the life; how glad my eyes 
Have stole about me, fearing lest my looks 
Should tell the company contented there, 

I had a Mistress free of all such thoughts. 

He replies to his friend , who adjures him 
to live. 

Scud. The sun is stale to me; to-morrow morn, 

As this, ’twill rise, I see no difference; 

The night doth visit me but in one robe; 

She brings as many thoughts, as she wears state 
When she is pleasant, but no rest at all: 

For what new strange thing should I covet life then i 
Is she not false whom only I thought true ? 

Shall Time (to show his strength) make Scudmore 
live. 

Till (perish the vicious thought) I love not thee; 

Or thou, dear friend, remove thy heart from me!— 

c. L. 


ancient JMttStc 

SUPERIOR TO MODERN. 

“ That the music of the ancients,” says 
Jeremy Collier, “could command farther 
than the modern, is past dispute. Whether 
they were masters of a greater compass of 
notes, or knew the secret of varying them 
the more artificially ; whether they adjusted 
the intervals of silence more exactly, had 
their hands or their voices further improved, 
or their instruments better contrived; whe¬ 
ther they had a deeper insight into the 
philosophy of nature, or understood the 
laws of the union of the soul and body 
more thoroughly ; and thence w r ere e»abled 
to touch the passions, strengthen the sens^ 
or prepare the medium with greater advan» 
tage ; whether they excelled us in ill, oi 
in how many of these ways, is not so clear 
however, this is certain, that our improve* 
ments in this kind are little better than 
ale-house crowds (fiddles) with resi>5ct to 
theirs.” 


515 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


The effect of music among the ancients, 
are said to have been almost miraculous 
The celebrated ode of Dryden has made 
every one acquainted with the magic power 
af Timotheus over the emotions of the 
human heart. And all, who have read 
any thing of ancient history, must have re¬ 
marked the wonderful effects attributed to 
the musical instrument in the hand of a 
master. 

Among a hundred other stories, which 
evince the power of music, is the fol¬ 
lowing : 

Pythagoras was once likely to be trou¬ 
bled at his lecture, by a company of 
young men, inflamed with wine, and petu¬ 
lant with the natural insolence of youthful 
levity. The philosopher wished to repress 
their turbulence; but forbore to address 
them in the language of philosophy, which 
they would either not have attended to, or 
have treated with derision. lie said no¬ 
thing; but ordered the musician to play a 
^rave majestic tune, of the Doric style. 
The effect was powerful and instantaneous. 
The young men were brought to their sober 
senses, were ashamed of their wanton be¬ 
haviour, and with. one accord tore of! the 
chaplets of flowers with which they had 
decorated their temples in the hour of con¬ 
vivial gaiety. They listened to the philo¬ 
sopher. Their hearts were opened to in¬ 
struction by music, and the powerful im¬ 
pression being well timed, produced in 
them a permanent reformation. 

How desirable is it to revive the music 
of Pythagoras ! How concise a method 
of philosophizing to the purpose ! What 
sermon or moral lecture would have pro¬ 
ceed a similar effect so suddenly ? 

But nothing of this kind was ever pro¬ 
duced by tire most successful efforts of 
modern music. Let us suppose a case 
somewhat similar to the preceding. Let 
us imagine a number of intoxicated rakes 
entering the theatre with a professed inten¬ 
tion to cause a riot. Such a case has often 
been real. The music in the orchestra has 
ilone all that it could do to sooth the grow¬ 
ing rage; but it was as impotent and con¬ 
temptible as a pistol against a battery. It 
would be a fine thing for the proprietors, 
.f a tune or two could save the benches, 
and the tiddlers preclude the carpenters. 
But Timotheus and the Doric strains are 
no more ; yet, surely, in so general a study 
of music it might be expected that some- 
■hing of their perfection might be revived.* 


MUSICAL ANECDOTES. 

A grand Movement. 

A musical instrument-maker of Bremen 
was on the point of failure, and his creditors 
watched him so close, that he could not 
get a pin’s worth carried away. He be¬ 
thought himself of a singular stratagem for 
deceiving his watchmen. He got together 
about a hundred and fifty musicians, his 
friends, in the shop, and set them all play¬ 
ing with the different instruments there, 
the overture of the “ Gazza Ladra.” As it 
was night, at each movement of the orches¬ 
tra, he contrived to throw some article of 
furniture from the back window, and the 
fall was so managed, that, from the noise 
of the instruments, no one perceived it. 
At last, to finish the affair so happily be¬ 
gun, at the end of the concert, each musi¬ 
cian went out with his instrument. The 
artist went out last, and locked the shop- 
door, leaving nothing to his creditors but a 
bust of Ramus. 

An Accompaniment. 

The most singular spit in the world is 
that of the count de Castel Maria, one of 
the most opulent lords of Treviso. This 
spit turns one hundred and thirty different 
roasts at once, and plays twenty-four tunes, j 
and whatever it plays, corresponds to a j 
certain degree of cooking, which is per- 
fectly understood by the cook. Thus, a i 
leg of mutton a V Anglaise , will be excel- | 
lent at the 12th air; a fowl a la Flamande , j 
will be juicy at the 18th, and so on. It j 
would be difficult, perhaps, to carry farther ■ 
the love of music and gormandizing.* 


BEETHOVEN. 

Ludwig von Beethoven was born in l77o 1 
at Baun, where his father was then tenor 
singer in the chapel of the elector of Co¬ 
logne. At an unusually early age he was 
able to perform that first of all works for 
forming a finished player on the organ or 
the piano-forte, the preludes and fugues of 
Sebastian Bach, called “ Le Clavecin hien 
tempore.” At this time he displayed equal 
progress in composition ; for, in the same 
year, he published variations to a march, 
sonatas, and songs, all for the piano-forte. 

In 1792, he was sent by the elector tc 
Vienna, as court-organist, to study the 
theory of music under the celebrated J. 
Haydn, who, on leaving Vienna for London 


• Vioeaimus Kncx. * Furet de Lon-lres. 


516 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


two years after, intrusted his pupil to the 
care of the learned Albrechtsberger. lie 
was then more distinguished for his per¬ 
formance than his composition. Judging 
by the criticisms of his early works, harsh¬ 
ness of modulation, melodies more singular 
than pleasing, and an evident struggle 
to be original, were among the principal 
faults of which he was accused. Severe as 
these critics were on him as a composer, 
they were lavish in their praises of him as 
a player. In their opinion, no one could 
equal him in spirit and brilliancy of exe¬ 
cution ; and nothing more was wanting to 
perfect his performance, than more preci¬ 
sion and distinctness of touch. His greatest 
I power consisted in extemporary perform¬ 
ance, and in the art of varying any given 
| theme without the least premeditation. In 
this he approached nearest to Mozart, and 
has never had a rival since. 

The precarious situation of the court of 
Cologne during the war, and the death of 
the elector in 1801:, in whom the art of 
music lost one of its most zealous patrons, 
induced Beethoven to choose Vienna as his 
permanent residence. As original and in¬ 
dependent in his general w ay of thinking, 
as in his musical productions, a decided 
enemy to flattery, an utter stranger to every 
thing dishonourable, he disdained to cohrt 
the favour of any one, however wealthy or 
high in rank. He has consequently resided 
neaily thirty years in that splendid metro¬ 
polis, in open hostility with many ; and in 
friendship with only a few, whom the ad¬ 
miration of his great genius will not allow 
to take offence, either at the singularity of 
his manner, or the candour with which he 
r : ves his honest opinions. Till very lately, 
he had hardly any other emolument than 
what his compositions produced him, and 
consequently lie was too often in circum¬ 
stances very unworthy of such a great 
genius. 

In Austria, the native composers have 
experienced a neglect similar to that which 
Frederick the Great displayed to the literati 
of Prussia. Salieri, the Italian, has all the 
honours and emoluments of principal maes¬ 
tro di capella to their majesties; whereas 
the inimitable Beethoven relies entirely on 
his own strength, without the smallest por¬ 
tion of imperial munificence. It must have 
oeen a consideration like this, together with 
the increase of difficulties, that determined 
him, in 1809, to accept an offer from the 
new Westphalian court of Jerome Buona¬ 
parte, of the situation of maestro di capella. 
Fortunately, for the honour of \ ienna and 
ot Austria, the archduke Rudolph, and the 

I 


princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky, induced 
him to alter this resolution. Jn expressions 
at once the most favourable and delicate, 
these princes had a document draWn up, 
by which they settled on Beethoven an an¬ 
nuity of 4000 florins, with no other condi- ! 
tion, than that so long as he derives the 
benefit of it, he must reside at Vienna, or 
in some other part of the Austrian domi¬ 
nions ; but be cannot travel into foreign 
countries, unless with the consent of his 
patrons. Vienna has thus become the place 
of Ids abode during the principal part of 
his life. Although lie had a great wish to 
see foreign countries, particularly England, 
he has never applied for leave of absence 
to the archduke Rudolph, who is now his 
only patron, the princes Lobkowitz and 
Kinsky being dead. It has, however, been 
doubted whether his presence would add, 
either here or any where else, to his cele¬ 
brity. His warmth of temper, extreme 
fiankness, and singularity of manners, 
(which he is little able to rule according to 
the prescribed forms of society,) his little 
reserve in judging of people, and above 
all, his great deafness, seem little calcu¬ 
lated to endear his person to the true ad¬ 
mirers of his genius. Notwithstanding 
these foibles, which more frequently belong 
to great than to Ordinary men, his charac¬ 
ter, as a man and as a citizen, ranks de¬ 
servedly high. There is a rectitude in his 
moral conduct, which ensures to him the 1 
esteem of every honourable person. 

Beethoven’s woiks are universally ac¬ 
knowledged to be, for the greater part, ! 
productions of the highest order. In the 
loftier strains of composition, he has attain¬ 
ed so eminent a rank, that it is difficult to 
say who excels him. In many of his or¬ 
chestral symphonies, overtures, quartettos 
for the violin, concertos, trios, and sonatas 
for the piano forte, he may be placed with¬ 
out the slightest presumption by the side 
of Haydn and Mozart. His overture to 
the “ Men of Prometheus,” and his piano¬ 
forte concerto in C minor. Op. 37, would 
alone be sufficient to immortalize him. 
They will ever be heard with delight after 
any overture or concerto, even of Mozart. 
A list of his works is copied from that very 
excellent periodical woik, the “ Harmoni- 
con,’’ into the ** Biographical Dictionary 
of Musicians,” from whence the present 
notice of Beethoven is derived. 

The talents of a Haydn and Mozart 
raised instrumental composition in Ger¬ 
many to an astonishing elevation; and 
Beethoven mav be said not only to have 
maintained the art in that stupendous alt 


517 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


tude, but even in some respects to have 
brought it to still higher perfection. Rei- 
chardt, in his letters from Vienna, says, 
“ Haydn drew his quartets from the pure 
source of his sweet and unsophisticated 
nature, his captivating simplicity and 
cheerfulness; in these works he is still 
without an equal. Mozart’s mightier genius 
and richer imagination took a more extend¬ 
ed range, and embodied in several passages 
the most profound and sublime qualities of 
his own mind. Moreover, he was much 
greater as a performer than Haydn, and as 
such, expected more from instruments than 
the latter did. He also allowed more 
merit to highly wrought and complicated 
compositions, and thus raised a gorgeous 
palace within Haydn’s fairy bower. Of 
this palace Beethoven was an early inmate; 
and in order adequately to express his own 
peculiar forms of style, he had no other 
means but to surmount the edifice with that 
defying and colossal tower, which no one 
will probably presume to carry higher with 
impunity.” 

“ If any man,” says the Quarterly Musi- 
al Review, “ can be said to enjoy an 
almost universal admiration as a composer, 
it is Beethoven ; who, disdaining to copy 
his predecessors in any, the most distant, 
manner, has, notwithstanding, by his ener¬ 
getic, bold, and uncommon style of writing, 
carried away the prize from our modern 
Olympus. His peculiar beauties may be 
enumerated as follows : originality of in¬ 
vention — uncommon passages — a very 
energetic manner—imitative passages al¬ 
most innumerable—and abstruse scientific 
modulation. The first of these peculiarities, 
no sincere lover of music who has heard 
any of his symphonies will refuse to admit; 
and it is principally to this prominent fea¬ 
ture in all his works that the fame he has 
acquired is owing. There is something in 
the first movements of all his overtures and 
symphonies, which, to the hearer, conveys 
a clear impression that the piece is not 
similar to any he ever heard before by other 
composers. The frequent employment of 
discords unresolved with a full harmony, 
the apparent sombre cast of expression by 
i continual richness and depth of the bass, 
the evident preparation for some beautiful 
allegro or vivace movement; all these con¬ 
spire to raise the author in our estimation, 
and to keep our attention alive. Yet, when 
he does lead us to the quick, it is not upon 
a light, unmeaning, or dance-like passage, 
that he chooses to work ; conscious of his 
icsources, he gives an excellent subject, 
gradually rising into importance as the in¬ 


struments one after the other join in the 
stringed chorus; and when (as Maistei 
Mace would say) ‘ that vast concording 
unity ’ of the whole band comes ‘ thunder¬ 
ing in/ we perceive with what admirable 
skill the orchestra are brought together, and 
afterwards, to the latter part of the piece, 
continue our admiration of the scientific ; 
manner in which the parts are worked up 
The conclusion leaves us in regret.” 

In Beethoven’s “ Mount of Olives,” the 
introductory symphony is considered to be 
so affecting and appropriate as to be equal, 
if not superior, to Haydn’s introduction, or 
representation of “ Chaos ” in the “ Crea¬ 
tion.” The whole is a striking instance of 
his originality of invention. With respect 
to his energetic manner, nearly the whole 
of his works abound with specimens of this 
description of beauty. Yet, however, in thfc 
midst of his energy, variety, and abstruse- 
ness, ideas may sometimes be discovered 
which create enthusiasm solely from their 
simplicity. Of this description is the well- 
known passage in his “ Bairle Sinfonia,” , 
where the one fifer is supposed to be heard 
attempting to rally the disordered ranks of 
the French army, by playing their national 
air of “ Malbrouk,” which he performs in a 
minor key, from his own presumed thirst 
and fatigue. 

It is said that Beethoven does not write 
down a single note of his compositions till 
lie has mentally completed them, and that 
he holds his own earlier compositions in 
contempt. He usually passes the summer at 
the pleasant village of Baden, about twelve 
miles from Vienna. He is very deaf, but can 
hear without the assistance of any machire, 
when addressed loudly and distinctly. His 
principal amusement in the country is tak¬ 
ing long walks in the most romantic parts 
of the vicinity ; these excursions he some¬ 
times extends even through the night.* 


ANNE DE MONTMORENCY. 

Of the sanguinary character of this con¬ 
stable of France some idea may be formed 
by the specimen which Brantome has given 
of his favourite orders.—“ Go ! Let me see 
those rascals stabbed or shot directly 
Hang me that fellow on yonder tree ! Hack 
me to pieces those scoundrels this moment, 
who dared to defend that church against 
the king’s forces ! Set fire to that village, 
d’ye hear ! Burn me all the country for a 
mile round this spot!” 


• Biographical Diet, of Musicians. 


513 






























THE T4BLE BOOK. 



r. o i d u 24 
OCTOBBE 1792 



Serie 1173 me . 


L ’ A N ler Dfc l,A 
R EPITBLI tiTE. I 



ksmawes^atiomua'. 



pajXibleMuporLewr, 


La loi fmnit de mort 
,%le contrefacteur.,** 




jaNation rdcoini'ensel 
»«le cWnonciateur,*,! 



jfar-suntlc of a jfrntri) assignat for Cat .S'otts, 

Referred to in the following Communication. 


To the Editor. 

Dear sir,—Perhaps you may esteem the 
enclosed as a curiosity worthy of a place 
m the Table Book. It is a genuine speci¬ 
men of the assignats used in lieu of money 
during the French revolution. I believe 
there are very few now to be had. It was 
given to me by a French gentleman, whose 
father (a native of Normandy) had lost con¬ 
siderable sums "by them. Fie had unfor¬ 
tunately converted most of his property 
into assignats, as a precaution during these 
times, which, although eventually of so 
much benefit to the French nation, were so 
distressing while they lasted. But when 
the use of coin was resumed, he found his 
intention frustrated, and himself deprived 
of all bis fortune. 

This gentleman had been the means of 
assisting the duke and duchess of Chartres 
in their escape to England, after having 
concealed them for some time in his own 
house. They left him with reiterated assru- 
ances of liberal recompense and future 
patronage, should they ever be so fortunate 
as to return to their native country:—they 
| did return—but their Norman benefactor 
was forgotten—he never heard any thing 
more of them.—“ Telle est la recompense 
de loyauU J” was the concluding remark 
of his son, who related the story to me. 


He was a pleasant specimen of a French, 
man—light, kind-hearted, and extremely 
enthusiastic; but his enthusiasm was ! 
equally bestowed on the most important or ! 
the most trivial occasion. I have seen him 
rise from his seat, stretch his clasped hands j 
out at full length, and utter with rapturous 
ecstasy through his clenched teeth, “ Ah, 
Dieu ! que e'etoit beau J” when perhaps the 
subject of his eulogy was the extraordinary 
leap of some rope-dancer, or the exagge¬ 
rated shout of some opera-singer, whose 
greatest recommendation was, that she pos¬ 
sessed “ une voix a enlever le toit.” He 
had a habit of telling immensely long sto- j 
ries, and always forgot that you had heard | 
him relate them often and often before. He 
used to tack his sentences together by an 
awful “ alors, y> which was the sure sign of 
his being in the humour (although by the 
by he never was otherwise) for telling one 
of his pet anecdotes, or, more properly 
interminable narratives, for such he mad« 
them by his peculiar tact at spinning there 
out. He had three special favourites ;—the 
one above related of aristocratic ingrati¬ 
tude;—another about Buonaparte’s going 
incognito every morning, while he was a. 
Boulogne sur Mer, to drink new milk a 
the cottage of an old woman, with whom 
he used to take snuff, and talk quite fami- j 
liarlv;—and the last and best-beloved, ar 


I 

i 




519 































































































THE TABLE BOOK 


account of his own Rood fortune in having 
once actually spoken with the emperor Na¬ 
poleon Buonaparte himself! He had been 
an officer on board one of the ships belong- 
i ing to the Jlotille destined for the invasion 
of England, and almost adored Buonaparte 
as a sort of God. He was perhaps as 
affectionate-hearted a human being as could 
possibly exist, and I never heard him speak 
bitterly against any one, excepting Mes¬ 
sieurs les Clergls. 

1 have digressed considerably, but the 
assignat is merely a matter of curiosity to 
look at, and does not admit of much com¬ 
ment. 

1 am, dear sir, 

Your respectful admirer, 
June 28, 1827. M. H. 


BUYING AND SELLING. 

A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doinf? 
>* rung ; and an huckster shall not be freed from sin. 

As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the 
Stones ; so doth sin stick close between buying and 
selling. Ecclcsiasticus. 

It has been observed in the House of 
Commons, “ That commerce tends to cor¬ 
rupt the morals of a people.” If we exa¬ 
mine the expression, we shall find it true, 
<n a certain degree. 

Perhaps every tradesman can furnish out 
numberless instances of small deceit. His 
conduct is marked with a littleness, which 
though allowed by general consent, is not 
strictly just. A person with whom I have 
long been connected in business, asked if 
l had dealt with his relation whom he had 
| brought up, and who had lately entered 
: into commercial life. I answered in the 
: affirmative He replied, “ He is a very 
j honest fellow.” I told him 1 saw all the 
finesse of a tradesman about him. “ Oh, 
rejoined my friend, a man has a right to 
say all he can in favour of his own goods.” 

Nor is the seller alone culpable. The 
buyer takes an equal share in the deception. 
Though neither of them speak their senti- 
5 ments, they well understand each other. 
Whilst a treaty is agitating, the buyer pro¬ 
nounces against the article; but when 
finished, the seller whispers to his friend, 
“ It is well sold,” and the buyer smiles at 
the bargain. The commercial track is a 
line of minute deceits. 

But, on the other hand, it does not seem 
possible for a man in trade to pass this 
line, without wrecking his reputation ; 
which, if once broken, can never be made 
whole. The character of a tradesman is 
valuable; it is his all; therefore, whatever 


seeds of the vicious kind may shoot forth 
in the mind, they are carefully watched and 
nipped in the bud, that they may never 
blossom into action. 

Having stated the accounts between mo¬ 
rality and trade, I shall leave the reader to 
draw the balance, and only ask, “ Whether : 
the people in trade are more corrupt than 
those out ?” If the curious reader will lend 
an attentive ear to a pair of farmers in the 
market, bartering for a cow, he wiM find as 
much dissimulation as at St. James’s, or at 
any other saint’s, but couched in more ; 
homely phrase. The man of well-bred 
deceit is “ infinitely your friend—it would 
give him immense pleasure to serve you !” 

while the man in the frock “ will be- 

if he tells you a word of a lie !” 

Having occasion for a horse, in 1759, I 
mentioned it to an acquaintance, and in¬ 
formed him of the uses the animal was 
wanted for ; he assured me he had one that 
would exactly suit; which he showed in 
the stable, and held the candle pretty high, ' 
“ for fear of affecting the straw.” I told j 
him it was needless to examine him, for I ! 
should rely upon his word, being conscious 
he was too much my friend to deceive me; 

I therefore bargained, and caused him to 
be sent home. But by the light of the sun j 
which next morning illumined the heavens, ■ 
I perceived the horse was “ greased” on all 
fours I therefore, in gentle terms, up¬ 
braided my friend with duplicity, when he 
replied with some warmth, “ I would cheat 
my own brother in a horse.” Had this 
honourable friend stood a chance of selling 
me a horse once a week, his own interest , 
would have prevented himfrom deceiving me. I 

A man enters into business with a view 
of acquiring a fortune—a laudable motive ! 
That property whieh arises from honest in- < 
dustry is an honour to its owner; the re- i 
pose of his age, the reward of a life of 
attention; but great as the advantage j 
seems, yet, being of a private nature, it is 
one of the least in the mercantile walk. 
For the intercourse occasioned by traffic 
gives a man a view of the world, and of 
himself; removes the narrow limits that 
confine his judgment, expands the mind, 
opens his understanding, removes his pre¬ 
judices, and polishes his manners. Civility 
and humanity are ever the companions of 
trade; the man of business is the man of 
liberal sentiment: if he be not the philoso¬ 
pher of nature he is the friend of his coun¬ 
try. A baibarous and commercial people 
is a contradiction.* 


* Hutton 8 Hihtory of Birmingham. 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


LONGEVITY 

Of a remarkable Highlander. 

In August, 1827, John Macdonald ex¬ 
pired in his son’s house, in the Lawnmar- 
ket, at the advanced age of one hundred 
and seven years. lie was born in Glen 
Tinisdale, in the Isle of Skye, and, like the 
other natives of that quarter, was bred to 
rural labour. Early one morning in his 
youth, when looking after his black cattle, 
he was surprised by the sight of two ladies, 
as he thought, winding slowly round a hill, 
and approaching the spot where he stood. 
When they came up, they inquired for a 
well or stream, where a drink of water 
could be obtained. He conducted them to 
the “ Virgin Well,” an excellent spring, 

, which was held in great reverence on ac¬ 
count of its being the scene of some super¬ 
stitious and legendary tales. When they 
had quenched their thirst, one of the ladies 
rewarded Macdonald with a shilling, the 
first silver coin of which he was possessed. 
At their own request he escorted them to a 
gentleman’s house at some distance, and 
there, to his great surprise and satisfaction, 
he learned that the two “ ladies ” were 
Flora Macdonald and prince Charles Stevv- 
, art. 

This was the proudest incident in Mac¬ 
donald’s patriarchal life ; and, when sur¬ 
rounded by his Celtic brethren, he used to 
dilate on all the relative circumstances with 
a sort of hereditary enthusiasm, and more 
than the common garrulity of age. He 
afterwards turned joiner, and bore a con¬ 
spicuous part in the building ot the first 
protestant church which was erected in the 
island of North Uist. He came to Edin¬ 
burgh twenty-three years before his death, 
and continued to work at his trade till he 
was ninety-seven years of age. 

Macdonald was a temperate, regular- 
living man, and never paid a sixpence to a 
surgeon for himself, nor had an hour s sick- 
| ness in the whole course of his life. He 
used to dance regularly on New-year’s 
day, along with some Highland friends, to 
the bagpipe. On New-years day, 1825, 
he danced a reel w : ith the fathei, the son, 
the giandson, and great-grandson, and was 
in more than his usual spirits. His hearing 
was nothing impaired, and till within three 
weeks of his demise he could have threaded 
the finest needle with facility, without 
glasses.* 


• Scotsman. August, 182?. 


DnSrobcrtfS 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS 
No. V. 

Having examined what knowledge tliu 
ancients had in logic and metaphysics, we 
are now to consider with the same impar¬ 
tiality, what general or particular disco- [ 
veries they made in physics, astronomy, I 
mathematics, mechanics, and the other 
sciences. 

Of Bodies—the Incorporeality of 
their Elements.—Leibnitz. 

Although the distance may appear con¬ 
siderable between metaphysics and phy¬ 
sics, yet an idea of their connection runs 
through the whole system of Leibnitz. He 
founds this on the principle, employed long 
ago by Archimedes, “ that there must be 
a sufficient reason for every thing.” Leib¬ 
nitz inquires, why bodies are extended in 
length, breadth, and thickness. He holds, 
that to discover the origin of extension, we 
must come at something unextended, and 
without parts; in short, at existences en¬ 
tirely simple ; and he contends, that “ things 
extended’’ could have lmd no existence, 
but for “ things entirely simple.” 

The foundations of this system were, in 
effect, long since laid by Pythagoras and 
his disciples. Traces of it are in Strato of 
Lampsacus, who succeeded Theophrastus 
in the Lyceum; in Democritus; in Plato, 
and those of his school; and in Sextus 
Empiricus, who has even furnished entire 
arguments to Leibnitz for establishing “ the 
necessity of seeking for the reason of com¬ 
pound things, in those which never had 
external existence.” Moderatus Gaditanus, 
in relation to the numbers of Pythagoras, 
says, “ Numbers are, so to speak, an assem¬ 
blage of units, a progressive multitude 
which arises from unity, and finds there its ! 
ultimate cause.” And Hermias, expound¬ 
ing the doctrine of the Pythagoreans, says, 
that, according to them, “the unit, or sim¬ 
ple essence, was the origin and principle 
of all things.” 

Sextus Empiricus deems it unworthy or 
a philosopher to advance, that what falls 
under the notice of our senses, could be the 
principle of all things; for things sensible 
ought to be derived from what is not so 
Things compounded of other things cannot 
possibly be themselves a principle; but 
What constitutes those things may. Those 


521 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


who affirm that atoms, similar parts, parti- 
c.es, or those bodies which only are to be 
apprehended by the intellect itself, are the 
primary elements of all things, in one 
-espect say true, in another not. In so far 
as they acknowledge for principles, only 
I such things as fall not under our senses, 
they are right; but they are wrong in ap¬ 
prehending those to be corporeal princi¬ 
ples : for as those bodies which fail not 
under our senses, precede those which do, 
they themselves are preceded also by what 
js of another nature: and as the letters are 
not a discourse, though they go into the 
composition of it, neither are the elements 
of body, body : but since they must be 
either corporeal or incorporeal, it follows, 
that they are incorporeal. To this end he 
argues, that “ bodies are composed of in¬ 
corporeal principles, not to be compre¬ 
hended but by the mind itself.” 

To the same effect, Scipio Aquilianus, 
treating of the opinion of Alcmaeon, the 
Pythagorean, concerning the principles of 
things, reduces it to a syllogism. “ What 
precedes body in the order of nature, is the 
principle of body ; number is such a thing; 
therefore number is the principle of body. 
The second of these propositions is proved 
thus:—Of two things, that is the first, 
which may be conceived independent of 
the other, whilst that other cannot of it. 
Now number may be conceived independ¬ 
ently of body, but not body of number; 
wherefore number is antecedent to body in 
the order of nature.” 

Marcilius Ficinus imputes to Plato the 
same notion, and gives us the substance of 
that philosopher’s thoughts. “ The differ¬ 
ent species of all sorts of compounds may 
be traced out to something which in itself 
is uncompounded; as the boundaries of 
body to a point, which has no boundary; 
numbers to a unit, which consists not of 
numbers; and elements to what has nothing 
in it mixt or elementary.” Marcilius Fici¬ 
nus expresses the system in a few words. 
' e Compounds are reducible into things un¬ 
compounded, and these again into what is 
still more simple.” One sees here those 
compounds of Leibnitz, which, when re¬ 
duced to their simple parts, terminate in 
the Deity for their cause and source. 

Plotinus also affirms, that “ there must 
be in bodies some principle, or substratum, 
entirely different from any thing corporeal. 

These quotations accord with passages 
in Plutarch concerning Heraclitus. There 
are passages in Stobaeus, from Epicurus, 
Xenocrates, and Diodorus, to a similar pur¬ 
port ; and a remarkable one in Hebrews 


xi. 3. “ Through faith we understand tha 

the worlds were framed by the word of 
God, so that things ivhich are seen were no . 
made of things ivhich do appear. v * 

It every where appears that Leibnitr 
drew many of his notions from Plato; ana 
he defines his “ monads,” just as Plato does 
his ideas, ovrus ovru, “ things really ex¬ 
isting.” An erudite German says, “ I am 
assured by one of my friends, who was 
himself informed of it by a learned Italian, 
who went to Hanover to satisfy an ardent 
desire he had of being acquainted with Mr. 
Leibnitz, and spent three weeks with him, 
that this great man, at parting, said to him : 
‘ Sir you have often been so good as to in¬ 
sinuate, that you looked upon me as a man 
of some knowdedge. Now, sir, I’ll show 
you the sources whence I drew it all;’ and 
immediately taking him by the hand, led 
him into his study, showing him all the 
books he had ; which were Plato, Aristotle, 
Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Euclid, Archi¬ 
medes, Pliny, Seneca, and Cicero.” 

Leibnitz and Parmenides agree in these 
particulars:— 

1. The existence and essence of things 
are different. 

2. The essence of things existent, is with¬ 
out the things themselves. 

3. There are, in nature, * " and dis¬ 
similar things. 

4. The similar are conceived, as in exist¬ 
ence essentially the same. 

5. Whatever exists is reducible to certain 
classes, and specific forms. 

6. All those forms have their existence 
in the unity; that is, in God; and hence 
the whole is one. 

7. Science consists in the knowledge, 
not of individuals, but of kinds or species. 

8. This knowledge differs from that of 
things existing externally. 

9. Forms or ideas, as they exist in God, 
escape the observation of men. 

10. Hence men perceive nothing per¬ 
fectly. 

11. Our mental notions are but the 
shades or resemblances of ideas. 

Of Animated Nature.— Buffon. 

Buffon’s theory respecting universal mat¬ 
ter, generation, and nutrition, so much re¬ 
sembles what was taught by some of the 
ancients, that it is difficult not to think that 
his ideas drew their origin from that first 
school. It appears indeed, that he had 


• Perhaps this principle derives further illustration 
from scripture. “ Id the beginning was the Word' 
John i 1. Ed. 


522 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


attentively read the ancients, and knew 
how to value them. He says himself, that 
“ the ancients understood much better, and 
made a greater progress in the natural history 
of animals and minerals, than we have 
done. They abounded more in real obser¬ 
vations ; and we ought to have made much 
better advantage of their illustrations and 
-emarks.” Yet Buffon does not seem to 
nave perceived the analogy which every 
where reigns between his system and that 
of the ancients. 

Anaxagoras thought that bodies were 
composed of small, similar, or homogeneous 
particles; that those bodies, however, ad¬ 
mitted a ccitain quantity of small particles 
that were neterogene, or of another kind ; 
but that constitute any body to be of a 
particular species, it sufficed, that it was 
composed ot a great number of small pai ti¬ 
des, similar and constitutive of that species. 
Different bodies were masses of particles 
similar among themselves ; dissimilar, how¬ 
ever, relatively to those of any other body, 
or to the mass of small particles belonging 
to a different species. Thus, the ancients 
taught, that blood was formed of many 
drops or particles, each of which had blood 
in it; that a bone was formed of many 
small bones, which from their extreme lit¬ 
tleness evaded our view ; and these similar 
parts they called ofAitiopcteuxs sivuilaTitatcs. 
Likewise, that nothing was properly liable 
to generation, or corruption, to birth, or to 
death; generations of every kind, being no 
other than an assemblage of small particles 
constituent of the kind ; and the destruction 
of a body being no other than the disunion 
of many small bodies of the same sort, 
which always preserving a natural tendency 
to reunite, produce again, by their conjunc¬ 
tion with other similar particles, other 
bodies of the same species. Vegetation and 
nutrition were but means employed by 
nature for the continuation of beings; thus, 
the different juices of the earth being com¬ 
posed of a collection of innumerable small 
particles intermixed, constituting the dif¬ 
ferent parts of a tree or flower for example, 
take, according to the law of nature, differ¬ 
ent arrangements ; and by the motion ori¬ 
ginally impressed upon them, proceed till, 
arriving at the places destined and proper 
for them, they collect themselves and halt, 
to form all the different parts of that tree or 
flower; in the same manner as many small 
imperceptible leaves go to the formation of 
the leaves we see, many little parts of the 
fruits of different kinds to the composition 
of those which we eat; and so of the rest. 
The same, with respect to the nutrition of 


animals. The bread we eat, and the othe 
aliments we take, turn themselves, accord 
ing to the ancients, into hair, veins, arteries 
nerves, and all the other parts of our body ; 
because there are, in those aliments, the 
constituent parts of blood, nerves, bones, 
hair, &c. which, uniting with one another, 
make themselves by their coalition percepti¬ 
ble, which they were not before, because of 
their infinite littleness. 

Empedocles believed, that matter had in 
it a living principle, a subtile active fire, 
which put all in motion ; and this Buffor. 
calls, by another name, “ organized matter, 
always active; or animated organic matter.” 
According to Empedocles, “this matter 
was distributed through the four elements, 
among which it had an uniting force to bind 
them, and a separating to put them asun¬ 
der; for the small parts either mutually 
embraced, or repelled one another ; whence 
nothing in reality perished, but every thing 
was in perpetual vicissitude.” 

Empedocles had a sentiment, which Buf¬ 
fon follows, in the same terms; where he 
says, that “ the sexes contain all the small 
parts analogous to the body of an animal, 
and necessary to its production.” 

Plotinus, investigating what might be 
the reason of this sympathy and attraction 
in nature, discovered it to proceed from 
such a “ harmony and assimilation of the 
parts, as bound them together when they 
met,” or repelled them when they were 
dissimilar ; he says, that it is the variety ot 
these assimilations that concurs to the form¬ 
ation of an animal; and calls this binding, 
or dissolving force, “ the magic of the uni¬ 
verse.” 

Anaxagoras thought as Buffon does, that 
there is no preexistent seed, involving in¬ 
finite numbers of the same kind one within 
another; but an ever active organic matter, 
always ready so to adapt itself, as to assi¬ 
milate, and render other things conform¬ 
able to that wherein it resides. The species 
of animals and vegetables can never there¬ 
fore exhaust themselves; but as long as an 
individual subsists, the species will be 
always new. It is as extensive now as it 
was at the beginning, and all will subsist 
of themselves, till they are annihilated by 
the Creator. 

It w'ould be easy to show, that in moral* 
and politics, as in physics, the most end 
nent moderns have said nothing nev 
Hobbes has advanced nothing, but what he 
found in the writings of the Grecian and 
Latin philosophers ; and above all, in those 
of Epicurus. Montesquieu also assumes 
from the ancients the principles of his 


523 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


•ystem; and Machiavel those of his politics 
from Aristotle, though we have attributed 
to his genius the whole honour of having- 
invented them. But these discussions 
would detain the reader too long; we hasten 
therefore to another field of contemplation, 
not less fruitful of testimony, in support of 
the position, that the most celebrated phi¬ 
losophers among the moderns have taken 
what they advance from the works of the 
ancients. 


For the Table Book. 
GRASSHOPPERS. 

“ Sauter de branehe en branche.” 

The stream may flow, the wheel may run. 
The corn in vain be brown’d in sun. 

And bolting-mills, like corks, be stoppers ; 
Save that their clacks, like noisy rain, 

M$ke flour of corn in root and grain 
By virtue of their Hoppers. 

Apd London sportsmen (sportsincn t) meet 
To shoot at sparrows twenty feet 
Like gmger-beer escaping,—poppers : 
Tigeons are thus humanely shot. 

And thus they go to pie and pot, 

Poor pulse and crum-h-led Hoppers * 

Trees in their shrouds resemble men, 

And they who “ cut may come again,” 

To take their tithe as legal loppers : 
Soldiers and sailors, after wars. 

In spite of glory, fame, and stars,— 

Are they not pen-ston Hoppers ? 

Yet more than these, in summer’s even. 
There hop, between the blades of Heaven 
And hailstones pearly droppers. 

Insects of mirth, whose songs so shrill 
Delight the cars of vale and hill. 

The grassy, green— Grass-Hoppers. 


Aug. 1827. 


J. It. P. 


For the Table Book. 

WASPS. 

A grocer’s shop at Camberwell — “ the 
Grasshopper” — is much visited by wasps 
for the sweets of the sugar hogsheads. The 
shop is closed on Sundays, but they find 
entrance into it by creeping privately 
tnrough the keyhole of the door. 

C. W. P. 


THE BARLEY-MOW. 

To the Editor. 

My dear sir,—Nothing could possibly 
exceed the heartfelt pleasure I enjoyed 
when the last load was drawn into the 
farm-yard ; and the farmer, and his men and 
women, witnessed the completion of the 
** Barley-mow.” Their huzzas filled the 
scenery, and the barns and church replied. 
The carters and horses were trimmed with 
boughs and wild flowers. The hedges 
siding the lanes, and the patriarch elms and 
walnut-trees, as the survivors of templar 
consecrations to the demesne, took their 
tithes, to the joy of birds; and the fields had 
still a generous strewing of ears for the 
peasant-gleaners, who, like ants, collected 
a small store for the days of frost and ad¬ 
versity. The farmer's heart gladdened with 
the reward of his labours. The ale-bottle, 
w hen held upward, gurgled its choice liquid 
into many thirsty throats. Erery thing and 
every body showed satisfaction. The 
housewife came forth with a rake in her 
hand, in her sun-shielding gloves and broad 
flat bonnet, and she sung the rejoicings of 
her peace in a minor key, suitable to hei 
taste of harmony. Her daughter too came 
tripping in a lightsome gait and charming 
advance, towards her sire and myself, with 
cake and cider, dimpling and exhilarating. 

By this time the “ Barley-mow ” was 
coning to a point, and the stray ears were 
plucked out of its bulging sides. 

The evening closing into eternity, the 
peaceful aspect of nature sweetly accorded 
with the quiet sensations of thankfulness, 
glowing in the grateful breasts of the per¬ 
sons cast in this out-of-town spot. The 
increasing pall of dusk, when the work 
was ended, drew the labourers into a circle 
within their master’s welcome domicile. 
Here the farmer and his wife and family 
were assembled, and, without pride’s dis¬ 
tinction, regaled the sharers of their sum¬ 
mer-toil with that beveiage that warms the 
feelings of hope into real joy. This was 
the triumph of the “ Barley-mow.” Even 
tongue praised, as every energy assisted it 
It was a heartfelt celebration. Songs wea 1 
sung, and they danced down the midnight 
The foot of Time stepped lightly, till thv 
weather-featured clock toll’d the end of the 
joyful recreation. Sincerity, unity, am. 
hospitality were blended : the master wa^ 
satisfied with his servants—the servant- 
were thankful with their means of support 
My thoughts rebounded high, as my sym 
pathies awakened to so much happiness i, 



























the table book. 


•o small a compass. Ere satiety arrived 
the companions separated. My candle was 
ready; I shook hands with my friends; 
and, after penning you this outline, retired 
with benevolent impressions and aspirations 
in behalf of a cheerful country life, arising 
from contented hat its and industrious 
courses. 

The two following stanzas were audible 
for a long time in the neighbouring rural- 
ries : 

Let the scythe and sickle lie 
Undisturb’d for many a day 
Labour stoops without a sigh. 

And grisly care is gay 
Bless the harrow and the plough 
Bless the glorious Barley-move 

Now the miller’s hoppers play; 

Now the maltster’s kiln is dry 
Empty casks prepare the way. 

And mirth is in the eye: 

Praise the sun and trim the bough,— 

Hail the golden Barley-mow l 

I am, my dear sir, 

Yours very truly, 

J. It. P. 

T-n T--e, 

August 1, 1827. 


a spring-loom to the injury of his fellow 
workman. This prejudice having subsided 
and most of the weavers that assembled a. 
the “ Plough” being dead, their sons agree 
to the prevailing and supposed improve¬ 
ments. 

I am, sir, 


July 28, 1827. 


Yours respectfully, 

* * p 

> > 1 • 


For the Table Booh. 

THE STEPS OF PERFECTION. 

Paraphrased from the Latin of John Oueu 
Faith, Hope, and Charity. 


II 

T 

I 

A 

F 

5 


Y - 

T- 

I - 

R - E 
A - P 

II - O 

C - II 
7 4 


S 

E 

D 

I 

F 

5 


• S 
A 
T 
I 

R 

A 

C 

7 


S 

E 

P 

S 

4 


HANGING THE SHUTTLE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The custom of “ hanging the shut¬ 
tle ” arose out of the introduction of a 
« spring loom,” which an eminent clothier 
at Langley ventured, in 1794, to have 
erected in one of his cottages, built for the 
use of his men. 

One person performing nearly as much 
work in this loom as two persons, the 
weavers in the neighbourhood met at the 

Plough,” to consider the best means of 
opposing the success of the one-shuttle 
stranger. 

After sundry resolutions were passed, 
declarative that spring-looms would prove 
hurtful to weavers of the old school, they 
suspended a shuttle to a bacon rack by a 
skein of tangled yarn over the table round 
which they sat. Meeting every Saturday- 
night at this inn, they pledged their afhance 
to the “ shuttle,” and continued the custom 
till their meetings were fruitless. 

The “ hanging the shuttle over them 
signified that no honest weaver should work 


When Virtue her examples drew in heaven. 

Seven steps to reach them were to mortals given :— 
Hope, so desirous to be first, attains 
Four of the Seven : but Faith Jive precepts gains : 
Love is the chief, for Love the two excels, 

Aud in the virtue of Perfection dwells. 

P. 


NEWSPAPER ORTHOGRAPHY, 1682. 

From the “ True Protestant Mercury,” 
No. 162. 

Advertisement. 

L OST, a Flowered silk Manto (Mantua) 
Gown of a sable and Gold Coulor, 
lined with Black, betwixt Arniseed Clere 
(St. Agnes le Clair) and the White Houses 
at Hogsden (Hoxton) oh Wednesday last, 
the 19th instant, about 4 or 5 a clock in 
the Afternoon. Any one that can givt 
Intelligence of the said Manto Gown tc 
Mr. Blewit’s, at the Rose and Crown in 
Loathberry, shall have 10 a. for their pains. 
















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Poctrp. 


For the Table Book. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF 
SENNACHERIB’S ARMY. 

\ni it came to pass that night, that the Angel of the 
Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assy¬ 
rians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and 
when they arose early in the morning, behold, they 
were all dead corpses! —2 Kings, xix 35. 

The sun in his beauty had sunk to rest, 

And with magic colours illumin’d the west, 

Casting o’er the temple his brightest gold, 

The temple,—Jehovah’s dwelling of old : 

■ The flowers were clos’d by the evening breeze, 

That sadly sigh’d through Lebanon’s trees ; 
j The moon was up, s.o pale and bright, 

(She look’d more beautiful that night,) 

Whilst numerous stars were round her gleaming— 
Stars in silent beauty beaming. 

The Fiend of Fear his dark wings spread 
O’er the city of God, and fill’d it with dread ; 

But the king at the altar prostrate lay, 

And plac’d on Jehovah’s arm his stay ; 

In anxious watching he pass’d the night. 

Waiting the return of the morning light, 

When forth his embattled hosts should move. 

The power of Jehovah on the Heathen to prove ! 

The Assyrian hosts were proud in their might. 

And in revelry spent the commencement of night, 

’Till the power of wine o’er their coward-souls creep¬ 
ing 

Each man in his armour lay prostrate, sleeping ! 

At the midnight watch the angel of God 

O’er the Assyrian camp spread his wings abroad : 

On his brow was plac’d a crown of light, 

Which shone like a meteor in the gloom of night. 

And quench’d, with its brightness, the moon’s pale 
sheen, 

Which her sickly rays flung over the scene : 

His flowing robe in large folds roll’d, 

Spangled with gems and bright with gold ! 

As over the Assyrian camp he pass’d, 

He breathed upon them a poisonous blast— 

It blanch’d their cheeks—and without a g oan 
Each soul was hurried to his long, long home I 

At the morning watch in the Assyrian camp 
Was heard no sound of the war-horse tramp ! 

The bright sun rose, like a bridegroom dress’d, 

And illumin’d the camp from east to west; 

But there was no spear in his bright beam gleaming. 
Nor polish’d mail his reflected light streaming : 

The spear and the armour were cover’d with rust. 

And prostrate the warrior lay down in the dust! 

To armi' to arms! the trumpet sounded— 

The echoes in mockery the blast resounded ! 
Sennacherib waited his embattled host, 

The pride of his heart aad his impious ooast 5— 


The trumpet was sounded again and again. 

Its shrill notes echoing o’er the prostrate slain;— 
But his bands were bound in the slumber of death. 
Nor heeded the war-stirring clarion’s breath ! 

The angel of God had pass’d over the host— 

In the grasp of Death lay Sennacherib’s host! 

O. N. Y. 

July , 1827. 


For the Table Book. 

NIXON’S PROPHECIES.—MR. CAN¬ 
NING. 

Mr. Canning’s decease on the 8th of 
August, 1827, occasioned the following 
article in the newspapers. 

The Death of Mr. Canning predicted 
by Nixon, the Astrologer. 

In an old book, entitled The Prophecies 
of Robert Nixon, printed in the year 1701, is 
the following prophetic declaration, which 
appears to refer to the late melancholy event, 
which has deprived the English nation of one 
of her brightest ornaments :—“ In the year 
1827 a man will raise himself by his wis¬ 
dom to one of the most exalted offices in 
the state. His king will invest him with 
great power, as a reward for his zeal. Eng¬ 
land will be greatly rejoiced. A strong 
party will enter into a league against him, 
liut their envy and hatred will not prevail. 
The power of God, which reigneth over all, 
will cut him off in his prime, and the nation 
will bitterly bemoan her loss. Oh, Eng¬ 
land? beware of thy enemies. A great 
friend thou wilt lose in this man.” 


The preceding is a prediction made after 
the event—a mere “ hoax ” on the credu¬ 
lous. There is nothing of the kind among 
the prophecies imputed to Nixon, who was 
not an astrologer, and probably existed no¬ 
where but in the imagination of the writer 
of the manuscript copied by the “ Ladv 
Cowper.” 


BUSH EELS. 

At this season when persons, at inns in 
Lincolnshire, ask for “ eel-pie,” they are 

{ iresently provided with “bush eels;” name- 
y, snakes, caught for that purpose in the 
bushes, and sold to the landlords cheaply, 
which are made into stews, pies, and fries. 

P. 


526 

















































| Case containing Hit Start of Xorti ©titoarii Brute, 

AT CULROSS ABBEY. 


Lord Edwa r d Bruce was eldest son of 
Ar Edward, baron of Kinloss, so created 
jy James I. in 1603, to whom the king 
gave the dissolved abbey of Kinloss, in 
Ayrshire, after he had been instrumental 
in bis succession to the crown of England ; 
whither accompanying the king, he was 


made master of the rolls in 1604, died i« 
1610, and was buried in the Rolls chape. 
His son, the lord Edward, killed in duel by 
sir Edward Sackville in 1613, was suc¬ 
ceeded by his brother, who was created 
earl of Elgin in 1633. and an English barop 
in 1641. 
















































































































































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Sir Edward Sackville, by whose hand 
the lord Edward Bruce fell, was younger 
brother to Richard Sackville, earl of Dor¬ 
set, on whose death he succeeded to the 
title. He was lord president of the coun¬ 
cil, a joint lord keeper, and filled several 
other distinguished offices under Charles I., 
to whom he adhered, by whose side he 
fought at the battle of Edge-hill, and whose 
death he took so much to heart, that he 
never afterwards stirred out of his house in 
Salisbury-court, but died there on the 17th 
of July, 1652. 

Between these noblemen there arose a 
quarrel, which terminated in their duel; 
and all that is, or probably can be known 
respecting it, is contained in the following 
correspondence, preserved in a manuscript 
in Queen’s college library, Oxford.* 

A Monsieur , Monsieur Sackvile. 

“ I that am in France, hear how much 
you attribute to yourself in this time, that I 
have given the world leave to ring your 
praises; and for me, the truest almanack, 
to tell you how much I suffer. If you call 
to memory, when as I gave you my hand 
last, I told you I reserved the heart for a 
truer reconciliation. Now be that noble 
gentleman, my love once spoke, and come 
and do him right that could recite the tryals 
you owe your birth and country, were \ 
not confident your honour gives you the 
same courage to do me right, that it did 
to do me wrong. Be master of your own 
weapons and time; the place wheresoever, 
I will wait on you. By dping this, you 
shall shorten revenge, and clear the idle 
opinion the world hath of both our worths, 

“ En. Bruce.” 

A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss. 

“ As it shall be always far from me to 
seek a quarrel, so will I always be ready 
to meet with any that is desirous to make 
tryal of my valour, by so fair a course as 
you require. A witness whereof yourself 
shall be, who, within a month, shall receive a 
strict account of time, place, and weapon, 
where you shall find me ready disposed to 
give Honourable satisfaction, by him that 
shnil conduct you thither. In the mean 
time, be as secret of the appointment, as it 
seems you are desirous of it. 

** E. Sackvile.” 


• Coli ns'* Peerage. 


A Monsieur, Monsieur Baron de Kinloss. 

« I am at Tergose, a town in Zeland, to 
give what satisfaction your sword can ren- i 
der you, accompanied with a worthy gentle¬ 
man for my second, in degree a knight, j 
And, for your coming, I will not limit you ( 
a peremptory day, but desire you to make 
a definite and speedy repair, for your own ; 
honour, and fear of prevention; at which 
time you shall find me there. 

Tergose,\Oth “ E. Sackvile.” 

of August, 1613. 

A Monsieur, Monsieur Sackvile. 

“ I have received your letter by your 
man, and acknowledge you have dealt 
nobly with me; and now I come, with all 
possible haste, to meet you. 

** E. ]Bruce.” 

The combat was fierce, and fatal to lord 
Bruce. The survivor, sir Edward Sack 
ville, describes it in a letter, which will be 
inserted at a future time. For the present 
purpose it is merely requisite to state, that 
lord Stowel), in a communication to the 
earl of Aberdeen, president of the Society 
of Antiquarians, dated February 15, 1822, 
seems to have determined the spot whereon 
the duel was fought, and the place of lord 
Bruce’s interment. From that communica¬ 
tion, containing an account of the discovery 
of his heart, with representations of the case 
wherein it was enclosed, the following detail 
is derived, together with the engravings. 

It has always been presumed that the 
duel was fought under the walls of Ant¬ 
werp ; but the combatants disembarked at 
Bergen-op-Zoom, and fought near that 
town, and not Antwerp. The circumstances 
are still well remembered at Bergen, while 
at Antwerp there is not a trace of them. 
A small piece of land, a mile and a half 
from the Antwerp gate of Bergen, goes by 
the name of I^hCerland ; it is recorded as the 
spot where Bruce fell; and, according to 
tradition, was purchased by the parties to 
fight upon. The spot is unclaimed at the 
present day, and marked by a little earth¬ 
en boundary, which separates it from the 
surrounding corn-fields. It was considered, 
until the French revolution, as free ground, 
where any person might take refuge with¬ 
out being liable to arrest. Lord Bruce was 
buried at Bergen, and a monument is stated 
to have been erected to his memory within 
the great Protestant church, which was 
nearly destroyed in the siege of 1747. 


528 












THE TABLE BOOK. 



appraranw of tfir ?)cart of Sort Ctitoarti asrtirr- 


In consequence of a tradition, that the 
heart of lord Edward Bruce had been sent 
from Holland, and interred in the vault or 
borying-ground adjoining the old abbey 
church of Culross, in Perthshire, sir Robert 
Preston directed a search in that place in 
1808, with the following result.—Two flat 
stones, without inscription, about four feet 
in length and two in breadth, were disco¬ 
vered about two feet below the level of the 
pavement, and partly under an old projec¬ 
tion in the wall of the old building. These 
stones were strongly clasped together with 
iron ; and when separated, a silver case, or 
box, of foreign workmanship, shaped like a 
heart, was found in a hollow or excavated 
place between them. Its lid was engraved 
with the arms and name “ Lord Edward 
Uruseit had hinges and clasps; and 
when opened, was found to contain a heart, 
carefully embalmed, in a brownish coloured 
liquid. After drawings were taken of it, 
as represented in the present engravings, 
it was carefully replaced in its former 
situation. There was a small leaden box 
between the stones in another excavation ; 
the contents of which, whatever they were 
originally, appeared reduced to dust. 

Some time after this discovery, sir Robert 
Preston caused a delineation of the silver 
case, according to the exact dimensions, 
with an inscription recording its exhuma¬ 
tion and re-deposit, to be engraved on a 


brass plate, and placed upon the projection 
of the wall where the heart was found.* 

It is a remarkable fact, that the cause of 
t' r e quarrel between lord Bruce and sir 
Edward Sackvile has remained wholly un¬ 
detected, notwithstanding successive inves¬ 
tigations at different periods. The last was 
conducted by the late lord Leicester, and 
several gentlemen, whose habits and love 
of investigation are equally well known, 
but they were unable to discover the slight- ! 
est clue to the object of their anxious and 
diligent inquiry. Lord Clarendon, in his 
“ History of the Rebellion,” records the 
combat as an occurrence of magnitude, 
from its sanguinary character and the emi¬ 
nence of the parties engaged in it. He 
does not say any thing respecting the occa¬ 
sion of the feud, although lord Bruce’s 
challenge seems to intimate that it was 
matter of public notoriety. 

HEART BURIAL. 

During the rebuilding of part of the 
church of Chatham, Kent, in 1788, there 
was found in one of the vaults a leaden pot, 
containing, according to an inscription, 
the heart of a woman, one Hester Harris. 
The pot appeared to have been nailed up 
to the side of the vault, there being a piece 
of lead soldered on for that purpose.f 


• Archaologia, xx. 515. 


* Gent Mag. 1789. 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 


POETICAL QUID PRO QUO. 

A Greek poet frequently offered little 
compliments to Augustus, with hopes of 
some small reward. His poems were 
worthless and unnoticed, but as he per¬ 
sisted in his adulation, Augustus amused 
himself with writing an epigram in praise 
of the poet, and when he received the next 
customary panegyric, presented his lines to 
the bard with surprising gravity. The poor 
man took and read them, and with appa¬ 
rent delight deliberately drew forth two 
farthings, and gave them to thf? emperor, 
saying, “ This is not equal to the demands 
of your situation, sire ; but 'tis all I have: 
if I had more I would give it to you.” 
Augustus could not resist this; he burst 
into laughter, and made the poet a hand¬ 
some present. 


POCKETS. 

Mr. Gifford relates the preceding anec¬ 
dote, in a note on his Juvenal, from Macro- 
bius. He makes the poet draw the far¬ 
things from his “ pocketbut the pocket 
was unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 
Mr. Fosbroke says the men used the girdle, 
and the women their bosom ; and that Strutt 
thinks the scrip, and purse, or bag, were 
succedanea. The Anglo-Saxon and Nor¬ 
man women wore pocketting sleeves ; and 
sleeves with pockets in them, mentioned by 
DuCange, Matthew Paris, Malmesbury, and 
Knighton, were searched, before the wear¬ 
ers could be admitted to the royal presence. 
Sleeve pockets are still worn by the monks 
in Portugal. 


POCKET HANDKERCHIEFS. 

These useful appendages to dress were 
certainly not in use with the Greeks. The 
most ancient text wherein handkerchiefs 
are expressly mentioned, describes them as 
dong cloths, called oraria, used and worn 
by senators “ ad emungendum et exspuen- 
dum that use is said to have grown out 
of the convenience of the orarium, which 
is supposed to have been merely used at 
first to wave for applause in the public 
shows. Mr. Fosbroke presumes it to have 
been the “ swat-cloth ” of the Anglo- 
Saxons ; for one called mappula and mani- 
pulus was then worn on the left side to 
wjp^ the nose. In subsequent ages there 


was the manuariolum , one carried in the 
hand during summer, on account of per¬ 
spiration. Queen Elizabeth wore handker¬ 
chiefs of party-coloured silk, or cambric 
edged with gold lace. 


PICKPOCKETS. 

The old robbers, in the “ good old times,” 
when purses were carried in the hand or 
borne at the side, cut them away, and car¬ 
ried them off with the contents, and hence 
they were called “ cut-purses.” In the 
scarce “ History of Highwaymen,” by 
Smith, there is a story of a ludicrous pri¬ 
vate robbery, from “ the person” of a man, 
mistakenly committed by one of these cut- 
purses. One of Shakspeare’s rogues, Auto- 
lycus, says, that “ to have an open ear, a 
quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary 
for a cut-purse.” Of course, “ pickpockets” 
are of modern origin ; they “ came up” with 
the wearing of pockets. 


(gairtcb piags 

No. XXXI. 

[From the “ Triumphant Widow,” a Co¬ 
medy, by the Duke of Newcastle, 1677.] 

Humours of a Thief going to Execution. 

Officers. Room for the •prisoner there, room for the 
prisoner. 

Footpad. Make room there; ’tis a strange thing a 
man cannot go to be hanged without crowding for it. 

1st Fellow. Pray, Sir, were not you a kin to one 
Hinder * 

Footpad. No; I had run faster away then. 

_d Fellow. Pray, prisoner, before your death clear 
your conscience, and tell me truly, &c. 

(all ask him questions about robberies.) 

Margery. I am sure you had my Lady’s gilt caudle 
cup. 

Footpad. Yes, and would have kept it; but she has 
it again, has she not ? 

James. And the plate out of my buttery— 

Footpad. Well, and had she not it again ? what a 
plague would you have ? you examine me, as if yon 
would hang me, after I am hanged. Pray, officers, rid 
me of these impertinent people, and let me die in 
quiet. 

1st Woman. O lord! how angry he is 1 that shews 
he is a right reprobate, I warrant you. 

Footpad. I believe, if all of you were to be hanged. 

• A noted Highwayman in those days. 


530 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


which I hope may be m good time, you would not be 
very merry. 

2 d TVoman. Lord, what a down look he has! 

1st Woman. Aye. and what a cloud in his forehead, 
goody Twattle, mjtrk that— 

2d TV oman. Aye, and such frowning wrinkles, I 
warrant you, not so much as a smile from him. 

Footpad. Smile, quoth she! Tho’ tis sport for you, 
’tis none for me, I assure you. 

1st TVoman. Aye, but *tis so long before you are 
hanged. 

Footpad. I wish it longer, good woman. 

1st Fellow. Prithee, Mr. Thief, let this be a warning 
to you for ever doing the like again. 

Footpad. I promise you it shall. 

2d Woman. That’s well; thank you with all my 
heart, la! that was spoken like a precious godly man 
now. 

1st Woman. By my truly, methinks now he is a 
very proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day. 

Footpad. Aye, so are all that are hanged ; the gal¬ 
lows adds a great deal of grace to one’s person. 

2d Woman. I vow h‘e is a lovely man ; ’tis pity he 
should be taken away, as they say, in the flower of his 
age. 

1st Officer. Come, dispatch, dispatch; what a plague 
shall we stay all day, and neglect our business, to hang 
one thief ? 

2d Officer. Pray, be hanged quickly. Sir; for I am 
to go to a Fair hard by. 

1st Officer. And I am to meet some friends to drink 
out a stand of ale by and by. 

1st Woman. Nay, pray let him speak, and die like a 
Christian. 

2d Woman. O, I have heard brave speeches at this 
place before. 

Footpad. Well, good people—if I may be bold to 
call you so—this Pulpit was not of my chusing. I 
shall shortly preach mortality to you without speak¬ 
ing, therefore pray take example by me, and then I 
know what will become of ye. I will be, I say, your 
memento mori, hoping you will all follow me. 

ls$ Fellow. O he speaks rarely. 

2d Fellow. Aye, does Latin it. 

f ootpad. I have been too covetous, and at last 
taken for it, and am very sorry for it. I have been a 
great sinner, and condemned for it, which grieves me 
not a lit'tle, that I made not iny escape, and so I 
heartily repent it, and so I die with this true confes¬ 
sion. 

1st Woman (weeping'). Mercy on him, for a better 
man was never hanged. 

2d Woman. So true and hearty repentance, and so 
pious. 

2d Fellow. Help him up higher on the ladder. Now 
you are above us all. 

Footpad. Truly I desire you weie all equal with 
me ; I have no pride in this woild. 

1st Fellow. Will you not sing. Sir, before you are 
hanged ? 

Footpad. No, I thank you ; I am not so memly 
disposed. 

Hangman. Come, are you read/ r 


Footpad. Yes, T have been preparing, for you these 
many years. 

.st Woman. Mercy on him, and save his better part. 
2d Woman. You see what we must all come to. 

(horn blows a reprieve.) 

Officer . A reprieve ! how came that ? 

Post. My Lady Haughty procured it. 

Footpad. I will always say, while I live, tnat hei 
Ladyship is a civil person. 

1st Fellow. Pish, what must he not be hanged now ? 
2d Fellow. What, did we come all this way for this ? 
1st Woman. Take all this pains to see nothing ? 
Footpad. Very pious good people, I shall shew yo* 
no sport this day. 


[From “ Mamamouchi,” a Comedy, bv 
Edward Ravenscroft, 1675. 

Foolish Lender. 

Debtor. As to my affairs, you know I stand indebted 
to you. 

Creditor. A few dribbling sums. Sir. 

Debt. You lent ’em me very frankly, and with a 
great deal of generosity, and much like a gentleman. 

Cred. You are pleased to say so. 

Debt. But I know how to receive kindnesses, and to 
make returns according to the merits of the person that 
obliges me. 

Cred. No man better. 

Debt. Therefore pray let’s see how our accounts 
stand. 

Cred. They are down here in my table book. 

Debt. I am a man that love to acquit myself of all 
obligations as soon- 

Cred. See the memorandum. 

Debt. You have set it all down. 

Cred. All. 

Debt. Pray read— 

Cred. Lent, the second time I saw you, one hundred 
guineas. 

Debt. Right. 

Cred. Another time fifty. 

Debt. Yes. 

Cred. Lent for a certain occasion, which I did not 
tell you, one hundred and fifty. 

Debt. Did I not ? that I should conceal any thing 
from my friend 1 

Cred. No matter. 

Debt. It looks like mistrust, which is a wrong to 
friendship— 

Cred. 0 Lord I 

Debt. I am so ashamed !—for I dare trust my sou) 
with you. I borrowed it, to lend a person of quality 
whom I employed to introduce me to the King, afld re 
commend to his particular favour, that I might b 
able to do you service in your affairs. 

Cred. O did you so ? then that debt is as it wen 

paid ; I’ll cross it out. 

Debt. By no means; you shall have it, or I vow— 

Cred. Well, Sir, as you please. 


531 












THE TABLE BOOK, 


Debt. I vow I would ne’er have borrowed of you 
igain, as long as you lived—but proceed— 

Cred. Another time one hundred— 

Debt. O, that was to send into France to my wife to 
/ring her over, but the Queen would not part with her 
rhen ; and since, she is fallen sick— 

Cred. Alas I 

Debt. But pretty well recovered— 

Cred. These four sums make up four hundred gui¬ 
neas— 

Debt, just as can be; a very good account. Put 
down two hundred more, which I will borrow of yon 
now; and then it will be just six hundred: that is, if 
it will be no inconvenience to you— 

Cred. Kuh, not in the least— 

Debt. It is to make up a sum of two thousand 
pounds, which I am about to lay up in houses 1 have 
!>ought 5 but if it incommode you, I can have it else¬ 
where— 

Cred. 0, by no means— 

Debt. You need but tell me, if it will be any trou¬ 
ble— 

Cred. Lord, Sir, that you will think so— 

Debt. I know some will be glad of the occasion to 
serve me; but these are favours only to be asked of 
special friends. I thought you, being my most 
esteemed friend, would take it ill, if you should come 
to hear of it, that I did not ask you tirst— 

Cred. It is a e-reat honour. 

C. L. 


FURS.—TIPPETS AND SCARFS. 

To the Editor. 

Dear sir,—Dr. Whitaker, in his “ His¬ 
tory of Craven,” makes several extracts 
from the Compotus of Bolton in Cra¬ 
ven, a folio of a thousand pages, kept by 
the monastery; which book begins in 1290 
and ends in 1325. On one item, “ In 
furur& de Buget, vs.,” the doctor has the 
following note, which may be interesting 
to others besides the lovers of the delight¬ 
ful science of heraldry. 

“ In Tururd de Buget. In the middle 
ages jfxtr of different species formed an ele¬ 
gant and comfortable appendage, not only 
to professional habits, but to the ordinary 
dress of both sexes, from trie sovereign to 
the private gentleman. Beneath the latter 
rank, none but the coarsest kinds were ever 
m use, which they certainly wore ; for Chau¬ 
cer, who intended to clothe his personifi¬ 
xation of Avarice in the garb of Poverty, 
i Hows her, notwithstanding, ‘ a burnette 
'ote, furred with no meniveere, but with a 
uire rough of lambe skynnes, hevy and 
blacked ( Horn. Ros.) The different sorts 
enumerated in the Compotus are, the buget , 
or budge , gris, de ventre leporino, the white 
’ v tr of the hare’s belly, and de pellibus agni- 


nis , or lambs* skins The last of tnes£, 
which still forms the lining of the hoods ol 
the bachelors of arts at Cambridge, was 
anciently worn both by bishops and noble¬ 
men. For the first, see Mr. Warton’s note 
on ‘ Comus,’ edit. i. p. 146; and the in¬ 
ventory of the wardrope of the second earl 
of Cumberland in that volume. With re¬ 
spect to budge , or buget, it is understood 
by Mr. Warton (note on Comus, line 709* 
to be fur in general; but this interpretation 
is negatived by the terms of the present 
article, furura de buget. Whatever budgi 
may have been, it is unknown to Du Cange, 
who has, with immense labour and erudi¬ 
tion, collected every thing known on the 
subject in the middle ages. It was cer¬ 
tainly scarce and expensive, being used for 
the lining of the prior’s (Bolton) hood 
alone. After all, I suspect it to have been 
the skin of the Lithuanian weasel.* Even 
as late as Dr. Cairns’s time, the hoods ol 
the regent masters of arts of Cambridge 
were lined ‘ pelle arminfi seu Lituana Can¬ 
dida.’ Lituan is sometimes used by the 
old writers on heraldry as synonymous 
with ermine. If I am right in my conjec¬ 
ture, therefore, budge so nearly resembled 
ermine, that either skin might be used in¬ 
differently as a badge of the same academi¬ 
cal rank. And this accounts for Milton’s 
epithet ‘ budge/ as applied to doctors, 
whose congregation robes at Cambridge 
are still faced with ermine. Gris, I think, 
was the skin of the grey, or badger.f The 
sleeves of Chaucer’s monk, ‘ a fayre pre¬ 
late,’ who was gayly and expensively 
habited, were ‘ purfited with gris ;’ and 
in the head of a bishop in painted glass, I 
have a fine specimen of this fur in the form 
of a tippet about the neck. 

“ It seems that, in the middle ages, eccle¬ 
siastics were apt to luxuriate in the use of 
beautiful and costly furs; ‘ Ovium itaque 
et agnorum despiciuntur exuviae ; eimelini, 
gibelini (sables) martores exquiruntur et 
vulpes.’ This vanity was checked by an 
English sumptuary law—* Statutum est ne 
quis escarleto, in Anglorum gente, sabelino, 

* I have since discovered that budge is the same with 
“ shanks,” one of the many kinds of fur enumerated in 
the statute of the 24th Hen. VIII.; that is, a very delicate 
white skin stripped from the legs of a tine haired kid. 
and almost equal in value, as well as in appearance, to 
ermine. It is not impossible that the name may have 
been derived from the verb “ budge,” as the legs are 
the instruments of locomotion. See Minshew, in voce 
Furre, Note to second edit. fV hi taker's Craven. 

t In the dialect of Craven, cornfactors or millers are 
called badgers. Why is this?—the derivation in Mr. 
Carr’s work, “ Horae Momenta Cravenas,” Teut. Rat 
sen discurrere, seems to me very far-fetched. I am 
inclined to think that millers obtained the name froi* 
*he colour of their alathes. T. Q. M. 


L- 


632 










THE TABLE BOOK 


▼ano, vel grisbo uteretur,’ Brompton, Anno 
1188. Again, in two MSS. quoted by Du 
Cange, to whom I am also indebted for the 
I foregoing passage, the expensive furs are 
i enumerated thus, 

4 Vairs et gris, et ermines, et sables de rosie 

and again, 

4 Sables, ermines, et vair, et gris.* 

Vair was the skin of the Mus Ponticus, a 
ttind of weasel, the same animal with the 
ermine, but in a different state, i. e. killed 
in summer when the belly was white and 
the back brown, whence it obtained the 
name of * Varia.’ The ancient mineveere 
was ‘ minuta varia,’ or fur composed of 
these diminutive skins ; and Drayton was 
learned and accurate when he gave his 
well-dressed shepherd ‘ miltons* of bauson’s 
skin ;’ that is, of gris, and a hood of mine¬ 
veere. With respect to sables , I have only 
to add, that from their grave and sober 
elegance, they were retained as tippets in 
the habits of bishops and other dignitaries 
in England to the time of queen Elizabeth, 
when they gave place to a similar ornament 
of silk, the origin of the present scarf, 
which continued to be called a tippet till 
the reign of Charles II. See Baxter’s life, 
where we find that puritan, when sworn 
in king’s chaplain, refusing to wear the 
tippet.” 

I am, &c. 

T. Q. M. 


BUDGE BACHELORS.—BUDGE- 

ItOW. 

In the old lord mayors’ processions of 
London, there were* in the first division, 
(he “ budge bachelors marching in mea¬ 
sured order.”f These ^Mt/gv-bachelors go 
in the “ Lord Mayor’s Show” to the present 
day, dressed in blue gowns trimmed with 
budge coloured fur, white. Bishop Corbet* 
:n his “ Iter Boreale,” speaks of 

-a most officious drudge. 

His face and gown drawn out with the same budge; 

implying, that his beard and habit were of 
like colour. Budge- row, Cannon-street, ac¬ 
cording to Stow, was “ so called of budge- 
‘ur. and of skinners dwelling there.” 


• Mittons are gloves with no fingers, having only a 
jlace for the thumb. They are much worn in Craven, 
.and the Scotch shepherds, many of whom are con¬ 
stantly there, earn a little money by the sale of themi ; 
they knit them with common wood skewers. T. Q. M. 

t See the “London Pageaut ” of 1680, in 44 Hone on 
M y»terie».” 


Dairy poetry. 

To the Editor. 

S* r >—^ ou may perhaps think the “ Old 
Arm Chair ” worthy a place in your amus¬ 
ing columns. It is the production of a 
self-taught, or natural genius, like Bloom¬ 
field, living in the .ens of this place, and 
carrying on the business of a small dairy¬ 
man. 

Isle of Ely , Yours obediently, 

^.14,1827. M. W. 

THE OLD ARM CHAIR. 

See Table Booh , vol.i. p. 786. 

What recollections of the past. 

Of scenes gone by, and days that were, 

Crowd through my mind whene'er I cast 
A look upon iny father’s chair. 

How often have I climb’d his knees 
To pat his cheek, and stroke his hair j 
The kind paternal kiss to seize. 

When seated in this old arm chair. 

And much of monitory lore. 

Which bade me of the world beware } 

His tongue has utter’d o’er and o’er. 

When seated in this old arm chair. 

When ev’ning call’d us round the hearth. 

And storms disturb’d the wintry air; 

What merry tales of social mirth 
Have issued from this old arm chair. 

With summer’s toil and heat o’ercome. 

When weary nature sought repair ; 

Oft has he thrown his languid frame. 

Exhausted, in this old arm chair. 

When adverse fortune cross’d his road. 

And bow’d him down with anxious ear* . 

How lias he sigh’d beneath the load. 

When seated in this old arm chair. 

But death long since has clos’d his eyes; 

And peacefully he slumbers, where 
A glassy turf is seen to rise. 

And fills no more this old arm chair. 

Ev’n that w*>’ch does those scenes recall, 

Which ag„ and wasting worms imp..ir 
Must shortly into pieces fall. 

And cease to be an old arm chair. t 

Yet while its smallest parts remain. 

My fancy shall behold him there ; 

And memory stir those thoughts again. 

Of him who fill’d the old aim oh sir. 




533 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

SONNET 

To T. Hood, Esq. written after read¬ 
ing his “ Plea of the Midsummer 
Fairies/* 

Delightful bard! what praises meet are thine, 

More than my verse can sound to thee belong ; 

Well hast thou pleaded, with a tongue divine. 

In this thy sweet and newly breathed song. 

Where, like the stream, smooth numbers gliding 
throng; 

Gather’d, methinks I see the elfin race, 

With the Immortal standing them among. 

Smiling benign with more than courtly grace ; 
Rescued I see them,—all their gambols trace, 

With their fair queen Titania in her bower. 

And all their avocations small embrace, 

Pictur’d by thee with a Shakspearean power— 

O when the time shall come thy soul must flee. 

Then may some hidden spirit plead for thee. 

Edward Moxon. 


For the Table Book. 

THE QUINTAIN. 

-My better parts 

Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up. 
Is but a quintain, a meie lifeless block. 

As You Like it. 

Mr. Chalmers, in his edition of Shak- 
speare, gives the following annotation on 
the preceding passage :—“ A quintain was 
a post, or butt, set up for several kinds of 
martial exercises, against which they threw 
their darts, and exercised their arms. But 
all the commentators are at variance about 
this word, and have illustrated their opi¬ 
nions with cuts, for which we must refer 
the reader to the new edition, 21 vols. 8vo.” 

Ben, the satirical sorrel Ben Jonson, thus 
notices this same qnintin , quintain , or 
gwyntyn, as the Welsh spell it:— 

- At quint in he 

In honour of his bridal-tee. 

Hath challenged either wide countee; 

Come cut and long taile, for there be 
Six batchelors as bold as he, 

Adjuting to his company, 

And each one hath his livery. 

The word gwyntyn literally meant vane , 
and was corrupted by the English into 
quintin, or quintain. Thus, we may natu¬ 
rally suppose, that this ancient custom, and 
more particularly bridal game, was bor¬ 
rowed by the Britons from the Welsh, 


who had it from the Romans on their in¬ 
vasion of England. It is mentioned by 
Minshew, as being a sport held every fifth 
year among the Olympic games, or it was 
the last of the <rtvra.6y.oi, used on the fifth or 
last day of the Olympics : it is supposed to 
be a Roman game, and left in this island 
ever since their time. 

Dr. Kennet, in his “ Parochial Antiqui¬ 
ties/* from Dr. Plot, says, that at the village 
oi Blackthorn, through which the Roman 
road lay, they use it at their weddings to 
this day, on the common green, with much 
solemnity and mirth.* 

Dr. Johnson says, I know not from 
whence it is derived; Minshew deduces it 
from quintus , and calls it a game celebrated 
every fifth year; pains quint anus, and from 
quintaine, French. It is, says he, an upright 
post, on the top of which a cross-post turned 
upon a pin; at one end of the cross-post 
was a broad board, and at the other a heavy 
sand-bag; the play was, to ride against 
the broad end with a lance, and pass by 
before the sand-bag, coming round, should 
strike the tilter to the ground. Sir Henry 
Spelman, who was a spectator of the game, 
coincides with this account, and says, “ by 
which means, striking at the board, whirls 
round the bag and endangers the striker.’ 
At weddings, in England and Wales, it 
was a constant amusement, and so gene¬ 
rally practised in the latter country, that it | 
may almost be said to class with their sports 
and manners. 

In Roberts’s “ Popular Antiquities of 
Wales,”f there is the following account of 
this ancient manly amusement. “ On the 
day of the ceremony, the nuptial pre¬ 
sents having previously been made, and the 
marriage privately celebrated at an early 
hour, the signal to the friends of the bride¬ 
groom was given by the piper, who w 7 as 
always present on these occasions, and 
mounted on a horse trained for the pur¬ 
pose ; and the cavalcade being all mounted, 
set off at full speed, with the piper playing 
in the midst of them, for the house of the 
bride. The friends of the bride in the 
mean time having raised various obstructions 
to prevent their access to the house of the 
bride, such as ropes of straw across the 
road, blocking up the regular one, &c., and 
the quintain ; the rider in passing struck 
the flat side, and if not dexterous was over¬ 
taken, and perhaps dismounted, by the 
sand-bag, and became a fair object for 

* Vide also Mat. Paris: and Strype’s “History of 
London,’’ vol. i. 1st part, page 249, who delineates its 
figure. 

t Page 162. 


534 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


laughter. The gwyntyn was also guarded 
by champions of the opposite party ; who, 
if it was passed successfully, challenged the 
adventurers to a trial of skill at one of the 
tour and twenty games—a challenge which 
could not be declined ; and hence to guard 
the gwyntyn was a service of high adven¬ 
ture/’ 

I In Henry the Third’s time, or about the 
year 1253, it was much in fashion in almost 
every part of the kingdom : this game was 
sometimes played, by hanging a shield upon 
a staff fixed in the ground, and the skilful 
squire riding by struck the shield in such a 
manner as to detach it from its ligatures ; * 
but this was of a less dangerous nature, and 
only used when the quintain could not be 
obtained. 

i There was another, but more hazardous 
manner, to those who were not skilled by 

I habit in the use of the lance and javelin. 

j It consisted of two large poles being drove 

! into the ground, far enough apart to allow 

1 a man on horseback to ride full speed be¬ 
tween them: at the top of these was an 
immense heavy sand-bag, fixed on a pivot, 
so as to swing freely round, and backwaid 

I and forward, with amazing rapidity: this 
the young aspirant for chivalric honours 
delighted in, as a grand treat for the dis¬ 
play of his personal bravery and contempt 
for danger. He commenced by reining in 
his steed opposite to the sand-bag, then 
dashing away at full speed, at the same 
time hurling the javelin at the bag with 
considerable force, and passing between 
the poles before it could resume its original 
position. Many of the squires and yeo¬ 
men of Richard with the Lion-heart, held 
it in great esteem; and they would often 
pass through the supporters, regain their 
javelin, return back before the bag had 
sufficient time to fall, and ride bravely off 
without a single blow from this heavy in¬ 
strument of pleasure. He who executed 
this feat in a handsome manner was de¬ 
clared victor, and the prize to which he 
became entitled was a peacock. 

In the princely ffete given by sir Rhys ap 
Thomas, in honour of his being admitted 
companion of the illustrious order of the 
Garter, it is mentioned thus r—“ When 
they had dined they went to visit eache 
captaine in his quarters, wheare they found 
everie man in action, some wrestling, some 
hurling at the barr, some taking of the pike, 
some running at the quintaine , 8tc.” Dr. 
Watts thus explains it:—“ A ludicrous and 





T 


Mill’s History of Chivalry. 


sportive way of tilting or running on horse¬ 
back at some mark hung on high, move- 
able, and turning round ; which, while the 
riders strike at with lances, unless they ride 
quickly off, the versatile beam strikes upon 
their shoulders.” 

I earnestly recommend for the perusa. 
of the reader, (if he delights in “ merie 
deedes an’ greenewoodee sportes, inn thee 
brighte formes of ladees highh, immersed 
in uncouthe donjons, by treacherouse kings, 
greate lords, an’ mightee knights,”) the 
tale of “ Castle Baynard,” in which he will 
find many very interesting customs, and 
more particularly, an excellent delineation 
of the above game. The author of this 
delightful little story is Hal Willis, who is 
possessed of considerable talent, and a 
knowledge of our ancestorial manners. 

F. C. N. 


A FARTHING LORD. 

Lord Braco, an ancestor of the earl of 
Fife, was remarkable for practising that 
celebrated rule, “ Get all you can, and keep 
all you get.” One day, walking down the 
avenue from his house, he saw a farthing 
lying at his feet, which he took up and 
carefully cleaned. A beggar passing at the 
same time, entreated his lordship would 
give him the farthing, saying, it was not 
worth a nobleman’s attention. “ Fin ’ a 
farthing to yonrsel’, puir body,” replied his 
lordship, and carefully put the coin into his 
breeches pocket. 

In addition to being his own farthing 
filter , his lordship was his own factor and 
rent-collector. A tenant who called upon 
him to pay his rent happened to be deficient 
a single farthing. This amount could not 
be excused ; and the farmer had to seek the 
farthing. When the business was adjusted, 
the countryman said to his lordship, “ Now 
Braco, I wou’d gie ye a shillin’ for a sight 
o’ a' the goud an’ siller ye hae.”—“Weel. 
mon,” replied Braco, “ it’s no cost ye ony 
mair;” and accordingly, for and in con¬ 
sideration of the aforesaid sum, in hand first 
well and truly paid, his lordship exhibited 
several iron boxes filled with gold and sil¬ 
ver coin. “ Now,” says the farmer, “ I’m 
as rich as yonrsel’, Braco.”—“ Aye, mon 1’ 
said his lordship, “ how can that be?”- 
“ Because I’ve seen it—an’ you can do nae 
mair.” 


535 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


SINGULAR TOLL. 

Skipton in Craven. 

From a paper of Henry the Eighth’s time, 
among the MSS. at Skipton, I find that the 
following singular toll was anciently levied 
in Skirack and Crookrise : 

“ Note, that theise eustomes hayth ben 
used tyme out of mynd, by y e report of 
Rob. Garth, forster ther; the whych s-ay- 
eth, that he in all his tyme, and his father 
afore him in y* office, always hayth taken 
the sayd eustomes: 

“ First, that ev’ry bryde cumynge that 
waye shulde eyther gyve her lefte shoo or 
in*, ivd. to the forster of Crookryse, by 
way of custome or gayteloys.” 

The rest only relate to tolls taken for the 
passage of sheep, cattle* and wool. 

The commutation was so high, that I 
suppose the penalty would generally be 
j paid in kind ; and by this ungallant cus¬ 
tom, the poor brides of Craven would be 
reduced to tread the rugged ways of Crook- 
rise in the situation of the light-footed sons 
of Thestius— 

-- re \atov i^vot avecgfivXoi zrebot, 

TtfvS’ it> — 

Eurip. in Frngm.* 


A CURIOUS NARRATIVE. 

For the Table Book. 

Prince George of Denmark, and Sir 
John and Lady Duddlestone. 

The following very remarkable anecdote 
is accompanied by a reference to the only 
work of any authority wherein I have met 
with it. 

Prince George of Denmark, the nominal 
king-consort to queen Anne, in passing 
through Bristol, appeared on the Exchange, 
attended only by one gentleman, a military 
officer, and remained there till the mer¬ 
chants had pretty generally withdrawn, not 
one of them having sufficient resolution to 
<peak to him, as perhaps they might not be 
prepared to ask such a guest to their houses. 
But this was not the case with all who saw 
him, for a person, whose name was John 
Duddlestone, a bodice-maker, in Corn- 
street, went up and asked the prince if he 
was not the husband of the queen, who in- 
Tbrmed him he was. John Duddlestone 
then told the prince, that he had observed, 
with a great deal of concern, that none of 
the merchants had invited him home to 

* Dr. WMtaker’s History of Craven. 


dinner, adding, it was not for want oi love 
to the queen or to him, but because they 
did not consider themselves prepared to 
entertain so great a man; but John said, 
he was ashamed to think of his dining at 
an inn, and requested him to go and dine 
with him, and bring the gentleman along 
with him, informing him that he had a piece 
of good beef and a plum pudding, and ale 
of his dame’s own brewing. The prince 
admired the loyalty of the man, and though 
he had bespoke a dinner at the White Lion, 
went with him; and when they got to the 
house, Duddlestone called his wife, who 
was up stairs, desiring her to put on a clean 
apron and come down, for the queen’s 
husband and another gentleman were come 
to dine with them; she accordingly came 
down with her clean blue apron, and was 
immediately saluted by the prince. In the 
course of the dinner, the prince asked him 
if he ever went to London ? He said, that 
since the ladies had worn stays-instead ol 
bodices, he sometimes went to buy whale¬ 
bone ; whereupon the prince desired him 
to take his wife when he went again, at the 
same time giving him a card, to facilitate 
his introduction to him at court. 

In the course of a little time, John Dud¬ 
dlestone took his wife behind him to Lon¬ 
don, and, with the assistance of the card, 
found easy admittance to the prince, and 
by him they were introduced to the queen, 
who invited them to an approaching dinner, 
informing them that they must have new 
clothes for the occasion, allowing them to 
choose for themselves. Each therefore 
chose purple velvet , such as the prince had 
then on, which was accordingly provided 
for them, and in that dress they were intro¬ 
duced by the queen herself, as the most 
loyal persons in the city of Bristol, and the 
only ones in that city who had invited the 
prince her husband to their house; and 
after the entertainment, the queen, desiring 
him to knee*l down, laid a sword on his 
head, and (to use lady Duddlestone’s own 
words) said to him, “ Ston up, sir Jan.” 

Sir “ Jan” was offered money, or a place 
under government, but he did not choose 
to accept of either, informing the queen 
that he had “ fifty pounds out at use,” and 
he apprehended that the number of people 
he saw about her must be very expensive. 
The queen, however, made lady Duddle¬ 
stone a present of her gold watch from her 
side, which “ my lady ” considered as no 
small ornament, when she went to market, 
suspended over a blue apron. 

I first found this interesting account in 
“ Corry’s History of Bristol,” which was 


u. 


53 $ 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


published a few years ago ; out whence it 
was derived that author does not mention. 
As the editor of the Table Book is equally 
uninformed, perhaps some of his corres¬ 
pondents may be able to point out its 
origin; and, if it be authentic, communi¬ 
cate some particulars respecting the worthy 
knight and his dame. 


©fecobmts 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. VI. 

The Corpuscular Philosophy. 

j The two illustrious moderns, Newton and 
Gassendi, attribute the continual change 
which happens in bodies to the different 
figure and magnitude of their minute cor¬ 
puscles; and affirm, that their different 
junction or separation, and the variety of 
their arrangement, constitute the differences 
of bodies. This corpuscular philosophy 
can be traced from the times of Democritus, 
to its founder Moschus the Phoenician. It 
does not appear that the Phoenician school 
admitted the indivisibility of atoms ; where¬ 
as, Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus 
did. And so the philosophers in all ages, 
down to the Cartesians and Newtonians, 
admit the same. Aristotle, as great in 
metaphysics as able in mathematics, treats 
of it in his works of both kinds A modern 
proposition respecting it has been deemed 
new, although anciently it was expressed 
in almost the very same terms. 

The Newtonians say, “ that the smallest 
parcel of matter is able to cover the largest 
extent of space, by the number of parts 
into which it may be divided; and that 
without so much as leaving any one pore 
of the smallest dimension uncovered.” 
Anaxagoras had previously said, that each 
body, of whatever size, was infinitely di¬ 
visible ; insomuch, that a particle so small 
as the half of the foot of the minutest in¬ 
sect, might furnish out of itself parts suffi¬ 
cient for covering an hundred million of 
worlds, without ever becoming exhaustible 
as to the number of its parts. Democritus 
expressed the like proposition, when he 
affirmed that it was “ possible to make a 
world out of an atom.” Chrysippus says 
.he same, when he maintains that a drop of 
wine may be divided into a number of 
parts, each of itself sufficient to mingle 
with all the small particles of the ocean. 


Motion—its Acceleration—the Fall 
of Bodies. 

The ancients, as well as the moderns, 
define motion to be change of place, or the 
passing from one place to another; they 
knew the acceleration of bodies in falling, 
but not so exactly as to determine its law or 
cause. It was an axiom of Aristotle and 
the Peripatetics, that a body in falling ac¬ 
quired a celerity of motion, proportionable 
to its distance from the place whence the 
motion began ; but they knew not that this 
increase of the celerity of falling bodies 
was uniform, and that the spaces passed 
over in equal times increased proportiona- 
bly to the unequal numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, &c. 
Two mistakes of Aristotle hindered him 
from arriving at the truth. The first was, 
that there were two tendencies in body ; 
one downwards, carrying it to the centre, 
in those that were heavy; the other up¬ 
wards, removing it from it, in those that 
were light. His second error was, that he 
thought different bodies rolled through 
space with a celerity proportional to their 
masses. He did not consider that the re¬ 
sistance of the medium was the only cause 
of this difference; for supposing them to 
move through an irresisting medium, or in 
vacuo , the lightest bodies would then fall 
with the same velocity as the heaviest. 
This is demonstrated by means of the air- 
pump, wherein paper, lead, and gold, de¬ 
scend with equal swiftness. 

Yet all the ancients were not thus igno¬ 
rant. Lucretius, instructed in the principles 
of Democritus and Epicurus, arrived at 
this knowledge, and supports it by such 
arguments, as might do honour to the most 
experienced naturalist of our times.— 
“Admitting that there was nothing in the 
vacuum to resist the motion of bodies, it 
necessarily followed, that the lightest would 
descend with a celerity equal to the weigh¬ 
tiest ; that where there was no resistance 
in the medium, bodies must always move 
through equal spaces in equal times; but 
that the case would be different in such 
mediums, as opposed divers degrees of re¬ 
sistance to the bodies passing through them.” 
Hereupon, he alleges the very same rea¬ 
sonings which Galileo draws from experi¬ 
ence to support his theory. He says, that 
“ the difference of velocities ought to incre'ase 
or abate, according to the difference of re¬ 
sistance in the medium; and that because 
air and water resist bodies differently, they 
fall through these mediums with different 
degrees of velocity.” We shall presently 
see, that the ancients were acquainted with 
the principle of gravitation . 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


GRASSINGTON THEATRICALS. 

To the Editor. 

Dear sir,—When I sent you the sketch 
Jl “ Tom Airay ” of this place, and his as¬ 
sociates, I was not aware that the practice 
of actirig plays was a very ancient one in 
the parish of Linton, (in which this place 
is.) The following extract from Whitaker’s 
history will prove this to have been the 
case, and that Airay was “ the last of a 
bright band.” It will doubtless be perused 
with interest by many of the inhabitants of 
Craven, very few of whom I am inclined to 
think know of the circumstance. Whita¬ 
ker’s history is an expensive work, and only 
in the hands of a few. 

“ Many of these amusements were long 
after in use at Linton. But the most popu¬ 
lar of their amusements was the practice of 
acting old plays, continued, I have no doubt, 
from the old ‘ Kirk Sights/ and clerk 
plays, though I can trace it in Craven no 
farther than 1606, where I find the follow¬ 
ing article in the accounts of Francis, earl 
of Cumberland:— 

“ ‘ Item, paid to the yonge men of the 
town, (Skipton,) being his l’ps tenants and 
servants, to fit them for acting plays this 
Christmas, iiiis.’ 

“ In the interval of a century from this 
time, it does not seem that they had much 
improved their stock of dramas ; for, within 
the recollection of old persons with whom 
I have conversed, one of their favourite 
performances was ‘ The Iron Age/ by Hey- 
wood, a poet of the reign of James I., whose 
work, long since become scarce, and almost 
forgotten, had probably been handed down 
from father to son, through all that period. 
But in every play, whether tragedy or 
comedy, the Vice constituted one of the dra¬ 
matis persojice, and was armed, as of old, 
with a sword of lath, and habited in a loose 
party-coloured dress, with a fur-cap, and 
fox’s brush behind. In some parts of Craven 
these personages were called clowns, as in 
Shakspeare’s time, and too often and too 
successfully attempted to excite a laugh by 
ribaldry and nonsense of their own ; a prac¬ 
tice which is very properly reprehended in 
Hamlet. 

“ In the ‘ Destruction of Troy ’ this per¬ 
sonage easily united with Thersites; but 
he was often found in situations where his 
appearance was very incongruous, as ex. 
gr. in ‘ George Barnwell.’ These rustic 
actors had neither stage nor scenes, but 
performed in a large room, what is called 
the * house/* of an ordinary dwelling. 

* So is a Kitchen called in the Craven dialect. 


“ Sometimes they fabricated a kind o’ 
rude drama for themselves; in which case, 
as it is not iikely that the plot would be 
very skilfully developed, the performers 
entered one by one, and each uttered a 
short metrical prologue, which they ver) 
properly chose to call a fore-speech. For 
why should these honest Englishmen be 
indebted to the Grecian stage for the word 
prologue, when they were certainly be¬ 
holden to it for nothing else? 

“ In these fabrications, I believe, the 
subjects were frequently taken from printed 
plays; but the texture was of very inferior 
workmanship. For this I must beg my 
reader to give me credit; though, if all 
readers had the same relish for what, in the 
language of dulness, is called low, with 
Dr. Farmer and Mr. Warton, I could excite 
more than a smile by their travestie of the 
‘ Merchant of Venice.’ An old inhabitant 
of this place, (Linton,) whom I well knew, 
had the reputation of a dramatic manufac¬ 
turer, though he had, in reality, no talents 
beyond those of an actor. But his fame 
drew upon him an awkward application; 
which, as the stated price of these services 
was three half crowns, he parried very 
dexterously by demanding half a guinea. 
Thus much for the chapter of amuse¬ 
ments.” 

In mentioning Airay’s stage companions 
I forgot to name Sim Coates, one of the 
principal. He was a club-footed man, 
and used to perform the “Fair Penitent!” 
He is lately dead. 

I am, &c. 

Grassington in Craven , T. Q. M. 

Aug. 1, 1827. 


THE GIN ACT—NAMES OF DRAMS. 

On the 29th of September, 1736, when 
the bill against spirituous liquors took 
place, several people at Norwich, Bristol, 
and other places, as well as at London, 
made themselves very merry on the “ Death 
of Madam Gin,” and some of both sexes 
got soundly drunk at her “ funeral,” for 
which the mob made a formal procession, 
but committed no outrage. 

A double guard for some days mounted 
at Kensington; the guard at St. James’s, 
and the horse-guards at Whitehall, were 
reinforced; a guard was placed at the 
Rolls Office, Chancery-lane; and a detach¬ 
ment of the life and horse grenadier guards 


538 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


paraded in Covent Garden, &c. in order to 
suppress any tumult that might happen at 
the going down of spirituous liquors. 

Several of the distillers took out licenses 
to sell wine, others made preparations to 
take to the brewing-trade, and some went 
down to Oxford and Cambridge to open 
taverns there. The accounts of that period 
state, that the university of Oxford intended 
to try their right with them; the privilege 
of licensing vintners having been granted to 
it by a charter of Henry VIII., and after¬ 
wards confirmed by an act of parliament 
in 13 Elizabeth. 

The distillers and others in different 
parts of the town sold a liquor, which 
seems to have been wine, with spices in¬ 
fused therein; and several continuing to 
sell spirituous liquors contrary to the act, 
informations were laid against them to the 
commissioners of excise. 

Drams under the following names were 
sold at several brandy-shops in High Hol- 
born, St. Giles’s, Tothill-street, Rosemary- 
lane, Shoreditch, the Mint, Kent-street, 8tc. 
viz. “ Sangree,” “ Tow Row,” “ Cuckold’s 
Comfort,” “ Parliament Gin,” “ Bob,” 
“ Make Shift,” “ The Last Shift,” “ The 
Ladies’ Delight,” “ The Balk,” “ King 
Theodore of Corsica,” “ Cholick and Gripe 
Waters.” These denominations were with 
a view to evade the late act. 

On the 14th of October, 1736, there 
came on before the commissioners of excise 
the trials of Mr. Robert Kirkpatrick, sur¬ 
geon and apothecary in Turnmill-street, 
and Mr. John Thomas, chymist at Shore¬ 
ditch, on informations for retailing spiritu¬ 
ous liquors, contrary to the intent and 
meaning of the act; and they were both 
found guilty. The penalty was one hun¬ 
dred pounds each. 

G. K. 


A YOUNG POET’S OWN EPITAPH. 

A few weeks before John Keats died of 
decline, at Rome, a gentleman, who was 
sitting by his bedside, spoke of an inscrip¬ 
tion to his memory. Keats desired that 
there should be no mention of his name or 
country. “If there be any thing,” he said, 
“ let it be, Here lies the body of one ivhose 
name was writ in water.'' 


For the Table Book. 

TIME. 

Oh Time, that ever with resistless wing 
Cuts off our joys and shortens all our pain. 

Thou great destroyer that doth always bring 
Relief to man—all bow beneath thy reign ; 

Nations before thee fall, and the grim king 
Of death and terror follows in thy train. 

Thou bring’st the cup of Lethe to the mind. 

Which else on earth no joy could ever find 

Little in youth we think upon thy flight. 

Nor catch the lesson of each passing day, 

Till, when too late, it bursts upon our sight, 

And thou hast crowned us with thy cap of grey : 
Our friends for ever fled, and all the light 
That gilded this dim world hath passed away 
On to eternity—thro’ that sad portal 
Which parts us, and assures us man is mortal. 

Thou teachest us the vanity of earth, 

With which, in spite of thee, we are delighted. 

And lead’st us quickly onward from our birth 
Unto old age, then leav’st us there benighted ; 
Where all our earthly pleasures, joys, and mirth 
Fade fast away,like young leaves seared and blighted. 
And hope, that lured us onward, then, we find. 

Was but an ignis fatuus of the mind. 

s. 


HACKERSTON’S COW. 

This is a Scotch proverb, the application 
of which may be inferred from the follow¬ 
ing account of its origin. A tenant of lord 
Hackerston, who was one of the judges of 
the court of session, one day waited on his 
lordship with a woful countenance. “ My 
lord,” said he, “ I am come to inform your 
lordship of a sad misfortune, my cow has 
gored one of your lordship’s cows, so that 
I fear it cannot live.”—Well, then, you 
must pay for it.’’—Indeed, my lord, it 
was not my fault, and you know I am a very 
poor man.”—“ I can’t help that, I say you 
must pay for it; lam not to lose my cow.” 
—“ Well, my lord, if it must be so 1 cannot 
say against your lordship,—but stop, my 
lord, I believe I have made a mistake, it 
was your lordship’s cow that gored mine.” 
“ O ! that is quite a different affair,—go 
along and don’t trouble me, I am busy—go 
along, 1 say.” 


539 






—— .- - - — - - ■ ' ~ 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


ROPE-RIDING ON HORSEBACK, ON 
ST. MARK’S DAY AT VENICE. 

The gaiety and splendour exhibited in 
the place of St. Mark at Venice on this 
anniversary, is extremely attractive. For¬ 
merly, among the remarkable customs in 
honour of this the patron saint of the city, it 
was usual for a man to ascend and descend 
a rope stretched from the summit of St. 
Mark’s tower, and secured at a consider- 
able distance from the base. 

On the last day of February, 1680, the 
doge, the senate, and the imperial ambas¬ 
sador, with about fifty thousand spectators, 
beheld the annual solemnity. In the first 
place appeared certain butchers, in their 
roast-meat clothes; one of which, with a 
Persian scimitar, cut off the heads of three 
oxen, one after another, at one blow, to the 
admiration of the beholders, who had never 
seen the like either in Venice, or any other 
part of the world. But that which caused 
greater wonder was this: — A person, 
adorned in a tinsel riding habit, having a gilt 
helmet upon his head, and holding in his 
right hand a lance, in his left a helmet 
made of a thin piece of plate gilded, and 
sitting upon a white horse, with a swift 
pace ambled up a rope six hundred feet 
long, fastened from the quay to the top of 
St. Mark’s tower. When he had arrived 
half way, his tinsel coat fell off, and he 
made a stand, and stooping his lance sub¬ 
missively, saluted the doge sitting in the 
palace, and flourished the banner three 
times over his head. Then, resuming his 
former speed, he went on, and, with his 
horse, entered the tower where the bell 
hangs ; and presently returning on foot, he 
climbed up to the highest pinnacle of the 
tower; where, sitting on the golden angel, 
he flourished his banner again several times. 
This performed, he descended to the bell- 
tower; and there taking horse, rode down 
again to the bottom in like manner as he 
had ascended.* 

“ Whoever, says Mrs. Piozzi, “ sees St. 
Mark’s Place lighted up of an evening, 
adorned with every excellence of human 
art, and pregnant with pleasure, expressed 
by intelligent countenances sparkling with 
every grace of nature—the sea washing its 
walls—the moon-beams dancing on its sub¬ 
jugated waves—sport and laughter resound¬ 
ing from the coffee-houses—girls with gui¬ 
tars skipping about the square—masks and 
merry-makers singing as they pass you— 
unless a barge with a band of music is 


* Malcolm's Mannurs ol F".tope 


Heard at some distance upon the water, 
and calls attention to sounds made sweeter 
by the element over which they are 
brought;—whoever is led suddenly,” says 
Mrs. Piozzi, “ to this scene of seemingly 
perennial gaiety, will be apt to exclaim in 
Venice, as Eve does to Adam in Milton, 

With thee conversing, I forget all time. 

All seasons, and their change—all please alike!" 


REV MR. WILSON, 

THE MAN IN THE MOON. 

It will now give pain to no one, if I no¬ 
tice Mr. Wilson, formerly curate of llalton 
Gill, near Skipton in Craven, and father of 
the late Rev. Edward Wilson, canon of 
Windsor. He wrote a tract, entitled “The 
Man in the Moon,” which was seriously 
meant to convey the knowledge of common 
astronomy in the following strange vehicle : 

A cobbler, Israel Jobson by name, is 
supposed to ascend first to the top of Pen- 
nigint; and thence, as a second stage 
equally practicable, to the moon J after 
which he makes a tour of the whole solar 
system. From this excursion, however, 
the traveller brings back little information 
which might not have been had upon earth, 
excepting that the inhabitants of one of the 
planets, I forget which, were made of “ pot 
metal.” The work contains some other 
extravagancies; but the writer, after all, was 
a man of talent, and has abundantly shown 
that had he been blessed with a sound 
mind and a superior education, he would 
have been capable of much better things. 
If I had the book before me I could quote 
single sentences here and there, which in 
point of composition rise to no mean de¬ 
gree of excellence. It is rarely to be met 
with, having, as I am told, been industri 
ously bought up by his family. I have 
only seen one copy, and my recollection of 
what I read in it is not very particular.* 

Mr. Wilson had also good mechanical 
hands, and carved well in wood, a talent 
which he applied to several whimsical pur¬ 
poses. But his chef-d'oeuvre was an oracu¬ 
lar head, like that of friar Bacon and the 
disciple of the famous Escotillo, with which 
he diverted himself and amazed his neigh¬ 
bours, till a certain reverend wiseacre 
threatened to complain of the poor man to 
his metropolitan as an enchanter! Alter 
this the oracle was mute.f 


* Could any reader of the Table Booh forward a 
topv ?—Ed. 

+ Rev. D'r. Whitaker’s History «f Ciavan. 


540 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


SUMMER SHOWERS—SCORCHED 
LEAVES. 

In the summer, after some days of fine 
weather, during the heat of the day, if a 
storm happens, accompanied with a few 
light showers of rain, and the sun appears 
immediately after with its usual splendour, 
it burns the foliage and the flowers on 
which the rain had fallen, and destroys the 
hopes of the orchard. The intense heat, 
which the ardour of the sun produces at 
that time on the leaves and flowers, is 
equal to that of burning iron. Naturalists 
hauve sought for the cause of this strange 
effect, but they have said nothing which 
satisfies a reasonable mind. This is, how¬ 
ever, the fact: in the serene days of the 
summer it is visible that there gathers or. 
the foliage and the flowers, as, indeed, on 
every other part, a little dust, sometimes 
more and sometimes less, scattered by the 
wind. When the rain falls on this dust, 
the drops mix together, and take an oval or 
round form, as w£ may frequently observe 
in our houses on the dusty floor, when ser¬ 
vants scatter water before they sweep. These 
globes of water form convex lenses, which 
produce the same e^'ectas burning mirrors. 
Should the rain be heavy and last long, the 
sun would not produce this burning heat, 
because the force and duration of the rain 
will have destroyed the dust that formed 
these drops of water; and the drops, losing 
their globular form, in which alone consisted 
their caustic power, will be dispersed.* 


ROYAL SUMMER-HOUSE, IN SIAM. 

The king of Siam has in one of his coun¬ 
try palaces a most singular pavilion. The 
tables, the chaiis, the closets, &c. are all 
composed of crystal. The walls, the ceiling, 
and the floors, are formed of pieces of plate 
glass, of about an inch thick, and six feet 
square, so nicely united by a cement, which 
is as transparent as glass itself, that the 
most subtile fluid cannot penetrate. There 
is but one door, which shuts so closely, that 
it is as impenetrable to the water as the rest 
of this singular building. A Chinese en¬ 
gineer constructed it thus as a certain re¬ 
medy against the insupportable heat of the 
climate. This pavilion is twenty-eight feet 
in length, and seventeen in bieadth; it is 
placed in the midst of a great basin, paved 
and ornamented with marble of various 
colours. They fill this basin with water in 


• Petei Huet. 


about a quarter of an hour, and it is emptied 
as quickly. When you enter the pavilion 
the door is immediately closed, and ce¬ 
mented with mastic, to hinder the water 
from entering; it is then that they open the 
sluices; and this great basin is soon filled 
with water, which is even suffered to over¬ 
flow the land ; so that the pavilion is en¬ 
tirely under water, except the top of the 
dome, which is left untouched for the benefit 
of respiration. Nothing is more charming 
than the agreeable coolness of this delicious 
place, while the extreme heat of the sun 
boils the surface of the freshest fountains.* 


SPANISH PUNCTILIO. 

On occasion of the decease of the queen 
mother of Spain in 1696, the Paris papers 
gravely relate the following particulars of 
a dispute respecting precedence. 

The officers of the crown and the grandees 
of the kingdom assembled at the usual time 
to open her majesty’s will; but finding 
that the first lady of the queen’s chamber, 
who ought by virtue of her office to have 
been piesent, was absent, the august body 
sent a messenger, requesting her attend¬ 
ance. The first lady, deeming the message 
a gross attack upon her privileges and 
high importance, indignantly replied, that 
it was her indispensable duty not to leave 
her deceased royal mistress, and therefore 
the nobles must wait on her. 

Thereupon ensued a negotiation by mes¬ 
sages, which occupied eight hours. In the 
course of the discussion, the grandees in¬ 
sisted on their claims of precedence as an 
aggregate body, yet, individually, they 
considered themselves happy when com¬ 
plying with the commands of the ladies. 
Fixed in her resolution, the lady high- 
chamberlain acquainted her opponents with 
her final determination. The decision of 
the great officers and grandees was equally i 
unalterable; but at the last they proposed, 
that “ without rising from their seats, or 
moving themselves, they should be carried 
to a room at an equal distant between 
their own apartment and the lady high- 
chamberlain’s, who should be carried to 
the same place, seated upon a high cushion, 
in the same manner as she sat in the 
queen’s chamber, to the end it might be 
said, that neither side had made a step to 
meet each other.” It seems that the per¬ 
formance of the solemnuy happily termi¬ 
nated the important difference. 


• Foretiere. 






































THE TABLE BOOK 


BOSWELLIAN A. 

The following anecdotes are related by, 
or relate to, the well-known James Boswell, 
who conducted Dr. Johnson to the High¬ 
lands of Scotland. 

It may be recollected that when Boswell 
took the doctor to his father’s house, the old 
laird of Auchinleck remarked, that “ Jamie 
had brought an odd kind o’ a chiel’ wi’ 
him.” “ Sir,” said Boswell, “ he is the 
grand luminary of our hemisphere,—quite 
a constellation , sir.”—“ Ursa Major , (the 
Great Bear,) I suppose,” said the laird. 

Some snip-snap wit was wont to pass 
oetween sire and son. “ Jamie” was bred 
an advocate, and sometimes pleaded at the 
bar. Pleading, on a particular occasion, 
before his father, who, at that time, was 
“ Ordinary on the bills,” and saying some¬ 
thing which his lordship did not like, he 
exclaimed to Jamie, “ Ye’re an ass, mon.” 
—“ No, my lord,” replied Jamie, “ 1 am 
not an ass, but I am a colt, the foal of an 
ass!” 

In 178.5, Boswell addressed “ a Letter 
to the People of Scotland ” on a proposed 
alteration in the court of session. He says 
in this pamphlet, “ When a man of probity 
and spirit, a lord Newhall, whose character 
is ably drawn in prose by the late lord 
president Arniston, and elegantly in verse 
by Mr. Hamilton of Bangour,—when such 
a man sits among our judges, should they 
be disposed to do wrong, he can make them 
hear and tremble. My honoured father 
told me, (the late lord Auchinleck,) that sir 
Walter Pringle ‘ spoke as one having au¬ 
thority’ — even when he was at the bar, 
‘ he would cram a decision down their 
throats.’ ” 

Boswell tells, in the same “ Letter,” that 
“ Duncan Forbes of Culloden, when lord 
president of the court, gave every day as a 
toast at his table, ‘ Here’s to every lord of 
session who does not deserve to be hang¬ 
ed !’ Lord Auchinleck and lord Mon- 
boddo, both judges, but since his time, are 
my authority,” says Boswell, “ for this.—I 
do not say that the toast was very delicate, 
or even quite decent, but it may give some 
notion what sort of judges there may be.’’ 

It is further related by Boswell, that a 
person was executed to please his laird. 
“ Before the heritable jurisdictions were 
abolished, a man was tried for his life in 
the court of one of the chieftains. The 
jury were going to bring him in ‘ not 
guilty,’ but somebody whispered them, that 
* the young laird had never seen an execu¬ 
tion ’ upon which their verdict was — 


‘ death ,* *’ and the man was hanged accord 
ingly .” 

This is only to be paralleled by the 
story of the highland dame, whose sense 
of submission to the chief ot her clar. 
induced her to insinuate want ol proper 
respect in her husband, who had been con¬ 
demned, and showed some reluctance to 
the halter. “ Git up, Donald,” said the 
“ guid wife,” to her “ ain guid man,” “ Git 
up, Donald, and be hangit, an’ dinna anger 
the laird.” 


BOWEL COMPLAINTS 


A Recipe. 

The writer of a letter to the editor of the j 
“ Times,” signed “ W.” in August, 1827, j 
communicates the following prescription, as 
particularly useful in diarrhoea, accompanied 
by inflammation of the bowels :— 

Take of confection of catechu 2 drachms; 
simple cinnamon water 4 ounces; and 
syrup of white poppies 1 ounce. Mix 
them together, and give one or two table¬ 
spoonfuls twice or thrice a day as required. 
To children under ten years of age give a 
single dessert-spoon, and under two years a 
tea-spoonful, two or three times, as above 
stated. 

This mixture is very agreeable, and far 
preferable to the spirituous and narcotic 
preparations usually administered. In the 
course of a few hours it abates the disor¬ 
der, and in almost every instance infallibly 
cures the patient. During the fiuit season 
>t is especially valuable. 


©pttapb 

ON A MARINE OFFICER 




Here lies retired from busy scenes 
A First Lieutenant of Marines ; 

Who lately lived in peace and plenty 
On board the ship the Atalanta. 

Now, stripp’d of all his warlike show. 
And laid in box of elm below. 

Confined to earth in narrow borders. 

He rises not till further orders.* 

---—- 

• From the “ Notes of a Bookworm. 













































1 I I E, TABLE BOOK. 


Nathan Co Id art, 

Glover and Poet, of Dersingham, Norfolk, 


For the Table Book. 

This eccentric individual, whose fertile 
pen procured him notoriety, was the son of 
a small grocer at March in the Isle of Ely. 
To use his favourite expression, he “ came 
forth’' on Friday, the 13th of April, 1735, 
O. S. He received the rudiments of his 
education under “ dame Hawkins,'’ from 
whom he was removed to a most sagacious 
ichoolmaster, named Wendall; and he 
j astonished his schoolfellows by the bril¬ 
liancy of his genius,” till he was bound to 
nis cousin Coward, of Lynn, to learn the 
art and mystery of a “ glover and breeches- 
maker.” He had nearly passed through 
his apprenticeship, and attained to the age 
of twenty, unconscious of the numerous 
“ ills that flesh is heir to,” when one day 
gazing at a small shop-window, nearly 
blinded by gloves and second-hand unmen¬ 
tionables, an accidental apeiture favoured 
him with a glimpse of the too charming 


Miss Barbara Green, in the act of making 
wash-leather gloves. She was a maiden, 
and though something more than fifty, her 
fading beauty rendered her, to Nathan, all 
that 

“ Youthful poets fancy when they love.” 

From that moment his eyes lost their 
lustre,— 

“ Love, like a worm i’ th’ bud, preyed on his damask 
cheek. 

He was to be seen pursuing his avoca¬ 
tions at his “ board of green cloth” day bv 
day, sitting 

-“ Like Patience on a monumeat 

Smiling at grief.” 

He u never told his love ” till chance ena« 
bled him to make the idol of his hope 
the offer of his hand. “ No,” said the ton 
fascinating Barbara Green, “ I will be an 
Evergreen .” The lady was inexorable, and 
Nathan was in despair; but time and 


543 















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


reflection whispered “ griev(ng’s a folly,” and 
it’s better to have any wife than none/’ 
and Nathan took unto himself another, with 
whom he enjoyed all the “ecstatic ecstasies” 
of domestic felicity. 

Nathan’s business at Lynn became in¬ 
adequate to his wants, and he removed to 
the village of Dersingham, a few miles dis¬ 
tant ; and there, as a “ glover, poet, haber¬ 
dasher, green-grocer, and psalm-singer,” he 
vegetated remote from vulgar throng, and 
beguiled his leisure by “ cogitating in co- 
gibundity of cogitation.”—Here it was, he 
tells us, that in 1775 he had a “ wonderful, 
incomprehensible, and pathetic dream ”— 
a vision of flames, in the shapes of “ wig- 
blocks” and “ Patagonian cucumbers,” at¬ 
tended with horrid crashes, like the noise 
of a thousand Merry Andrew’s rackets, 
which terrified and drove him to the 
“ mouth of the sea;” where, surrounded by 
fire and water, he could only escape from 
dreadful destruction by — awaking. He 
believed that the fiery wig-blocks were 
“ opened to him” in a dream as a caution, to 
preserve him from temptation. It was soon 
after this that, seeing one of his neighbours 
at the point of death, he “ cogitated ” the 
following 

“ Reflection. 

“ What oreatures are we ! 

Under the hands of he, 

Who created us for to be. 

Objects of his great mercy: 

And the same must I be. 

When years seventy, 

Creep upon me.” 

On another occasion, while his wife was 
dangerously ill, Nathan, sitting by her bed¬ 
side, became overwhelmed with “ the in¬ 
fluence of fancy,” and believing her actually 
dead, concocted this 

“ Epitapii. 

“ M y wife is dead,—she was the best, 

And I her bosom friend ; 

Yes, she is gone,—her soul’s at rest, 

And I am left to mend.” 

iSathan made a trifling mistake; for, “to 
his great surprise/’ his wife recovered, and 
the epitaph was put by till the proper time 
should arrive. 

Nathan’s dexterity in wielding his pen 
enabled him to serve unlettered swains in 
other matters, besides their nether gar¬ 
ments. He wrote letters for them “ on 
love or business,” in 

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.” 


The following ending of a “ Love-letter 
written by particular desire/’ is a specimen 
of his “ effusions in prose.” 

-“ Marriage is like war; the battle 

causes fear, but the sweet hope of winning 
at the last stimulates us to proceed. But 
the effects of matrimony are much more 
agreeable than war, because the engage¬ 
ment may be accomplished without being 
prejudicial to the welfare of society. Were 
I to mention all the comparisons my warm 
imagination could furnish me with, it would 
swell this letter to a very great bulk. 

“ So to conclude;—the many inconveni¬ 
ences attending my being in business alone, 
are beyond conception; and I wish the fa¬ 
tigue to be abated by sharing it with some 
congenial soul, who may be intrusted with 
both secrets and circumstances, and all 
affairs of importance, too tedious to men¬ 
tion.” 

Filled with self-importance by a lively 
sense of his vast acquirements, and his 
amazing utility to his village neighbours, 
he turned his thoughts to the “ affairs of 
the nation” in the year 1799, and projected 
the salvation of the empire, by a plan of 
finance for raising adequate supplies to 
carry on the war against France with 
vigour. This he submitted in a spirited 
memorial, addressed 

“ To the Hon. Wm. Pitt, First of 
Ministers, &c. &c. &c. 

• “ May it please your gracious Honour, 
Dear sir, to take into your honourable con- 1 
sideration the undermentioned business 
which at this critical crisis and expensive 
period wants very much to be put in prac¬ 
tice, to the advantage of the world, the 
benefit of our own government, the public’s 
welfare, and the glory of Dersingham.” 

Nathan’s memorial runs to great length, 
but he states its real “ business ” in a few 
words.—“ Beloved and honourable sir, be 
not angry at my proposal, if not approved 
of, which is, to beg of all dukes, lords, 
earls, baronets, country squires, profound 
justices, gentlemen, great and rich farmers, j 
topping tradesmen, and others, who, to my 
certain and inconceivable knowledge, have 
so much unnecessary ornamental and use¬ 
less plate, of all sorts and descriptions, to 
deliver up the same immediately to govern¬ 
ment, to be made into money for the sup 
port of this just and necessary war. Ho¬ 
noured sir, my plan is not to debar any one 
from having a sufficient quantity of such 
like plate, but only that which stands and 
remains useless and unused, which would 


544 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


taise many hundreds, if not thousands of 
money. I have but little, yet I am (so is 
my wife, in God’s name) minded, willing, 
and desirous, out of half a dozen tea¬ 
spoons, to deliver up half, which you know, 
mighty sir, will be exactly three.” 

Nathan proceeds to say, that “ Many 
useless things, such as great waiters, tea¬ 
kettles, frying and sauce pans, and sundry 
other articles in the gold and silver way, 
too tedious to mention, were they now 
turned into money, would supply your 
wants of cash. Brass, earthenware, pipe¬ 
clay, china and glass, nothing can be 
sweeter, nor look neater, and sufficient for 
any man or woman upon earth to eat and 
drink out of.—Mr. Pitt, these sentiments I 
deliver from my heart; they are the dictates 
of wisdom and the fruit of experience.— 
Was our good and gracious king, as also 
yourself, worthy Mr. Pitt, once to come 
down into the country, and take a survey 
of matters, you would be astonished how 
abundance of individuals live. Pray, sir, 
in God’s name, take off a few taxes from 
the necessaries of life, especially salt, sugar, 
leather, and parchment. I myself have but 
six or seven shillings a week coming in, 
and sometimes not that, by losses and bad 
debts; and now corn is risen, we labour 
under great apprehension in other articles. 
—Dear and noble sir, I once heard a ser¬ 
mon preached on a thanksgiving day, for 
the proclamation of peace, by one Rev. 
Mr. Stony, at Lynn, Norfolk, mentioning 
the whole calamities of the war; and he 
brought your honourable father in, very 
fine. I wish from the bottom of my heart 
I may shortly hear such a like one preached 
upon yourself.” 

In conclusion, Nathan thus inquires of 
Mr. Pitt, “ Honoured sir, from whence 
comes wars, and rumours of wars, cock- 
fightings, and burglaries ?” Finally, says 
Nathan, “ The limits of one sheet of paper 
being filled, I must conclude, with wishing 
well to our good and gracious king, the 
queen, and all the royal family; as also to 
your honour, Mr. Pitt, your consort, sons 
and daughters, (if any,) and family in 
general.” 

Nathan established his public character 
by his epistle to Mr. Pitt. He made known 
its contents to all his friends, and shortly 
after he had transmitted it, he received an 
acknowledgment of thanks and a promise 
of reward, in a scrawling hand with an 
unintelligible signature; whereupon he 
sagely consoled himself with this remark, 
that great men, <l despising the common, 
plebeian method of writing, generally 


scratch their names so illegible, that neither 
themselves nor any body else can read 
them.” 

Nathan’s notoriety was now at its height. 
He usually visited Lynn once or twice a 
week; and flattered by the general enco¬ 
miums bestowed on his transcendent abili¬ 
ties by his admirers in that ancient town, 
he ventured to disclose a long-cherished 
hope, the object of his ardent ambition, to 
appear in print as an author. His desire 
was fostered by several literary youths, re¬ 
sident in Lynn, to whom he submitted his 
writings for arrangement, and in 1800 they 
were published to the world under the title 
of u Quaint Scraps, or Sudden Cogitations.” 
Previous to its appearance, he received re¬ 
peated congratulations on the forthcoming 
book. Among other “ Commendatory 
Verses” was a poetical address, purporting 
to have been written in America, addressed 
“ To Nathan Coward, the sage Author of 
Scraps and Cogitations, by Barnabas Bol- 
dero, LL.D. VS. MOPQ. &c. of the Cogi¬ 
tating College, Philadelphia.’’ This pleas¬ 
ing testimonial required Milton, and the 
“ far-famed bards of elder times,” to give 
place to the rising luminary of the poetical 
Hemisphere. 

“ Avaunt! avaunt! hide your diminish’d heads 1 
When the sun shines the stars should seek their beds. 
No longer clouds the dawning light imprison, 

The golden age is come! a mighty sun has risen 
A mighty sun, whose congregated rays 
At Dersingham pour forth their dazzling blaze ; 

Not there alone, but e’en throughout all nations. 

Beam Nathan’s Scraps and Sudden Cogitations ! 

None better knows Pindaric odes to write, 

None e’er a better love-song can indite; 

None better knows to play the tragic part, 

Or with sweet anthems captivate the heart; 

None better knows to sport extemo’re wit. 

Or with strange spells avert an ague fit; 

None better knows to frame th’ elegiac air. 

Or with the nasal Jews harp charm the ear.” 

This address is printed entire in Nathan’s 
book, which consisted of epitaphs, love- 
letters, valentines, cures for the ague and 
consumption, reflections, songs, &c. &c. 
The preface, the sketch of his life, and the 
conclusion to the work, were drawn up by 
Nathan’s youthful editors. Through them 
Nathan appealed to the reviewers in an ad¬ 
dress, containing the following spirited 
passage :—“ It is ye, ye mites of criticism 
it is ye alone I fear; for, like your name¬ 
sakes, the greater the richness and good¬ 
ness of the cheese the more destructive are 
your depredations, and the more numerous 


545 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


four partisans.” Towards the public, the 
poet of Dersingham was equally candid 
ind courageous.—“I shun the general path 
of authors,” says Nathan, “ and instead of 
feeling conscious of the numerous defects, 
and submitting my trifles, with all possible 
humility, to the candour of a generous 
public,’ I venture to assert, that the public 
must receive the greatest advantage from 
my labours; and every member of society 
shall bless the hour that ushered into ex¬ 
istence my ‘ Quaint Scraps and my Sudden 
Cogitations.’ For what author, were he 
actually conscious of his numerous defects, 
would wish to trust himself to the mercy 
of that generous public , whom every one 
condemns for want of discernment and 
liberality. No, I profess, and I am what I 
do profess, a man of independent spirit! 
and although I have hitherto dwelt in ob¬ 
scurity, and felt the annihilating influence 
of oppression and the icy grasp of poverty, 
yet I have ever enjoyed the praiseworthy 
.uxury of having an opinion of my own ; 
because,—I am conscious of the inferiority 
cf the opinions of others.” 

These were some of the preliminary 
^eans by which, with an honesty worthy 
lo be imitated by authors of greater fame, 
j Nathan aspired to win “ golden opinions.” 
The final sentence of his valedictory ad¬ 
dress “ to the reader ” is remarkable for 
feeling and dignity. “ I am conscious,” 
says Nathan, “ that I begin to fade; and be 
assured, that if I should be so fortunate as 
to blossom a few years longer, it must be 
entirely imputed to the animating influence 
of your praises, which will be grateful as 
the pure and renovating dews of heaven. 
And when at length the soft breeze of 
evening shall fly over the spot where I 
once bloomed, the traveller will refresh it 
with the soft tears of melancholy, and sigh 
at the frailty of all sublunary grandeur.” 

His wish accomplished, and his book 
published, Nathan’s spare person, (about 
the middle size,) clad in tight leather 
“ shorts,” frequently ambulated the streets 
of Lynn, and he had the ineffable pleasure 
of receiving loud congratulations from his 
numerous friends. Here, perhaps, his lite¬ 
rary career had terminated, had not Napo¬ 
leon’s abortive threats of invasion roused 
Nathan to take his stand, with daring pen, 
in defiance of the insolent foe. Our pa¬ 
triotic author produced a “ Sermon” on the 
impending event. His former editorial 
assistants again aided him, and announced 
his intentions by a prospectus, setting forth 
that, on such an occasion, “ when address, 
argument, and agitation, elegy, epitaph, and 


epithalamium, puff, powdei, poetry, ana 
petition, have been employed to invigorate 
and inspirit the minds of Englishmen, it 
surely must be a matter of serious exulta¬ 
tion, that a writer of such superlative cele¬ 
brity as Nathan Coward should draw his 
pen in defence of the common cause.— 
Cold and disloyal indeed must be that 
breast which, even on the bare perusal, 
does not feel the glow of enthusiastic pa¬ 
triotism,—does not beat with rapture at 
the pride of Dersingham, the glory of his 
country, and the admiration of the uni¬ 
verse.” 

“ Rise, Britons, rise, and rising nobly raise 
Your joyful Paeans to great Nathan’s praise; 

Nathan, whose powers all glorious heights can reach. 
Now charm an ague,—now a Sermon preach;— 

Nathan, who late, as time and cause seem’d fit. 
Despatch’d a letter to great premier Pitt. 

Showing how quick the public in a dash 
Might change their spoons and platters into cash ; 

And now with zeal, attach’d to name nor party. 
Thunders out vengeance ’gainst great Buonaparte; 

Zeal that no rival bard shall e’er exceed; 

To prove your judgment, quickly buy and read.” 

Soon after the publication of his “ Ser¬ 
mon,” Nathan became more sensible to the 
infirmities of “ threescore years and ten.” 
And the epitaph on his wife having been 
duly appropriated, for in good time she 
died, he removed to Liverpool, where he j 
had a daughter married and settled, and 
there, in her arms, about the year 1815, he 
breathed his last at the age of eighty.— 
Requiescet in pace . 

K. 


PETER AND MARY. 

Dr. Soams, master of Peterhouse, Cam¬ 
bridge, towards the close of the sixteenth 
century, by a whimsical perverseness de¬ 
prived the college over which he presided 
of a handsome estate. Mary, the widow 
of Thomas Ramsey, lord mayor of London, 
in 1577, after conferring several favours on 
that foundation, proffered to settle five 
hundred pounds a year (a very large in¬ 
come at that period) upon the house, pro¬ 
vided that it might be called “ The college 
of Peter and Mary.” “ No!” said the 
capricious master, “ Peter, who has lived 
so long single, is too old now for a female 
partner.” Fuller says it was “ a dear jest by 
which to lose so good a benefactress.” The 
lady, offended by the doctor’s fantastic 
scruple, turned the stream of her benevo¬ 
lence to the benefit of other public founda¬ 
tions. 


546 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


<§amcft paps* 

No. XXXII. 

From “ Love’s Metamorphosis,” a Come¬ 
dy, by John Lily, M. A. 1601.] 

Love half-denied is Love half-confest. 

Nisa. Niobe, her maid. 

Nisa. I fear Niobe is in love. 

Niobe. Not I, madam; yet must I confess, that 
oftentimes I have had sweet thoughts, sometimes hard 
I conceits; betwixt both, a kind of yielding; I know 
not what; but certainly I think it is not love : sigh I 
can, and find ease in melancholy: smile I do, and take 
pleasure in imagination: I feel in myself a pleasing 
pain, a chill heat, a delicate bitterness ; how to term 
it I know not; without doubt it may be Love; sure I 
am it is not Hate. 


[From “ Sapho and Phao,” a Comedy, by 
the same Author, 1601.] 

Phao, a poor Ferryman, praises his con¬ 
dition.—He ferries over Venus ; ivho in¬ 
flames Sapho arid him with a mutual pas¬ 
sion. 

Phao. Thou art a ferryman, Phao, yet a freeman; 
possessing for riches content, and for honours quiet. 
Thy thoughts are no higher than thy fortunes, nor tby 
desires greater than thy calling. Who climbeth, stand- 
eth on glass, and falleth on thorn. Thy heart’s thirst 
is satisfied with thy hand’s thrift, and thy gentle la¬ 
bours in the day turn to sweet slumbers in the night. 
As much doth it delight thee to rule thy oar in a calm 
stream, as it doth Sapho to sway the sceptre in her 
brave court. Envy never casteth her eye low, ambi¬ 
tion pointeth always upward, and revenge barketh 
only at stars. Thou farest delicately, if thou have a 
fare to buy any thing. Thine angle is ready, when thy 
oar is idle; and as sweet is the fish which thou gettest 
in the river, as the fowl which others buy in the mar¬ 
ket. Thou needest not fear poison in thy glass, nor 
treason in thy guard. The wind is thy greatest enemy, 
whose might is withstood by policy. O sweet life 1 
seldom found under a golden covert, often under a 
thatcht cottage. But here cometh one; I will with¬ 
draw myself aside ; it may be a passenger. 

Venus, Phao : She , as a mortal. 

Venus. Pretty youth, do you keep the ferry, that 
conducteth to Syracuse ? 

Phao. The ferry, fair lady, that conducteth to Syra- 
cusa. 

Venus. 1 fear, if the water should begin to swell, 
thou wilt want cunning to guide. 

Phao. These waters are commonly as the passengers 
are ; and therefore, carrying one so fair in show, there 
is no cause to fear a rough sea. 


Venus. To pass the time in thy boat, can’st fiaou de¬ 
vise any pastime ? 

Phao. If the wind be with me, I can angle, or tell 
tales: if against me, it will be pleasure for you to see 
me take pains. 

Venus. I like not fishing; yet was I born of the sea. 

Phao. But he may bless fishing, that caught such an 
one in the sea. 

Venus. It was not with an angle, my boy, but with 
a net. 

Phao. So, was it said, that Vulcan caught Mar? 
with Venus. 

Venus. Did’st thou hear so ? it was some tale. 

Phao. Yea, Madam; and that in the boat did \ 
mean to make my tale. 

Venus. It is not for a ferryman to talk of the God* 
Loves : but to tell how thy father could dig, and tk; 
mother spin. But come, let us away. 

Phao. I am ready to wait— 

Sapho, sleepless for love of Phao, ivho 
loves her as much, consults with him about 
some medicinal herb: She, a great Lady ; ■ 
He, the poor Ferryman , but now promotea 
to be her Gardener, 

Sapho. What herbs have you brought, Phao ? 

Phao. Such as will make you sleep, Madam ; though 
they cannot make me slumber. 

Sapho. Why, how can you cure me, when you can¬ 
not remedy yourself ? 

Phao. Yes, madam; the causes are contrary. For 
it is only a dryness in your brains, that keepeth you 
from rest. But— 

Sapho. But what ? 

Phao. Nothing: but mine is not so— 

Sapho. Nay then, I despair of help, if our disease 
be not all one. 

Phao. I would our diseases were all one ! 

Sapho. It goes hard with the patient, when the phy¬ 
sician is desperate. 

Phao. Yet Medea made the ever-waking dragon to 
snort, when she (poor soul) could not wink. 

Sapho. Medea was in love, and nothing could cause 
her rest but Jason. 

Phao. Indeed I know no herb to make lovers sleep 
but Heart’s Ease: which, because it groweth so high, 

I cannot reach, for— 

Sapho■ For whom ? 

Phao. For such as love— 

Sapho. It stoopeth very low, and I can never stoop 
to it, that- 

Phao. That what ? 

Sapho. That I may gather it. But why do you sigh 
so, Phao ? 

Phao. It is mine use. Madam. 

Sapho. It will do you harm, and me too: for I never 
hear one sigh, but I must sigh also. 

Phao. It were best then that your Ladyship give me 
leave to be gone : for I can but sigh— 

Sapho. Nay, stay ; for now I begin to sigh, I shall 
not leave, though you be gone. But what do you thina 
best for your sighing, to take it away ? 

Phao. Yew, Madam. 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Sapho. Me! 

Phao . No, Madam ; Yew of the tree. 

Sapho. Then will I love Yew the better. And in¬ 
deed I think it would make me sleep too; therefore, 
all other simples set aside, I will simply use only 
Yew. 

Phao. Do, Madam ; for I think nothing in the world 
so good as Yew. 

Sapho. Farewell, for this time. 

Sapho questions her low-placed Affection. 

Sapho. Into the nest of an Alcyon no bird can enter 
mt the Alcyon : and into the heart of so great a Lady 
;un any creep but a great Lord ? 

Cupid. Sapho cured of her love by the 
pity of Venus. 

Cupid. But what will you do for Phao? 

Sapho. I will wish him fortunate. This will I do 
for Phao, because I once loved Phao : for never shall 
it be said, that Sapho loved to hate: or that out of love 
she could not be as courteous, as she was in love pas- 
sionate. 

Phao f s final resolution. 

Phao. 0 Sapho, thou hast Cupid in thy arms, l in 
■ny heart; thou kissest him for sport, I must curse 
him for spite ; yet will I not curse him, Sapho, whom 
thou kissest. This shall be my resolution, wherever I 
wander, to be as I were ever kneeling before Sapho; 
my loyalty unspotted, though unrewarded. With as 
litlle malice will I go to my grave, as I did lie withal 
in my cradle. My life shall be spent in sighing and 
wishing; the one for my bad fortune, the other for 
Sapho’s good. 

C. L. 


For the Table Book. 

WHITTLE SHEEPSHANKS, ESQ. 

Formerly there was a farmer of very ex¬ 
tensive property, who was also of great piety, 
residing in Craven, with the above awkward 
Chiistian and surname. He once purchased 
some sheep of a native of North Britain at 
one of the Skipton cattle fairs,and not having 
cash enough with him to pay for them, he said 
to the man, “ I’ve no money by me at pre¬ 
sent, but I’ll settle with you next fair." 
“ An’ wha ma ye be, sir?” said the Scots¬ 
man. “What, don’t ye know me? I 
thought every body knew Whittle Sheep¬ 
shanks.” “ Hout! mon,” said the Scots¬ 
man, “ dinna think to make a fule o’ me ; 
wha’ ever heard sic a name o’ a sheepshanks 
wi' a whittle to it.” This so offended Mr. 
Sheepshanks, that he changed his name to 


For the Table Book. 

MY “HOME.” 

This is the soothing word that calms the 
mind under all the various anxieties, mor¬ 
tifications, and disappointments we meet 
with, day after day, in the busy world. 
This is the idea that enables us to support 
the most trying vexations and troubles—it 
is an antidote for every evil— 

My “ Home!”—There is a deliciously 
restful, quiet tone about the word. It pre¬ 
sents heavenly ideas of soft ease, and gentle 
repose to the oppressed mind and languid 
body—ideas of quiet seclusion, where one’s 
powers and faculties may be relaxed, and 
be at rest. The idea of “ home ” is per¬ 
haps the only one which preserves an equal 
influence over us through ail the different 
periods of life. 

The weary child that slowly draws its 
little tender feet, one after the other, in 
endeavours to keep up with “ dear papa,” 
who has taken it out for a long walk, looks 
up in his face with brightening eyes, as he 
says, “ Never mind, we shall soon be home 
now.” Its tiny fingers take a firmer grasp 
of the supporting hand of its father, and 
its poor drooping head half erects, as it 
thinks of the kind mother who will receive 
it with words of sympathy for its fatigue, 
seat it in her lap, lay its face on her 
cherishing bosom with comforting expres¬ 
sions, and chafe its aching limbs with her 
soft palms. 

The school boy, or girl, when holiday¬ 
time comes—with what anxiety do they 
not look forward to the time of the chaise’s 
arrival, which is to take them “ home!” 
They both think of the approaching happy 
meeting with all their affectionate family— 
the encouraging smile of the proud father 
— the overwhelming kisses of the fond 
mother—the vociferous welcomes of the 
delighted brothers and sisters. Visions of 
well-merited praise bestowed on the differ¬ 
ent exhibitions of the neatly executed copy¬ 
book, the correctly worked sums, (those 
tremendously long phalanxes of figures, 
that call forth the mirthful astonishment of 
the younger party,) the well-recited Latin 
lines, and the “ horribly hard ” translation, 
pass before his mind.— She anticipates the 
admiration that will be elicited by the dis¬ 
play of certain beautiful needlework, (that 
pernicious destroyer of female health, both 
bodily and mental,) which, at the expense 
of shape and eyesight, is perhaps brought 
to such perfection as exactly to imitate the 
finest “ Brussels.”—Alas, poor Woman • 
IIow comes it that we are so blind to our 


648 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


own good, as to employ in such trifling and 
even injurious pursuits all your faculties, 
which (inferior to man’s, as man assumes 
they are) might still be cultivated and de¬ 
veloped, so as to add mental acquirements 
to your gentle qualities, and render you a 
still more amiable and desirable companion 
for us. 

j The man while busy at his daily occupa¬ 
tion thinks of going “ home ” after the 
fatigues of the day with ecstasy. He knows 
that on his return he shall find an affection¬ 
ate face to welcome him—a warm snug 
room—a bright fire—a clean hearth—the 
tea-things laid—the sofa wheeled round on 
the rug-—and, in a few minutes after his 
entrance, his wife sitting by his side, con¬ 
soling him in his vexations, aiding him in 
his plans for the future, or participating in 
his joys, and smiling upon him for the 
good news he may have brought home for 
her—his children climbing on the hassock 
at his feet, leaning over his knees to eye 
his face with joyous eagerness, that they 
may coaxingly win his intercession with 
j“ dear mamma” for “ only half an hour 
longer.”- 

I have hitherto looked only at the bright 
side of the picture. I am unhappily aware 
that there are individuals who never can 
know the luxury of “ home. ’ Mr. Charles 
Lamb says, that “ the home of the very 
poor is no home.” And I also aver, that 
the home of the very rich is no home. lie 
may be constantly at home if he chooses, 
therefore he can never know the delightful 
sensation of a return to it, after having 
been obliged (for with human beings the 
chief charm of a thing seems to arise from 
its being denied to us) to remain out all 
dav. Besides, “ home ” should be a place 
of simplicity and quiet retirement after the 
turmoil of the world. Do the rich find 
these amid their numerous guests and 
'officious domestics—their idle ceremony, 
'and pomp, and ostentation? This is not 
the “ease and comfort” (that greatest 
source of an Englishman s deligh.) which 
should be peculiar to “ homo. - 

There is, likewise, another being who 
never can taste the truly exquisite enjoy¬ 
ment of “ home— I mean the “ Old 
Bachelor.” He returns to his lodging (1 
will not say to his “ home”)-there may 
be every thing he can possibly desire in the 
shape of mere external comforts, provided 
for him by the officious zeal and anxious 
wish to please of Mrs. Smith, (Ins house¬ 
keeper,) but still the room has an air ot 
chilling vacancy :—the very atmosphere o 
tie af ailment has a dw. uninhabited 


appearance—the chairs, set round with pro¬ 
voking neatness, look reproachfully useless 
and unoccupied—and trie tables and other 
furniture shine with impertinent and futile 
brightness. All is dreary and repelling. 
No gentle face welcomes his arrival—no 
loving hand meets his—no kind looks an¬ 
swer the listless gaze he throw's round the 
apartment as he enters. He sits down to a 
book—alone. There is no one sitting by 
his side to enjoy with him the favourite 
passage, the apt remark, the just criticism 
—no eyes in which to read his own feelings 
—his own tastes are unappreciated and 
unreflected—he has no resource but him¬ 
self—no one to look up to but himself-'-all 
his enjoyment, all his happiness must ema 
nate from himself. He flings down the 
volume in despair—buries his face in his 
hands—thinks of her who might have been 
his beloved and heart-cheering companion 
—she is gone !- 

Home ! — scene of tenderly cherished 
infancy—of youthful buoyancy, brilliant 
with enjoying and hopeful feelings — oi 
maturer and exquisite happiness—of all 
our best feelings—towards thee does my 
heart ever yearn in constant and grateful 
affection!— 

M. IL 


For the Table Book. 

THE BLACKBERRY BLOSSOM. 

Written in Epping Forest. 

The maiden’s blush, 

Sweet blackberry blossom, thou 

Wearest, in prickly leaves that rove 
O’er friendlike turning bough. 

Companionship 

Thine attributes, thou givest 

Likeness of virtue shielded safe 
From lives with whotti thou livest. 

What is mankind ? 

But like thy wand’ring ?—Time 

Leads mortals through the maze of life, 

And thousands hopewards climb. 

A sudden blast— 

Then what of hope remains ? 

Beauty full soon by sickness falls, 

And pleasures die in pains. 

But fruit succeeds— 

Thou ripenest by the sky: 

May human hearts bear fruits of pea«* 
Before in earth they lie 1 


August 19, 1827. 


549 














NOTES ON A TOUR, CHIEFLY PEDESTRIAN, FROM SKIPTON [N CRAVEN, 
YORKSHIRE, TO KESWICK, IN CUMBERLAND. 

“ I hate the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and say ’tis all barren .”—Sterne 


July 14, 1827. Left Skipton for Kes¬ 
wick. The road from Skipton to Burnsal 
exhibits some romantic scenery, which the 
muse of Wordsworth has made classic 
ground. About half a mile from Rilston, 
on the right-hand side of the road, are the 
ruins of Norton tower, one of the principal 
scenes in the poem of the “ White Doe of 
Rylstone.” Having visited the tower before, 
l did not think it worth while to reascend 
'he immense precipice on which it stands. 

15th, Sunday. Previously to the com¬ 
mencement of the service at Burnsal church, 
l sketched the “ lich-gate,” which differs 
considerably from the beautiful one of 
Beckenham, in Kent; a drawing whereof 
is in my friend Mr. Hone’s Table Book. 
The manner wherein the gate turns on its 
pivot is rather curious, and will be best 
exemplified by the drawing above. The 
church, an old structure, apparently of the 
reign of Henry VII., is pleasantly situated 
on 44 the banks of the crystal Wharfe.” W tide 
attending divine service, one or two things 
struck me as remarkable. The church has 
an organ, on which two voluntaries were 


played; one after the psalms for the day, 
and the other after the second iesson ; but 
during the singing of the metrical psalms 
the organ was silent. Instead of it two or 
three strange looking countrymen in the 
organ gallery raised an inharmonious noise 
with a small fiddle, a flute, and a clarinet. 
Why do the churchwardens allow this? 
The gallery of the church should not be 
allowed to resemble the interior of an ale¬ 
house at a village feast. The church would 
have looked better had it been cleaner: 
the pew wherein I sat was covered with 
cobwebs. The business of the church¬ 
wardens seemed to me to consist rather in 
thumping the heads of naughty boys than 
in looking after the state of the church. 

Afternoon , same day. At Linton , about 
two miles up the river, arrived during the 
time of service. This church has suffered 
much from the “beautifiers;” who, amongst | 
other equally judicious improvements, have 
placed a Venetian window over the altar ol 
the Gothic edifice: the present incumbent, 
the Rev. Mr. Coulthurst, is about to remove 
it. The altar rails were co v *red wit' 


3Surn$al Ifcfc&ate* ®ras temm Jfont. 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


550 






























































- — -- - - ----- - - - 1 ■ 

the table book. 


garlands made of artificial flowers. Church 
garlands were formerly made of real flowers. 
They are borne before the corpses of un¬ 
married young women. I have heard an 
old woman in Durham sing the following 
stanza, which evidently alludes to the 
custom :— 

When I am dead, before I be buried. 

Hearken ye maidens fair, this must ye do— 

Make me a garland of marjoram and lemon thyme, 
Mixed with the pansy, rosemary, and rue. 

The practice of bearing the garlands is still 
very common in the country churches in 
Craven. 

In the church-yard is the following in¬ 
scription on a stone, date 1825 ! The march 
of intellect is surely here proceeding at a 
rapid pace 1 

Remember man, that paseth by 
As thou is now so once was I; 

And as I is so must thou be. 

Prepare thyself to follow me. 

Some one had written beneath. 

To follow you’s not my intent. 

Unless I knew which way you went. 

July 16. Went from Linton over the 
moors to Clapham ; passed through Skire- 
thorns, over Skirethorns moor, by Malham 
Water, by the side of Pennygent, through 

Great and Little Stainforth, over- 

moor,* through Wharfe and Austwick. 
Malham Water is a beautiful lake, well 
worthy of the traveller’s notice ; it is sup¬ 
posed to be the source of the river Aire, 
which springs in the neighbourhood. About 
a mile from it is the famous chasm Gor- 

dale. (Vide Gray’s Journal.) From- 

moor,* above the village of Little Stain¬ 
forth, is a sublime view of mountain scenery, 
in which Pennyuent is a principal object. 
No traveller should pass through Little 
Stainforth without seeing the waterfall be¬ 
low the bridge. There is a finer one in the 
neighbourhood, but I was ignorant of it 
when I passed through the village. From 
the waterfall the bridge appears to great 
advantage; the arch has a fine span. There 
are, I was told, some curious caves in this 
part. N.B. This day’s journey taught me 
that the information of the peasantry with 
respect to distances is not to be depended 
upon: at Little Stainforth I was informed 
it was three miles to Clapham; six would 
have been nearer the mark. 


• I cannot remember the names: the map of York- 
•hiie l have affords no c*ue. 


July 17, 18. Kirby Lonsdale. This town 
is on the banks of the Lune, which here 
winds through a finely wooded valley. It 
has an elegant old bridge. In one of the 
battlements is a stone, resembling a Roman 
altar, with this inscription— Feare God, 
Honore te Kinge, 1683. Why and when 
placed there I know not. Drunken Bar- 
naby s “ Aulam factam in tubernam may 
be seen in the main street: it is still used 
as an inn. The church is a handsome 
structure; near the altar rails 1 observed 
the table of consanguinity placed.* At the 
west end is a fine Norman doorway, a 
considerable sufferer by “ beautifying.’* 
In the church-yard, on a neat pyramidal 
tombstone, is the following melancholy in¬ 
scription :— 

Eastern side. 

Sacred 

to the Memory of 

Alice Clark, 

Aged 31 years; 

Aones Walling, 

Aged 25; 

Bella Cornthwaite, 

Aged 20; 

Hannah Abmstrono, 

Aged 18; 

Agnes Nicholson, 

Aged 17 : 

All of whom were hurried into eternity by the awful 
conflagration by fire of the Rose and Crown Hotel, la 
this town, on the night of the 6 December, 1820. 

Western side. 

In the midst of life we are in Death. 

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever 
thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from 
everlasting to everlasting thou art, O God I 
Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return, 
ye children of men. 

Thou earnest them away as with a flood : they are 
as a sleep : in the morning they are like grass which 
springeth up. 

In the morning it flourisheth and groweth up : in the 
evening it is cut down and withered. 

Erected by voluntary contributions. 

All the sufferers in this dreadful conflagra¬ 
tion seem to have been young. “ Whom 
the Gods love die young,” I think is said 
by one of the Grecian poets. 

A walk, extending from the north gate 
of the church-yard along the banks of the 
Lune, affords a delightful prospect of the 
county, with several gentlemen’s seats. 

* This seems a pretty general custom ;n Westmoro 
land. Do the young people of this county need inform¬ 
ing that “ a man may not marry his grandmother ?* 


551 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


N.B. The Rev. Mr. Hunt, the author of an 
elegant version of Tasso’s Jerusalem Deli¬ 
vered, was once curate here. I believe the 
well-known Carus Wilson is the officiating 
minister at present. 

18th, Evening —At Kendal. At Cow- 
brow half way between Kirby Lonsdale 
and this place, is the following stanza, be¬ 
neath a sign representing a ploughboy :— 

The weather’s fair, the season’s now. 

Drive on my boys, God speed the plough ; 

All you my friends pray call and see 

What jolly boys we ploughmen be. 

Had this “ poetry” been in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Durham, I should have sus¬ 
pected it to have been written either by 
the late Baron Brown, or Vet. Doc. Mar¬ 
shall, though I do not think the doctor 
would have made such a bull as runs in 
the last line. 

19. Left Kendal for Bowness. Arrived 
there in the evening, and took up my quar¬ 
ters at the posting-house at the entrance of 
the village. From the front windows of 
the inn is a good view of Windermere. At 
the time of my arrival it was invisible; both 
lake and village were enveloped in a thick 
mist. About eight o’clock the mist dis¬ 
persed, the sky grew clear, and Winder- 
mere was seen in all its beauty. This is 
the largest of the English lakes; and, ac¬ 
cording to Mr. Athey’s Guide, is ten miles 
in length. The hills around it are delight¬ 
fully wooded, but the scenery is tame when 
compared with that of the more northern 
lakes. Bell’s Island is now called Cur- 
wen’s Island, from its being the country 
residence of Mr. Curwen : it is the largest 
of the numerous islands on Windermere. 
In Bowness church-yard is a tomb to the 
memory of Rassellas Belfield, an Abyssi¬ 
nian. Near Troutbeck bridge, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, is the seat of the laureate of the 
Palmy isle. In the midst of the village is 
atieeon which notices of sales are posted. 
Bowness is to the inhabitants of Kendal 
what Hornsey is to the cocknies, and dur¬ 
ing the summer months gipsying excur¬ 
sions are very frequent. On the evening 
that I arrived some Oxonians were “ asto¬ 
nishing the natives:” they seemed to think 
that, as they were from college, they had a 
"ight to give themselves airs. The inhabit¬ 
ants appeared to regard them with mingled 
ooks of pity and derision. 

July 20. Left Bowness for Grassmere , 
through Ambleside and Rydal. At the last 
place I turned aside to see Rydal Mount, 
the residence of the celebrated poet, Words¬ 
worth. While proceeding to his cottage, 


an old woman popped out her head from 
the window of a rude hat, and ayked me if 
I should like to see the waterfall: I entered 
her dwelling, where a good fire of sticks 
and turf was burning on the hearth ; and, 
from the conversation of the dame, I 
gleaned that she was a dependant on the 
bounty of Lady le Fleming, in whose 
grounds the waterfall was : she at length 
conducted me to it. This waterfall is cer¬ 
tainly a fine one, but as seen through the 
window of a summer-house it has rather a 
cockney appearance. Rydal Hall is a huge 
uncouth building; the beautifiers have 
made the old mansion look like a factory : 
when I first saw it from the road I mistook 
it for one. N.B. For seeing the waterfall, 
the price is “ what you choose!” 

I now proceeded to Rydal Mount, which, 
from the trees surrounding it, can hardly 
be seen from the road : the approach is 
shaded by beautiful laurels—proper trees 
for the residence of Wordsworth ! While 
reconnoitring I was caught in a heavy 
thunder-shower, and should have been 
drenched, had not a pretty servant girl in¬ 
vited me into the kitchen, where I sat for 
at least an hour. On the dresser, in a large 
wicker cage, were two turtledoves ; these, 

I learnt, were great favourites, or rather pets, 
(that was the word,) with the bard. The 
shower having ceased, I obtained Mrs. 
Wordsworth’s leave to walk through the 
garden : from the mount in it I gained an 
excellent view of the front part of the 
house. I had scarcely reached the village 
of Rydal when another shower drove me 
into a cottage, from the door of which I 
had my first view of the author of the Lyri¬ 
cal Ballads : he is rather tall, apparently 
about fifty years of age; he was dressed in 
a hair cap, plaid coat, and white trowsers. 

It was gratifying to hear how the Rydal 
peasantry spoke of this good man. One 
said he was kind to the poor; another, that 
he was very religious ; another, that he had 
no pride, and would speak to any body : 
all were loud in his praise. 

At Rydal is a neat gothic church, lately 
erected at the sole cost of Lady le Fleming. 

I have not seen any new church that pleased 
me so much as this; the east end is finely 
conceived, and both the exterior and inte¬ 
rior reflect the highest credit on the taste 
and talent of the artist, Mr. Webster of 
Kendal. I wished Mr. Hone had seen it 
with me, for I know he would have been 
delighted with it. The church tower forms 
a pretty object from many parts of the 
neighbourhood. Rydal lake *mall, but 
very romantic. On some of the surrounding 


552 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


hills I observed those rude erections of' 
loose stones which the country boys are in 
the habit of building, and which they call 
men. Wordsworth alludes to these men in 
his Lyrical Ballads :— 

To the top of high *-they chanc’d to climb, 

And there did they build, without mortar or lime, 

A man on the top of the crag. 

A few of these “ men ” being provided 
with arms, resemble crosses, and transport 
the imagination of the beholder to catholic 
countries. The “ Opium Eater” resides in 
this part; I saw him ; his name is De 
Q-. 

July 21. Grassmere. Arrived here at 
nine in the morning, and took up my 
i quarters at Jonathan Bell’s, the Grassmere 
inn. This is a most lovely village. The 
poem of the “ City of the Plague,” in which 
its lake and church are so exquisitely de¬ 
scribed, conveys but a faint idea of its 
beauties—even my favourite, Wilson, has 
failed in delineating this fairy spot. On 
entering, the first object that struck me was 
the church and its cemetery. 

There is a little church-yard on the side 
Of a low hill that hangs o’er Grassmere lake. 

Most beautiful it is! a vernal spot 

Enclos’d with wooded rocks, where a few graves 

Lie shelter’d, sleeping in eternal calm— 

Go thither when you will, and that sweet spot 
Is bright with sunshine. 

Death put on 

The countenance of an angel, in the spot 
Which he had sanctified- 

City of the Plague. 

I found the description correct, with the 
exception of the sunshine passage; for 
when I entered the church-yard not a sun 
ray smiled on the graves ; but, on the con- 
trary, gloomy clouds were frowning above. 
The church door was open, and I discovered 
that the villagers were strewing the floors 
with fresh rushes. I learnt from the old 
clerk, that, according to annual custom, 
fhe rush-bearing procession would be in 
the evening. I asked the clerk if there were 
any dissenters in the neighbourhood; he 
said, no, not nearer than Keswick, where 
there were some that called themselves 
Presbyterians; but he did not know what 
they were, he believed them to be a kind 
of papishes.f During the whole of this day 


• I quote from memory, and cannot fill up tlie blank. 
+ The only instance of dissent I heard of betwixt 
Kendal and Keswick, was a private Unitarian chapel 
at a gentleman’s seat neai Bowness. At Kendal and 
Keswick the dissenters are very numerous. 


I observed the children busily employed '<n 
preparing garlands of such wild flowers as 
the beautiful valley produces, for the even¬ 
ing procession, which commenced at nine, 
in the following order:—The children 
(chiefly girls) holding these garlands, pa¬ 
raded through the village, preceded by the 
Union band, (thanks to the great drum for 
this information;) they then entered the 
church, where the three largest garlands 
were placed on the altar, and the remaining 
ones in various other parts of the place. 
(By the by, the beautifiers have placed an 
ugly window above the altar, of the non¬ 
descript order of architecture.) In the pro¬ 
cession I observed the “ Opium Eater,” 
Mr. Barber, an opulent gentleman residing 
in the neighbourhood, Mr. and Mrs. 
Wordsworth, Miss Wordsworth, and Miss 
Dora Wordsworth. Wordsworth is the 
chief supporter of these rustic ceremonies. 
The procession over, the party adjourned 
to the ball-room, a hayloft, at my worthy 
friend, Mr. Bell’s, where the country lads 
and lasses tripped it merrily and heavily. 
They called the amusement dancing, but I 
called it thumping; for he who could make 
the greatest noise seemed to be esteemed the 
best dancer; and, on the present occasion, 

I think Mr. Pooley, the schoolmaster, bore 
away the palm. Billy Dawson,the fiddler, 
boasied to me of having been the officiating 
minstrel at this ceremony for the last six 
and forty years. He made grievous com¬ 
plaints of the outlandish tunes which the 
“Union band chaps” introduce: in the 
procession of this evening they annoyed 
Billy by playing the “ Hunters’ Chorus in 
Friskits.” “ Who,” said Billy, “ can keep 
time with such a queer thing?” Amongst 
the gentlemen dancers was one Dan Bur- 
kitt; he introduced himself to me, by 
seizing my coat collar in a mode that would 
have given a Burlington Arcade lounger 

the hysterics, and saying, “-I’m 

old Dan Burkitt, of Wytheburn, sixty-six 
years old—not a better jigger in Westmore¬ 
land.” No, thought I, nor a greater toss¬ 
pot. On my relating this to an old man 
present, he told me not to judge of West¬ 
moreland manners by Dan’s; “ for,” said 
he, “ you see, sir, he is a statesman, and 
has been at Lunnon, and so takes liberties.” 
In Westmoreland, farmers residing on their 
own estate are called “ statesmen.” The 
dance was kept up till a quarter to twelve, 
when a livery-servant entered, and deliver¬ 
ed the following verbal message to Billy— 

“ Master’s respects, and will thank you to 
lend him the fiddlestick.” Billy took the 
hint; the sabbath morn was at haod» atw* 


553 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


the pastor of the parish had adopted this 
gentle mode of apprizing the assembled 
revellers that they ought to cease their 
revelry. The servant departed with the 
fiddlestick, the chandelier was removed, 
and when the village clock struck twelve 
j not an individual was to be seen out of 
! doors in the village. No disturbance of 
any kind interrupted the dance : Dan Bur- 
kitt was the only person at all “ how came 
you so V ’ and he was “ non se ipse” before 
the jollity commenced. He told me he 
was “ seldom sober ;” and I believed what 
! he said. The rush-bearing is now, I be¬ 
lieve, almost entirely confined to West¬ 
moreland. It was once customary in 
Craven, as appears from the following ex¬ 
tract from Dr. Whitaker:—“ Among the 
seasons of periodical festivity, was the 
rush-bearing, or the ceremony of conveying 
fresh rushes to strew the floor of the parish 
church. This method of covering floors 
I was universal in houses while floors were 
of earth, but is now confined to places of 
worship: the bundles of the girls were 
adorned with wreaths of flowers, and the 
evening concluded with a dance . In Craven 
the custom has wholly ceased.” 

In Westmoreland the custom has under¬ 
gone a change. Billy remembered when 
I the lasses bore the rushes in the evening 
! procession, and strewed the church floor at 
the same time that they decorated the 
church with garlands; now, the rushes are 
laid in the morning by the ringer and 
clerk, and no rushes are introduced in the 
evening procession. I do not like old cus¬ 
toms to change; for, like mortals, they 
change before they die altogether. 

The interest of the scene at Grassmere 
was heightened to me, by my discovering 
that the dancing-room of the rush-bearers 
was the ball-room of Mr. Wilson’s chil¬ 
dren’s dance. Tire dancing-master described 
so exquisitely in his poem is John Carra- 
dus. Ftom an old inhabitant of Grass- 
mere I had the following anecdotes of the 
now professor of moral philosophy. He was 
once a private in the Kendal local militia; 
he might have been a captain, but not hav¬ 
ing sufficient knowledge of military tactics, 
lie declined the honour. 

Wilson, while in the rnilitia, was billeted 
at one of the Kendal inns, where a brother 
private was boasting of his skill in leaping, 
and stated, that he never met with his 
equal. Wilson betted a guinea that he 
would outleap him ; the wager was accept¬ 
ed, and the poet came off victoiious, having 
leaped seven yards; his bragging antago¬ 
nist leaped only five. Mr. Wilson appears 


to have been celebrated in Westmoreland 
for these things; being a good climber of 
trees, an excellent swimmer, and a first-rate 
leaper. 

The poet had a curious fancy in wearing 
his hair in long curls, which flowed about . 
his neck. His sergeant noticed these curls, j 
and remarked, that in the militia they j 
wanted men and not puppies; requesting, 
at the same time, that he would wear his 
hair like other Christians. The request ot 
the sergeant was complied with, and the 
poet’s head was soon deprived of its tresses. 
On a friend blaming him for submitting to 
the orders of a militia sergeant, he coolly 
said, “ I have acted correctly; it is the 
duty of an inferior soldier to submit to a 
superior.” 

While in the militia, Wilson opposed 
himself to seven beggars, or trampers, of 
“ Younghusband’s gang,’’ who were insult- j 
ing a poor man. In this fray the bard got 
two black eyes; “ but,” added the narrator, 

“ no matter—he got ’em in a good cause.’’ 

July 22, Sunday. Attended church. 
After service sketched the font, which ap¬ 
peared to be of great antiquity. Near the 
altar is the following inscription on a beau¬ 
tiful marble monument, designed and exe¬ 
cuted by Webster of Kendal: the poetry 
is by Wordsworth. 

In the Burial Ground 

Of this church are deposited the remains of Jemima 
Ann Deborah, second Daughter of Sir Eoerton 
Brydoes, of Denton Court, Kent, Bart. She departed 
this life, at the Ivy Cottage, Rydal, May 25, 1822, 
Aged 28 years. This memorial is erected by her hus¬ 
band, Edward Quillinan. 

These vales were saddened with no common gloom 
When good Jemima perished in her bloom ; 

When, such the awful will of Heaven, she died 
By flames breathed on her from her own fire-side. 

On earth we dimly see, and but in part 
We know, yet faith sustains the sorrowing heart: 

And she the pure, the patient, and the meek, 

Might have fit epitaph could feelings speak: 

If words could tell, and monuments record. 

How treasures lost are inwardly deplored. 

No name by grief’s fond eloquence adorned. 

More than Jemima’s would be praised and mourne\ 
The tender virtues of her blameless life, 

Bright in the daughter, brighter in the wife; 

And in the cheerful mother brightest shone— 

That light hath past away—the will of God be done 

From the church-yard I transcribed the 
following inscriptions:— 

Here lieth 

The Body of Thomas, the son of William and Mam 


554 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Wordsworth. He died on the 1st of December, a. d. 

. 812 . 

Six months to six years added, he remained 
Upon this sinful earth by #>n unstained. 

O blessed Lord, whose mercy then removed 
A child whom every eye that looked on loved. 
Support us, teach us calmly to resign 
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine. 


Sacred to the Memory of 
William Green, the last 23 years of whose life were 
passed in the neighbourhood, where, by his skill and 
mdustry as an artist, he produced faithful representa¬ 
tions of the county, and lasting memorials of its more 
perishable features. 

He was born at Manchester, 

And died at Ambleside, 

On the 29 Day of April, 1823, m the 63 year of 
his age, deeply lamented by a numerous family, 
and universally respected. 

His afflicted Widow 
Caused this stone to be erected. 

Green was a surprising man, and his 
sketches of mountain scenes are correctly 
executed, though I never liked his manner 
of drawing; and in his colouring there is 
something glaring and unnatural But the 
fame of Green does not rest on his abilities 
as an artist. As the historian of the Eng¬ 
lish maintains, his descriptive talents were 
of the first order. His entertaining and in¬ 
valuable “ Guide ” will be perused by pos¬ 
terity with increased admiration. There is 
a charm about it wlVch I have not found in 
any other of the numerous publications of 
a similar nature. I have been informed, 
however, that notwithstanding its excel- 
j .ence its sale was limited, and the author 
; was out of pocket by it. 

! July 23. Ascended Silvertop oi Stiver - 
how, a hill at Grassmere. It is not very 
high, but from its unevenness it is not easy 
to reach the summit. The view from it is 
rather extensive, considering its very mode¬ 
rate height. When I ascended there was a 
considerable mist, yet I could distinguish 
Windermere, Rydal lake and church, and 
the surrounding objects. To day I leave 
Grassmere; I do it with regret, but with 
hopes of once more visiting it, and seeing 
Jonathan Bell again. He is one of the 
| pleasantest fellows I ever met with, and I 
shall recommend the Grassmere inn to all 
my friends who may visit the lakes. 

July 24. Walked to Keswick. The road 
from Grassmere is so well described in 
Mr. Otley’s small guide, (which has been 
of the greatest use to me,) that it would be 
only a waste of time and paper to paiticu- 
larize its numerous interesting objects. The 


road passes by Thulmere, or contracted 
Lake, (so called from its sudden contraction 
in the middle, where there is a neat bridge,) 
through the greatest part of Saint John’s 
Vale, so celebrated by fir Walter Scott’s 
poem, the “ Bridal of Triermain.” Oppo¬ 
site Wytheburn chapel, (which is the small¬ 
est I ever saw,) I entered into conversation 
with a labouring man, who was well ac¬ 
quainted with the late Charles Gouche, the 
“ gentle pilgrim of nature,” who met an 
untimely death by falling over one of the 
precipices of Helvellyn. Some time pre¬ 
vious to his death he had lodged at the 
Cherry Tree, near Wytheburn. The man 
related many anecdotes of him, but none 
particularly interesting. Mr. Gouche was 
an enthusiastic admirer of poetry, which 
he would frequently recite to him and 
others of his friends. 

Keswick is a neat town. The Greta runs 
through it; but, alas ! its once pure waters 
have become polluted by the filthy factories 
now on its banks. Having been obliged 
to leave Keswick in the afternoon of the 
day after my arrival, I was unable to see 
much of it or its neighbourhood. 1 paid a 
hasty visit to Derwentwater and the falls of 
Lowdore. The latter, from the dryness of 
the season, much disappointed me. I saw 
the Druid’s Temple on the old road to 
Penrith; it is a circle formed of rough stones. 
The common people pretend these stones 
cannot be counted, but 1 found no difficulty 
in ascertaining their number to be forty- 
eight. A barbarian once recommended 
the owner to blast these stones for walling, 
but happily for the antiquary his suggestion 
was not attended to. Green, in his guide, 
speaking of this spot, alludes to the very 
erroneous opinion that the druidical was a 
polytheutic religion.— N B. Skiddaw has a 
majestic appearance when viewed from 
Keswick. Southey’s house is at the foot. 


During my residence in the above pavts 
I collected the following scraps, by whom 
written, or whether original, I know not. 

Sonnet. 

The nimble fancy of all beauteous Greece 
Fabled young Love an everlasting boy, 

That through the blithe air, like a pulse of joy. 
Wing’d his bright way—a life that could not cease. 
Nor suffer diminution or increase ; 

Whose quiver, fraught with quaint delicious woes, 
And wounds that hurt not—thorns plucked from th 
rose 

Making the fond heart hate its stagnant fence— 


555 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


Was ever full. Oh musical conceit 
Of old Idolatry, and youthful time. 

Fit emanation of a happy clime. 

Where but to live, to move, to breathe, was sweet; 
And love indeed came floating on the air, 

A winged God, for ever fresh and fair 1 

Sonnet. 

It must be so—my infant love must find 
In my own breast a cradle and a grave; 

Like a rich jewel hid beneath the wave. 

Or rebel spirit bound within the rind 
Of some old [wither’d] oak—or fast enshrin’d 

In the cold durance of an echoing cave- 

Yet better thus, than cold disdain to brave; 

Or worse, to taint the quiet of that mind 
That decks its temple with unearthly grace, 
Together must we dwell my dream and I— 

Unknown then live, and unlamented die 
Rather than dim the lustre of that face. 

Or drive the laughing dimple from its place. 

Or heave that white breast with a painful sigh. 

Sonnet. 

Few lov’d the youthful bard, for he was one 
Whose face, tho’ with intelligence it beam’d. 

Was ever sad ; if with a smile it gleam’d 
It was but momentary, like the sun 
Darting one bright ray thro’ the thundeT cloud — 

He lov’d the secret vale, and not the crowd 
And hum of populous cities—some would say 
There was a secret labouring in his breast, 

That made him cheerless and disturb’d his rest; 
Whose influence sad he could not drive away. 

What caused the young bard’s woe was never known. 
Yet, once, a wanderer deem’d an hapless flame 
Consum’d his life away, for one, whose name 
He heard him breathe, upon the mountains lone i 

Song. 

She is not fair to outward view, 

As many maidens be; 

Her loveliness I never knew. 

Until she smil’d on me. 

O then I saw her eye was bright, 

A well of love, a spring of light. 

But now her looks are coy and cold. 

To mine they ne’er reply ; 

And yet I cease not to behold 
The love-light in her eye— 

Her very frowns are fairer far, 

Than smiles of other maidens are.] 

Song. 

I have lived, and I have loved. 

Have lived, and loved in vain ; 

Some joy, and many woes, have proved. 

Which may not be again. 

My heart is old—my eye is sere— 

Joy wins no smile, and grief no tear. 


I would hope, if hope I could, 

Tho* sure to be deceived; 

There’s sweetness in a thought of goad. 

If ’tis not quite believed— 

But fancy ne’er repeats the strain 
That memory once reproves, for vain. 

Here endeth my journal. 

T. Q. M. 


GENDERS.—JAMES HARRIS. 

A good translation of Xenophon’s Cyro- 
psedia is much wanted. That by Ashley is 
vilely done; though Mr. Harris has pro¬ 
nounced a high eulogium on it in his Phi¬ 
lological Inquiries. 

Mr. Harris was an excellent Greek 
scholar, but beyond that he does not seem j 
to have great merit as a writer. In his j 
“ Hermes,” speaking of the grammatical i 
genders, he says, they are founded on a 
“ reasoning which discovers, even in things 
without sex, a distant analogy to that great 
distinction, which, according to Milton, ani¬ 
mates the world.” To this he adds, in a note, 

‘ Linnaeus has traced the distinction of sexes 
through the vegetable world, and made it 
the basis of his botanic method.” Should 
not one be induced to think from this, that 
Linnaeus classed some plants as male, and 
others as female, from their form and cha¬ 
racter? when, in fact, they are classed 
according to the number and form of those 
parts on which the fructification of the 
plants actually depends. What becomes 
of this supposed analogy in the German 
language, where the sun is feminine, and 
the moon masculine? 

Lowth, in his grammar, mentions the 
poetical advantage our language derives 
from making all inanimate things neuter, 
by the power it gives of personification by 
the mere change of gender.* 


For the Table Book. 

WHAT IS LIFE? 

What is life ? ’tis like the ocean. 

In its placid hours of rest, 

Sleeping calmly—no emotion 
Rising in its tranquil breast. 

But too soon the heavenly sky 
Is obscured by nature’s hand, 

And the whirlwind passing by 
Leaves a wreck upon the strand. 

s. 

* Pye. 


556 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


DOCTOR LETTSOM. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Few inherited better qualities or 
were more eccentric than the late Dr. 
Lettsom. While he associated with lite¬ 
rary men, communicated with literary 
works, and wrote and published his medi¬ 
cal experience, he gave gratuitous aid to 
the needy, and apportioned his leisure to 
useful and practical purposes. 

In a work, called “ Moods and Tenses,” 
lately published, I find anecdotes of the 
doctor, which I had sent to a literary pub¬ 
lication,* reprinted without acknowledg¬ 
ment, and extracted since into other works. 
In addition to the printed anecdotes of so 
amiable a man, I trust, sir, you will not be 
unwilling further to illustrate his character 
by an anecdote or two, until now untold. 

The first is of a Lady and her Servant. 
The doctor was once called in to attend a 
sick lady and her maid-servant. On enter¬ 
ing the passage, he was asked by the nurse 
into the lady’s chamber. “ Very well,’’ 
said he mildly, “ but is there not a servant 
ill also.” “ Yes, sir,” was the reply. “Then 
let me prescribe for her first,” he rejoined, 
“ as her services will be first wanted.” His 
request was complied with; and as he 
predicted so it proved, — by the second 
visit the servant was convalescent. “ I 
generally find this the case,” observed the 
doctor, good-humouredly, to his friend; 
“ Servants want physic only , but their mis¬ 
tresses require more skill than physic. This 
is owing to the difference between scrub¬ 
bing the stairs and scrubbing the teeth.” 

The second anecdote refers to books. 
Whenever a friend borrowed a book fiom 
the doctor’s library, he rarely lent it but 
with this stipulation, that the supposed 
value of the book should be deposited, with 
the name of the borrower, and the title of 
the volume with date, in the vacant place 
till the book was restored. “ Though at¬ 
tended with some pains, I find this a good 
plan,” said the doctor; “ many of my sets 
would otherwise be imperfect. I feel plea¬ 
sure in lending my books, (many I give 
away,) but I like to see my library, like my 
practice, as regularly conducted as possi¬ 
ble.” 

The third anecdote relates to the cure of 
filching. The doctor had a favourite ser¬ 
vant, who manifested the frailty of taking 
that which did not belong to him. John 
had abstracted a loaf of sugar from the 
store closet, and sold it to a person that 

'* Literary Chronicle, 1819, p. 392. 


kept a shop. Shortly afterwards, on the 
carriage passing the shop, the doctor de¬ 
sired John to go in and order a loaf ot 
lump sugar, and to pay for it, which was 
accordingly done; but when they returned 
home, John suspecting his master’s motive, 
made a full confession of the crime, fell on 
his knees, implored forgiveness, and was 
pardoned on his solemn promise of future 
honesty. 

The fourth anecdote is worthy of the 
consideration of medical practitioners. The 
doctor having been called to a poor “ lone 
woman,” pitied her desolate situation so 
much, that he shed tears. Her person and 
room were squalid ; her language and de¬ 
portment indicated that she had seen better 
days; he took a slip of paper out of his 
pocket, and wrote with his pencil the fol¬ 
lowing very rare prescription to the over¬ 
seers of the parish in which she resided :— 

“ A shilling per diem for Mrs. Maxton : 
Money, not Physic, will cure her. 

Lettsom.” 

That the doctor was not a rich man may 
be easily accounted for, when it is con¬ 
sidered that at the houses of the necessitous 
he gave more fees than he took. At public 
medical dinners, anniversaries, and lectures, 
he must be well remembered by many a 
truly vivacious companion, with a truly 
benevolent heart and good understanding. 

IIPI. 


For the Table Book. 

A FAREWELL. 

Go, go, thy heart is still thine own. 
Go, taste of joy and gladness; 

I fondly dreamt that heart mine own, 
To hope so now were madness. 

Many a mortal yefcwill woo thee. 
Many a lover trust that smile. 

But, if well as I they knew thee. 

Few thy beauty would beguile. 

Like the merchant who has ventured 
All his fortune on the sea, 

So in thee my hopes were center'd, 
Destin’d soon a wreck to be. 

Then fare-thee-well, we meet ro mc'ft 
Better had we never met; 

Thou hast many joys in store, 

I have none—my sun is set. 


557 










THE TABLE.BOOK. 


« PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.” 

Extemporaneous Lines, written to 
oblige a young Friend, who suggest¬ 
ed the Topic. 

The past, which once was present, then did seem, 

As doth this present, but “ a sick man’s dream." 
Now, the remembrance of that past appears, 
Through the dim distance of receding years, 

A lovely vision of fair forms:—and yet. 

How d'fferent it was 1 Fool I to regret 
What had no being 1 Time, that faithful tutor. 
Were I but teachable, might show the future 
As the present is ; and yet I paint it 
Teeming with joy; and my hope doth saint it. 

With haloes round the fond imagination. 

And so through life I pass—without a station 
Wheuce I C3n see the present, a reality 
To be enjoy’d-Miving on ideality. 

August 25, 1827. • 


For the Table Book. 

TOMMY MITCHESON, OF DURHAM. 

The above is a well-known character in 
Durham, called “the philosopher:” and 
were his literary attainments to be mea¬ 
sured by the books he peruses, they would 
far exceed those of any gentleman in the 
place. Tommy reads every thing that he 
can borrow—legal, medical, theological, 
historical—true narrative, or romance, it 
matters little to him ;—but Tommy has no 
recollection. On arriving at the last page 
of a work he is just as wise as before he 
commenced. A friend of mine once lent 
him Gibbon’s “ Decline and Falland 
when Tommy returned the last volume, 
asked him how he liked it. “ It is a nice 
work.”—“ Well, how did you like that part 
about the boxing match between Crib and 
Molineux?”—“ Oh,” said he, “ it was the 
nicest part in the whole book!” Poor 
Tommy ! I can say this of thee ; I have lent 
thee many a book, and have always had 
them returned clean and unsoiled ! I can¬ 
not say this of some of my book borrowers. 

T. Q. M. 


A MAN-LIKING BIRD. 

“ I have read of a bird/’ says Dr. Ful¬ 
ler, in his Worthies of England, “ which 
nath a face like , and yet will prey upon , a 
nan, who coming to the water to drink, 
and finding there, by reflection, that he 
Had killed one like himself, pineth away 
oy degrees, and never afterwards enjoyeth 
tself.” 


For the Table Booh. 

PENNY A LOT. 

A Schoolboy’s fruitless Ramble through 
Town. 

The morning is warm, and the weather is fine, 

*Tis too late for school, and too early to dine ; 

Through the streets as 1 go for refreshment, or not. 

All the dainties to sell are, a— Penny a Lot ! 

Fine pears, by the' r cheeks, are inviting to taste. 

With their tails curling round, like bashaws in th« 
east; 

Red apples in heaps, on a wicker-work spot,— 

How d’ye sell them ?—These—Here, are, a— Penny a 
Lot I 

But your plums—are they cheap ? By their Orleari 
hues 

They belong to the Indigo Warehouse,—the Blues ; 
And your gages, so green!—are they fresh from the 
cot ?— 

From the Garden this morning, sir,— Penny a Lot ! 

Barcelonas in small wooden measures are piled ; 

How attractive they look to the one-copper child. 

With his treasure to spend ! ‘But what there have ye 
got? 

Acid Drops ! cries a Jew Boy, a— Penny a Lot t 

Nice slices of cocoa-nut, white as the snow. 

Brazil-nuts and almond-nuts all in a row ; 
Napoleon’s-ribs,—brandy-balls for the sot, 

And sweet ca’..es—what are these t Sir, a— Penny a 
Lot. 

Groundsel, chickweed, canes, posies, beads, cresses, and 
grapes, 

Currants sodden’d with rains, raisins press’d in their 
shapes; 

Seaweeds, shells, and oniaments, fit for a Grot, 

Are all sold at the rate of, a— Penny a Lot I 

What chance has theFar-thing to burn a hole through? 
What chance has the Half-penny, though it were new' 
Unbless’d with a purchase, though thirsty and hot, 

All the order of sale is, a— Penny a Lot. 

P. 


FISIL 

Philip II. of Spain, the consort of our 
queen Mary, gave a whimsical reason for 
not eating fish. “ They are,” said he, 
“ nothing but element congealed, or a jelly 
of water.” 

It is related of a queen Aterbatis, that 
she forbad her subjects ever to touch fish, 
“ lest,” said she, with calculating forecast, 
“ there should not be enough left to regale 
their sovereign.” 


558 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


5?ogartf) embarking at the 3sle of (gram. 

-on hands and knees we crawl. 

And so get safe on board the yawl. Qostling. 

This sheet is dedicated to the five days’ printed by Mr. Nichols. It was a party of 
travels, in 1 732, of him pleasure down the river into Kent, under¬ 

taken by Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Scott, and threi 
of their friends, in which they intended t. 
have more humour than they accomplished 
jrwl four of his friends. “ Some few copies as is commonly the case in such meditated 
<.f the Tour,” says Horace Walpole, u were attempts. The Tour was described in verse 


That drew fh* essential form of grg.ee. 
That saw the manners in the face, 


559 

































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


by one of the company, and the drawings 
executed by the painters, but with littie merit, 
except the views taken by Mr. Scott/' 

Walpole’s account is an incorrect and 
contemptuous bout of “ a merry, and a very 
merry” party, consisting—besides Ilogarth, 
and his friend Scott, a landscape painter— 
of Thornhill, (son of sir James, whose 
daughter Ilogarth married;) Tothall, a wool- 
lendraper at the corner of Tavistock-court, 
Covent-garden, who, being a member of the 
club at the Bedford coffee-house, became 
intimate with Hogarth ; and Forrest, ano¬ 
ther of Hogarth’s friends. They “ ac¬ 
complished ” much “humour,” as their 
journal shows; though not to the under¬ 
standing of Walpole, who was only a fine 
gentleman, a wit, and an adept in artificial 
knowledge. 

A few months ago, I heard from the lips 
of the kindest and most exquisite humourist 
of the age, what seems to me a perfect 
definition—“ Humour is Wit steeped in 
Mannerism.” Walpole could never say, 
because he never thought, or felt, any thing 
like it. He was skilled in imitative mat¬ 
ters alone : he brought himself up to Art, 
and there stopped; his good breeding 
would not permit him to deviate towards 
Nature. He talked of it as people of 
fashion do of trade—a vulgar thing, which 
they are obliged to hear something about, 
»nd cannot help being influenced by. 

The “ some few copies of the Tour,” 
which Horace Walpole says “ were printed 
by Mr. Nichols,” and which he represents 
as having been “ described in verse by one 
of the company,” Mr. Nichols certainly 


printed in 1781; but that genLeman ac¬ 
quaints us, that it “ was the production of 
the ingenious Mr. W. Gostling, of Canter¬ 
bury,” who was not of the party. Mr 
Nichols reprinted it at the request of some 
friends, on account of its rarity, in his 
“ Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth.” The 
account of the “ Tour,” really written “ by 
one of the company,” was in prose; and 
this, which certainly Walpole had not seen, 
was edited, and given to the world, by Mr. 
R. Livesay, in 1782, on nine oblong folio 
pages, with etchings of the same size. 

The Tour in question was not “medi¬ 
tated.” The party set out at midnight, at 
a moment’s warning, from the Bedford 
Arms tavern, each with a shirt in his 
pocket. They had particular departments 
to attend to. Hogarth and Scott made the 
drawings ; Thornhill (Hogarth’s brother-in- 
law) the map; Tothall faithfully discharged 
the joint office of treasurer and caterer; and 
Forrest wrote the journal. They were out 
five days only ; and on the second night 
after their return, the book was produced, 
bound, gilt, and lettered, and read at the 
same tavern to the members of the club 
then present. A copy of the journal having 
been left in the hands of the Rev. Mr. 
Gostling, (author of “ A Walk in and about 
Canterbury,”) he wrote an imitation of it 
in Hudibrastic verse, of which Mr. Nichols 
printed twenty copies as a literary curiosity.* 

The original Tour by Mr. Forrest, and 
the versified version of it, are placed on 
the ensuing pages, from the before-men¬ 
tioned editions; beginning with Forrest’s 
from the title-page, viz. 


AN ACCOUNT of what seemed most remarkable in the FIVE DAYS’ PERR- 
GRINATION of the five following Persons; viz. Messrs. TOTHALI 
SCOTT, HOGARTH, THORNHILL, and FORREST. Begun on Saturday’ 
May 27th, 1732, and finished on the 31st of the same Month. “ Abi tu, et fai 
similiter.”— Inscription on Dulwich College Porch. London : Printed for R 
Livesay, 1782. 


Saturday, May the 27th, we set out with 
the morning, and took our departure from 
the Bedford Arms Tavern, in Covent Gar¬ 
den, to the tune of “ Why should we quar¬ 
rel for riches ?’’ The first land we made 
was Billingsgate, where we dropped anchor 
at the Dark House. 

There Hogarth made a caracatura of a 
porter, who called himself the Duke of 
Puddle Dock.* The drawing was (by his 
grace) pasted on the cellar door. We were 
agreeably entertained with the humouis of 


* It is to be regretted mat ms grace's picture was 
not observed in this collection 


the place, particularly an explanation of a 
Gaffer and Gammer, a little gross, though 
in presence of two of the fair sex. Here 
we continued till the clock struck one. 

Then set sail in a Gravesend boat we 
had hired for ourselves. Straw was our 
bed, and a tilt our covering. The wind 
blew hard at S.E. and by E. We had 
much rain and no sleep for about three 
hours. At Cuckold s Point we sung St. 
John, at Deptford Pishoken ; and in Black 
wall Reach eat hung beef and biscuit, ano 
drank right Hollands. 


* Mr. Nichols’s account of Hogarth. 


5C0 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


At Purfleet we had a view of the Gib¬ 
raltar, the Dursley < railey, and Tartar 
Pink, men of war, from the last of which 
we took on board the pilot who brought 
her up the channel. He entertained us 
with a lieutenant’s account of an insult 
offered him by the Spaniards, and other 
affairs of consequence, which naturally 
made us drowsy; and then Hogarth feli 
asleep, but soon awaking, was going to 
relate a dream he had, but falling asleep 
again, when he awaked forgot he had 
dreamed at all. 

We soon arrived at Gravesend, and 
| found some difficulty in getting ashore, 

1 occasioned by an unlucky boy’s having 
1 placed his boat between us and the land¬ 
ing-place, and refusing us passage over his 
vessel; but, as virtue surmounts all obsta¬ 
cles, we happily accomplished this adven¬ 
ture, and arrived at Mr. Bramble’s at six. 
There we washed our faces and hands, and 
had our wigs powdered ; then drank coffee, 
eat toast and butter, paid our reckoning, 
and set out at eight. 

We took a view of the building of the 
New Church, the unknown person’s tomb 
and epitaph, and the Market place, and 
then proceeded on foot to Rochester. 

Nothing remarkable happened in that 
joiM-nev, except our calling and drinking 
th i ci pots of beer at an evil house, (as we 
were afterwards informed,) known by the 
sign of the Dover Castle, and some small 
distress Scott suffered in travelling through 
some clay ground moistened by the rain ; 
but the country being extremely pleasant 
alleviated his distress, and made him 
jocund, and about ten we arrived at Ro¬ 
chester. 

There we surveyed the fine Bridge, the 
cathedral, and the Castle; the last well 
worth observing. It is a very high build¬ 
ing, situate on the river Medway, strong 
built, but almost demolished. With some 
difficulty we ascended to the top of the 
battlements, and took a view of a most 
beautiful country, a fine river, and some of 
the noblest ships in the world. There is a 
very curious w r ell cut in the middle wall 
from the top of the Castle, a considerable 
depth below its foundation, as we believed : 
we saw a little boy go down towards the 
bottom of it by small holes cut in the sides, 
wherein he placed his hands and feet, and 
soon returned, bringing up with him a 
young daw he had taken out of a nest 
there. 

We afterwards traversed the city, saw 
the Town-'nouse, Watts’s Hospital for relief 
of six travelling persons, by entertaining 


them with one nignt’s lodging, and giving 
to each fourpence in the morning, pro¬ 
vided tney are not persons contagiously 
diseased, rogues, or proctors. 

We saw on the front of a house four 
figures in basso relievo after the antique, 
done by some modern hand, representing 
the Seasons ; and then came to the Crown 
inn at twelve. From that time till dinner 
most of our company slept on several chairs 
in the dining-room. From one o’clock till 
three we were at dinner on a dish of soles 
and flounders, with crab sauce, a calf’s 
heart stuffed and roasted, the liver fried, 
and the other appurtenances minced, a 
leg of mutton roasted, and some green 
peas, all very good and well drest, with 
good small beer and excellent port. The 
boy of the house cleaned all our shoes, and 
we again set out to seek adventures. 

Hogarth and Scott stopped and played 
at hop-scotch in the colonnade under the 
Town-hall; and then we walked on to 
Chatham, bought shrimps and eat them, 
and proceeded by a round-about way to 
the king’s store-houses and dock-yard, 
wffiich are very noble. We went on board 
the Marlborough and the Royal Sovereign, 
which last is reckoned one of the finest 
ships in the navy. We saw the London, 
the Royal George, and Royal Anne, a?, 
first-rate men of war. At six we returned 
to our quarters at Rochester, and passed 
the time agreeably till nine, and then, quite 
fatigued with pleasure, we went to bed. 

Sunday at seven awaked. Hogarth and 
Thornhill related their dreams, and we en¬ 
tered into a conversation on that subject in 
bed, and left off no wiser than we begun. 
We arose and missed Scott, who soon 
came, and acquainted us that he had been on 
the biidge drawing a view of some part of 
the river, (vide Drawing the 2d,) and won¬ 
dered at the people staring at him, till he 
recollected it was Sunday. We aske?l him 
to produce the drawing; and he told us he 
had not drawn any thing. We were all 
desirous to have him reconcile this contra¬ 
diction ; but other affairs intervening, pre¬ 
vented our further inquiry. 

At nine we breakfasted, and set out ever 
the bridge, through part of Stroud, and by 
the Medway side. Going through the 
fields, we were attacked by a severe shower 
of rain ; to escape which Scott retired under 
a hedge, and lying down had the misfortune 

to soil the back of his coat-. Uneasy 

at this, and requiring assistance to be 

cleaned-, he missed a white cambric 

handkerchief, which he declared was lent 
him by his spouse; and though he soon 


561 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


found it, yer was his joy at that success 
again abated by his fear that it was torn; 
but being soon convinced that he was more 
afraid than hurt, we ail proceeded merrily 
to Frendsbury. 

We there viewed the church and church¬ 
yard, pleasantly situated. There are some 
bad epitaphs, and in the church is hung up 
a list of benefactions to the parish, at the 
bottom of which there is wrote, “ Witness 
our hands,” and subscribed with the name 
of “ William Gibbons, Vicar,” only. This 
seemed a little odd; but being in such a 
place we imagined there might be some 
mystery in it, so inquired no further. 

At ten we walked on, and calling a 
council among ourselves, it was proposed, 
that if any one was dissatisfied with our 
past proceedings, or intended progress, he 
might depatriate, and be allowed money to 
bear his charges. It was unanimously re¬ 
jected, and resolved to proceed to Upnor. 

We viewed, and Hogarth made a draw- 
i ing of the castle, and Scott of some ship- 
■ ping riding near it (vide Drawing the 3d). 

| The castle is not very large, but strong, 

I garrisoned with twenty-four men, and the 
! like number of guns, though no more than 
{ eight are mounted. I went and bought 
j cockles of an old blind man and woman, 
who were in a little cock-boat on the river. 
We made a hurry-scurry dinner at the 
Smack at the ten-gun battery, and had a 
battle-royal with sticks, pebbles, and hog’s 
dung. In this fight Tothall was the great¬ 
est sufferer, and his cloaths carried the 
marks of his disgrace. Some time this 
occasioned much laughter, and we marched 
on to the bird’s-nest battery; and, keeping 
the river and shipping still in view, passed 
over the hills, and came to Hoo church¬ 
yard, where, on a wooden rail over a grave, 
is an epitaph, supposed to be wrote by a 
maid-servant on her master, which, being 
something extraordinary, I shall here tran¬ 
scribe verbatim : 

And. wHen. he. Died. you. plainLy. see. 

Hee. freely, gaye. al. to. Sara, passa. Wee. 

And. in. Doing, so. if. DoTh. prevail. 

that. Ion. him. can. Well. besTovv. this Rayel. 

On. Year. I. sarved. him. it. is. well. None. 

BuT. I hanks, beto. God. it. is. al. my. One. 

* * * * * * 

At four we left Hoo and an agreeable 
widow landlady, who had buried four hus¬ 
bands. As we travelled along this charm¬ 
ing country, the weather was exceeding 
pleasant, and Scott (according to custom) 
mad us laugh by attempting to prove, a 


man might go over but not througn the 
world; and, for example, pointed to the 
earth, and asked us to go through that el - 
ment. Our fixed opinion was, that his 
argument had less weight than his coat- 
pockets, which were, by some of the com¬ 
pany, filled with pebble-stones, unperceived 
by him, and he carried them some time; 
but at last discovering the trick, and being 
thereby in a condition to knock down all 
opposition to his argument, we acquiesced, i 

At five we took a view of Stoke Church, 
and passed through the church-yard, but 
saw nothing worth observation till we 
came to a farm-house not far distant; where, 
on an elm-tree at the door was placed a 
high pole, with a board that moved with 
the wind, painted in form of a cock, over 
which was a fane weather-cock, and above 
that a shuttle-cock. This variety of cocks 
afforded much speculation. 

At North-street, a little village we passed 
through, we all agreed to quarrel; and be¬ 
ing near a well of water full to the brim, 
we dealt about that ammunition for some 
time, till the cloaths and courage of the 
combatants were sufficiently cooled; and 
then, all pleased, travelled on to the town 
of Stock, and took up our quarters at the 
Nag’s Head. 

At six, whilst supper was getting ready, 
we walked out to take a view of the low 
countries thereabouts; and, on an adjacent 
plain, another sharp engagement happened, 
in which Tothall and Scott both suffered, 
by their cloaths being daubed with soft 
cow-dung. 

At seven we returned back and cleaned 
ourselves; supped, and adjourned to the 
door ; drank punch, stood and sat for our 
pictures drawn by Hogarth, for which see 
Drawing the 3d. Night coming on, we 
drew cuts who should lie single, there j 

being but three beds, and no night-caps. j 

The lot fell to Tothall, and he had the satis¬ 
faction of lying alone. 

At ten went to bed, and had much 
laughter at Scott and I being forced to lie 
together. They threw the stocking, fought 
perukes, and did a great many pretty tricks 
in a horn, and then left us. At eleven we 
arose again, without a candle, and dressed 
ourselves, our sheets being very damp; then 
went to bed again in our cloaths, and slept 
till three. 

Monday at three, awaked and cursed oui 
day ; our eyes, lips, and hands, being tor¬ 
mented and swelled by the biting of gnats. 
Notwithstanding this, the God of Sleep 
being powerful, we soon forgot our miseries, 
and submitted to be bound fast again in Iff- 


562 












THE TABLE BOC'X. 


leaden < hams, 'r. which condition we re¬ 
mained till six ; then arose, had our shoes 
cleaned, were shaved, and had our wigs 
flowered, by a fisherman in his boots and 
shock hair, without coat or waistcoat, vide 
Drawing the 4th. We had milk and toast 
for breakfast, paid our reckoning, and set 
out for Sheerness at eight. 

We passed down Stock Marshes, being- 
directed to keep the road-way, which being 
heavy walking (much rain having fallen the 
preceding night) I prevailed on the com¬ 
pany to follow me over a style, which led 
aiong the beach by a creek side, imagining 
it as near and a better way ; but was de¬ 
ceived, and led the company about two 
! miles astray; bn* getting into the right 
road, we soon entered the Isle of Grain, (so 
called from its fruitfulness, as I conjecture,) 
and near the ohurch there, we stopped at 
the Chequer ale-house, kept by Goody 
Hubbard, who entertained us with salt pork, 
bread, butter, and buns, and good malt 
liquor. Here Scott left and lost his pen¬ 
knife, value five shillings. We expected 
to have got a boat here to carry us over to 
Sheerness ; but the ferry-man did not. care 
to go, and another person we would have 
employed for that purpose sent us word, 
that the wind blew too hard. But our 
landlady put us into a method by which 
we might possibly get a passage; and that 
was, to go down the marshes towards the 
salt-houses, and endeavour to hail the shins 
in ordinary, and by that means get one of 
their boats. We accordingly went down 
to the shore, which was covered with variety 
of shells, and accidentally espied a little 
boat coming on our side the water below 
us, which Thornhill and Tothall went down 
to meet, and brought up to us, and with 
some difficulty took us in (the manner of 
our embarking is delineated in the 5th 
drawing); and we set sail for Sheerness. 
The sea ran high the wind blowing hard 
at S.W. and by S. In our passage we had 
the pleasure of seeing and hearing the guns 
fired from the fort and the men of war, and 
about twelve we landed. We traversed the 
fort, went round the lines, saw all the for¬ 
tifications and batteries, and had a delight¬ 
ful prospect of the sea and the island of 
Sheppy. Scott was laughed at for smelling 
to the touch-holes of some of the guns 
lately discharged; and so was Hogarth, 
for sitting down to cut his toe-nails in the 
garrison. At one we set out for Queen- 
borough, to which place we walked along 
the beach, which the spray flew over in many 
places. Thornhill fell down, and slightly 
hurt his leg; yet we all perambulated 


merrily, and arrived at Queenborougr. about 
two. 

The town is but one street, situate on 
the east side of a creek, called after the 
town’s name, and branching out of the 
Medway near the town. The street is clean 
and well paved (for a more exact descrip, 
tion see the 6th drawing), and answers the 
description I have had of a Spanish town, 
viz. there is no sign of any trade, nor were 
many human creatures to be seen at our 
first arrival. The church is low and ill 
built: among many tomb-stones there are 
but few epitaphs worth noting, and the 
most material I take to be the following 
one, viz. 

Henry Knight Master of a Shipp to Greenland and 
Herpooner 24 Voyages 

Ir. Greenland I whales Sea horses Bears did Slay 

Though Now my Body is Intombe in Clay 

The town-house or clock-house (as it is 
called) stands in tne middle of the street, 
supported by four piers, which form four 
arches, and (it being holiday) was decorated 
with a flag, in which is delineated the arms 
of the corporation. We took up our quar¬ 
ters at the Red Lion (which the people call 
the Swans) fronting the river, and met with 
a civil, prating landlady; but she being 
unprovided with beds, we applied to a 
merry woman at a private house, who fur¬ 
nished us with what we wanted. We then 
took another walk up the town, had a view 
of the inside of the church, and a con¬ 
ference with the grave-digger, who informed 
us of the state of the corporation. Among 
other things we were told, that the mayor 
is a custom-house officer, and the parson a 
sad dog. We found, to our sorrow, that 
although the town has two market-days, 
yet there was not one piece of fresh meat of 
any sort, nor any poultry or fish, except 
lobsters, to be got; with which, and some 
eggs and bacon, we made our supper. 

We walked up the hill behind the town, 
to a well of very good water; over which 
(we were informed) a palace formerly stood, 
built by King Edward the Third for his 
Queen Philippa. Whilst we were at the 
well, two sailors came and drew a bucket 
of water to drink, and told uf, that they 
and four more, belonging to the Rose man 
of war, were obliged the day before to at¬ 
tend one of their midshipmen, a son of 

General S-, in a yawl up the creek, and 

run the vessel ashore, where the midship, 
man left them, (without any sustenance, 
but a few cockles, or one penny of money 
to buy any,) and went to Sheerness, and 
was not yet returned, and they half-starved 


563 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


We gave the fellows six-pence, who were 
very thankful, and ran towards the town to 
uuy victuals for themselves and their com¬ 
panions, who lay asleep at some distance. 
We going to view their boat that stuck fast 
in the mud, one of the sailors returned 
hastily, and kindly offered us some cockles ; 
this seemed an act of so much gratitude 
that we followed the fellows into the town, 
and gave them another sixpence; and they 
fetched their companions, and all refreshed 
themselves, and were very thankful and 
merry. 

About seven we passed through the town, 
and saw and conversed with several pretty 
women, which we did not expect, not hav¬ 
ing seen any at our arrival, and returned to 
our quarters. We got a wooden chair, and 
placed Hogarth in it in the street, where 
he made the Drawing No. 6, and gathered 
a great many men, women, and children, 
about him, to see his performance. Having 
finished his drawing, we again walked up 
town, and at the mayor’s door saw all the 
sailors before mentioned, who informed me, 
(with “ your worship” at every word) that 
the midshipman was lately returned from 
Sheerness, and had been up the creek to 
see how the boat lay ; and coming back, 
had met a sailor in company with a woman 
whom the midshipman wanted to be free 
with, and the sailor opposed, insisting she 
was his wife, and hindered him from being 
rude; which the midshipman resenting, 
was gone to the mayor to redress his griev¬ 
ance. We thought this a very odd affair, 
but did not stay to see the result of it. 

About nine we returned to our quarters, 
drank to our friends as usual, and emptied 
several cans of good flip, and all sung 
merrily; but were quite put out of counte¬ 
nance by some Harwich men, who came 
with lobsters, and were drinking in the 
next room. They sung several sea-songs 
so agreeably, that our St. John could not 
come in competition, nor could Pishoken 
save us from disgrace; so that after finish¬ 
ing the evening as pleasantly as possible, 
we went out of the house the back-way to 
our lodgings, at near eleven. 

When we came there, our landlady had 
provided a bed for Scott in the garret, 
which made him grumble, and us laugh : 
this provoked him so far, that he absolutely 
refused to lie there ; and Tothall, out of 
pure good-nature, offered him his bed at 
the house we came from, and that he would 
lie in the garret. This Scott accepted, 
and went away; and Tothall going up 
ttairs, found he was to lie on a flock bed, 
without curtains; so came down again 


immediately, and went after Scott, at whicn 
we were very merry- and slept upon it tib 
six in the morning. 

Tuesday morning, at six, Hogarth called 
me up, and told me, the good woman in¬ 
sisted on being paid for her bed, or having 
Scott before the mayor; which last we did 
all in our power to promote, but to no 
effect; so coming to the public-house 
where Scott and Tothall lay, we found the 
doors open (a thing common in this town,) 
and nobody up. However, Hogarth soon 
roused them; and then Scott related ano¬ 
ther distress lie had the last night, viz. when 
he left us, and was going to bed, he per 
ceived something stir under the bed- 
cloaths, which he (collecting all his cou¬ 
rage) was resolved to feel; at which some¬ 
thing cried out, (seemingly affrighted,) and 
scared him out of his wits; but, resuming 
courage enough to inquire into the nature 
of affairs, he found it to be a little boy of 
the house, who had mistook the bed. This 
relation, according to custom, made us very 
merry, and Tothall provided some break¬ 
fast ; after which we left the Swans, and 
went up town, where our shirts were sent 
to be washed ; but not having time to dry, 
we took them wet, and had them dried and 
ironed at the next town. 

About ten we quitted Queenborough : 
the morning was delightful, the country 
very pleasant, through which we passed 
very agreeably up to Mmster, a little vil¬ 
lage on the highest part of the island. We 
laboured hard to climb the hill to the 
church-yard, it being very steep. We saw 
there, on a wooden rail over the grave, the 
following epitaph in verse : 

Here Interr’d George Anderson Doth Lye 

By fallen on an Anchor he did Dye 

In Sheerness Yard on Good Friday 

ye 6th of April, I do say 

All you that Read my Allegy : Be alwaies 

Ready for to Dye—Aged 42 Years 


Our landlord at the George procured us 
a key of the church, which we entered, and 
saw there the monuments of Lord Cheyne, 
of a Spanish Ambassador, and of the Lord 
Shorland. Scott made a drawing of the 
Ambassador, (vide Drawing the 7th,) and 
Hogarth of Lord Shorland (see Drawing 
the 8th). The legend of the last being re¬ 
markable, I shall relate it with all its cir 
cumstances. In the reign of Queen Eli¬ 
zabeth, this lord having been to visit a 
friend on this island, and passing by this 
church in his way home to Shorland, about 
two miles oft, he saw a concourse of people 
gathered together in the churob-yard; and 


I 










































THE TABLE BOOK. 


i inquiring the reason, was informed, that the 
parson who stood by there, refused to bury 
the corpse brought for that purpose, be¬ 
cause there was no money to pay the burial 
fees. Ilis lordship, being extremely moved 
at the parson, ordered the people to tluow 
him into the grave, and bury him quick ; 
w'hich they accordingly did, and he died. 
My lord went home; and there reflecting 
on what he had done, and fearing to forfeit 
his life for the offence, he wrote a petition, 

; setting forth the nature of his offence ; and 
| hearing the queen was on board one of the 
ships at the Nore, (to which place she came 
to take a view of her fleet designed to 
oppose the Spanish armada,) he took a 
horse, and rode directly into the sea, and 
swam to the Nore, above three miles off, 
and coming to the ship’s side, begged to 
see her majesty ; who came immediately, 
and he presented his petition. The queen 
received, read, and granted it; and he, 
without quitting his horse, swam back 
again to the island ; and coming on the 
i shore met an old woman, who told him, 
i that though the horse had then saved his 
life, he would be the cause of his death. 
His lordship fearing (and in order to pre¬ 
vent) the accomplishment of the old wo¬ 
man’s prophecy, alighted from his horse, 

| drew his sword and killed him, and left 
| him there; and his carcass was, by the 
force of the sea, thrown some little way on 
the land. 

Some years after this, my lord, walking 
with some of his friends near the sea-side, 
espied the skull and some other bones of 
the horse lying there, and relating the fore¬ 
going account, happened to kick the skull 
and hurt one of his toes, which mortified 
and killed him; and he lies in Minster 
Church, and a monument is erected over 
his grave, on which he is figured with a 
j horse’s head (supposed to be in the waves) 
(placed by him. (Vide Drawing the 8th.) 
This story is so firmly believed in that 
parish, that a horse’s head, finely gilt, is 
placed as a weather-cock on the church 
steeple, and the figure of a horse is struck 
upon the spindle above that weather-cock, 
and the church is commonly called the 
Horse Church. We were so well satisfied 
of the people’s belief that all they told us 
was true, that we did not dare to declare 
our disbelief of one tittle ol the story. 

We dined at the George, staid till four, 
then left Minster, and walked to Sheerness ; 
hired a small vessel, (vulgarly called a 
bomb-boat,) and about five set sail for 
<i-ave«end. 

The wind blew' a fresh gale at E. and by 


S. Scott grew very sea-sick, and did what 
was natural in such cases. Soon after, 
Hogarth grew sick, and was consequently 
uneasy, which was augmented by our stop¬ 
ping; and Tothall going on board Captain 
Robinson, in one of the custom-house 
sloops, riding in Holy Haven, who furnished 
him with some milk punch, and us with 
some fire to light our pipes, which was 
greatly wanted. 

It rained hard all the voyage. We saw 
several porpoises rolling in pursuit of their 
prey ; and one in particular was got so 
near shore, that we thought he must remain 
there; but he deceived our expectation, 
and got off again. 

About seven, our sick passengers being 
recovered, we sailed merrily, and sung St. 
John, Pishoken, and several other songs 
and tunes ourselves, and our cockswain 
entertained us with several sailors’songs; 
but our notes were soon changed by our 
vessel running on, and sticking fast in, the 
Blye sand, though we were almost in the 
middle of the channel. It was the tide of 
ebb, and within about an hour of flood, 
which gave us some concern, believing we 
should be forced to continue there some 
time, and bear the beating of the wind and 
waves ; yet, by the industry of our man¬ 
ners, and the skilful assistance of Tothall, ! 
we got off again in a little time (though ■ 
with some difficulty) ; and the wind prov- , 
ing favourable, we arrived safe at Graves¬ 
end about ten. 

We supped, and drank good wine, and 
thought our adventures and extraordinary 
mirth ended, but found otherwise : lor a 
great coat Scott had borrowed for this, 
journey, and left at Gravesend, and tra¬ 
velled without it, we found, on our arrival 
here, could not be found. This, though J 
grief to him, was sport to us; and he soon j 
got the better of his uneasiness, and grew 
as merry as we. Thus we continued till 
pretty late, and then went to bed. 

Wednesday, at eight, we arose, break¬ 
fasted, and walked about the town. At 
ten went into a boat we had hired, with a 
truss of clean straw, a bottle of good wine, 
pipes, tobacco, and a match. The wind 
was favourable at S.E. and a mackerel gale 
Our passage was very pleasant to all till 
we came into Enfl Reach, when Scott, be¬ 
ing without his great coat, (for the reason 
above-mentioned,) taking a drawing of some 
shipping, a flurry of wind caused our vessel 
to ship a sea, which washed him from 
head to foot, and nobody else. He, greatly 
surprised, got up, and drawing the fore¬ 
tail of his shirt from out of l.is breeches, 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


k which were also well soused with salt 
water,) he held it in both hands opposed 
to the windward ; apd the sun shining 
warm, he was soon dry; and, recovering 
his surprise, joined wit'h us in laughing at 
the accident. 

We came merrily up the river; and 
quitting our boat at Billingsgate, got into 
a wherry that carried us through bridge, 
and landed at Somerset Water-gate; from 
whence we walked all together, and arrived 
at about two at the Bedford Arms, Covent 
Garden, in the same good-humour we left 
it to set out on this very pleasant expedition. 

I think I cannot better conclude than 
with taking notice, that not one of the com¬ 
pany was unemployed; for Mr. Thornhill 
made the map, Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Scott 
the drawings, Mr. Tothall was our trea¬ 
surer, which (though a place of the greatest 
trust) he faithfully discharged; and the 
foregoing Memoir was the work of 

E. Forrest. 


The veracity of this manuscript is attested 
by us, 

Wm. Hogarth. Wm. Totkall. 

Saml. Scott. Jno. Thornhill. 


London, May 27, 1732. Accompt of Dis¬ 
bursements for Messieurs Hogarth and 
Co. viz. 

£. s. d. 

To paid at the Dark-house, Billingsgate 0 0 8J 
To paid for a pint of Geneva Hollands - 0 1 0 

To faid waterman to Gravesend - - 0 5 0 

To paid barber ditto - - - - 0 0 10 

To paid for breakfast at ditto - 0 2 2 


Carried up 0 9 8£ 


£ 

Brought no 0 
To paid for beer on the road to Rocnester 0 
To paid for shrimps at Chatham - - 0 

To paid at the gunnery and dock - - 0 

To paid bill at Rochester - - l 

28, To gave at Upnor for information - - 0 

To paid at the Smack at ditto - 0 

To paid at Hoo . . - - 0 

To paid at Stoke - . - 0 


29. To paid at Mother Hubbard’s at Grain - 0 
To paid for passage over to Sheerness - 0 
To paid for lobsters at Queenborough - 0 
To paid for two pots of beer to treat the 


sexton - - * * 0 

i o paid for dinner, &c. • 0 

To charity gave the sailors - - * 0 

U. To paid for lodgings and maid - 0 

To paid for breakfast - 0 

i .0 paid for washing shirts - 0 

To paid at Minster ... 0 

To paid at Sheerness ... 0 

To paid for a boat to Gravesend - - 0 

To paid barber at ditto 0 


o paid for sundry at ditto - - - 1 

for passage to Somerset House - 0 


*. d. 

9 8£ 
<t * 

0 9 
1 6 
7 3 
0 3 
4 3 
1 8 
11 6 

3 0 
2 10 
1 6 

0 6 
6 6 
1 0 

4 6 
2 6 
1 8 
9 2 
1 3 

7 e 
1 2 
0 3$ 

5 6 


6 6 0 


Vouchers produced, examined, and allowed , 
Per E. Forrest. Saml. Scott. 

Wm. Hogarth. Jno. Thornhill. 


The Rev. Mr. Gostling’s version bore 
the same title and motto as the prose Tour, 
with this addition,—“ Imitated in Hudi- 
brasticks, by one well acquainted with 
some of the Travellers, and of the places 
here celebrated, with liberty of some addi¬ 
tions.” It is subjoined; viz. 


MR. GOSTLING’S ACCOUNT OF HOGARTH’S TOUR. 


’Twas first of morn on Saturday, 

The seven-and-twentieth day of May, 
When Hogarth, Thornhill, Tothall , Scott, 
And Forrest, who this journal wrote, 
From Covent-Garden took departure, 

To see the world by land and water. 

Our march we with a song begin ; 

Our hearts were light, our breeches thin 
We meet with nothing of adventure 
Till Billingsgate's Darh-house we enter. 
Where we diverted were, while baiting. 
With ribaldry, not worth relating 
(Quite suited to the dirty place' 

But what most pleas’d us was his Grace 
Of Puddle Dock, a porter grim. 

Whose portrait Hogarth, in a whim. 


Presented him in caricature. 

He pasted on the cellar door.* 

But hark ! the Watchman cries “ Past one 
’Tis time that we on board were gone. 

Clean straw we find laid for our bed, 

A tilt for shelter over head. 

The boat is soon got under sail. 

Wind near S. E. a mack’rel gale. 

Attended by a heavy rain ; 

We try to sleep, but try in vain. 

So sing a song, and then begin 
To feast on biscuit, beef, and gm. 

At Purfleet find three men ot war. 

The Dursley galley, Gibraltar, 

* This drawing unluckily has not been preserved. 


566 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


And Tartar pink, and of this last 
The pilot begg’d of us a cast 
To Gravoscnd, which he greatly wanted, 

And readily by us was granted. 

1 he grateful man, to make amends, 

Told how the officers and friends 
Of England were by Spaniards treated. 

And shameful instances repeated. 

While he these insults was deploring, 

Hogarth, like Premier, fell to snoring. 

But waking cry’d, “ I dream’d”—and then 
Fell fast asleep, and snor’d again. 

The morn clear'd up, and after five 
At port of Gravesend we arrive, 

But found it hard to get on shore, 

His boat a young son of a whore 
Had fix’d just at our landing-place. 

And swore we should not o’er it pass ; 

But, spite of all the rascal’s tricks, 

We made a shift to land by six. 

And up t,o Mrs. Bramble's go 
[A house that we shall better know]. 

There get a barber for our wigs. 

Wash hands and faces, stretch our legs. 

Had toast and butter, and a pot 
Of coffee (our third breakfast) got: 

Then, paying what we had to pay. 

For Rochester we took oar way. 

Viewing the new church as we went. 

And th’ unknown person’s monument. 

The beauteous prospects found us talk, 

.-nd shorten’d much our two hours walk. 

Though by the way we did not fail 
To stop a* d take three pots of ale, 

And this enabled us by ten 
At Rochester to drink again. 

Now, Muse, assist, while I declare 
(Like a true English traveller) 

What vast variety we survey 
In the short compass of one day. 

We scarce had lost the sight of Thames , 

When the fair Medu/ty's winding streams. 

And far-extending Rochester , 

Before our longing eyes appear. 

The Castle and Cathedral grace 
One prospect, so we mend our pace; 

Impatient for a nearer view. 

But first must Strood’s rough street trudge through, 
And this our feet no short one find ; 

However, with a cheerful mind. 

All difficulties we get o’er, 

And soon are on the Medway’s shore. 

New objects here before us rise. 

And more than satisfy our eyes. 

The stately Bridge from side to side. 

The roaring cataracts of the tide, 

Deafen our ears, and charm our sight, 

And terrify while they delight. 

These we pass over to the 1 own. 

And taxe our Quarters at The Crown, 

To which the Castle is so near. 

That we all in a hurry were 

The grand remains on’t to be viewing ; 

It is indeed a noble ruin 


Must have been very strong, but length 
Of t>me has much impair’d its strength : 

The lofty Power as high or higher 
Seems than the old Cathedral’s spire , 

Yet we determin’d were to gain 

Its top, which cost some care and pain ; 

When there arriv’d, we found a well. 

The depth of which I cannot tell; 

Small holes cut in on every side 
Some hold for hands and feet provide. 

By which a little boy we saw 
Go down, and bring up a jack-daw. 

All round about us then we gaze. 
Observing, not without amaze, 

How towns here undistinguish’d join. 

And one vast One to form combine. 

Chatham with Rochester seems but one. 
Unless we’re shewn the boundary stone, 

That and its yards contiguous lie 
To pleasant Brampton standing high ; 

The Bridge across the raging flood 
Which Rochester divides from Strood, 
Extensive Strood, on t'other side. 

To Frindsbury quite close ally'd, 

The country round, and river fair. 

Our prospects made beyond compare, 

Which quite in raptures we admire; 

Then down to face of earth retire. 

Up the Street walking, first of all 
We take a view of the Town-Hall. 
Proceeding farther on, we spy 
A house, design’d to catch the eye, 

With front so rich, by plastick skill. 

As made us for a while stand still: 

Four huge Hobgoblins grace the wall. 

Which we foui Bas Relievo’s call; 

They the four Seasons represent, 

At least were form’d for that mtent. 

Then Watts's Hospital we see 
(No common cuiiosity); 

Endow’d (as on the front appears) 

In favour of poor travellers; 

Six such it every night receives. 

Supper and lodging gratis gives. 

And to each man next morn does pay 
A groat, to keep nim on his way : 

But the contagiously infected. 

And rogues and proctors, are rejected. 

It gave us too some entertainment 
To find out what this bounteous man meant, 
Yet were we not so highly feasted. 

But that we back to dinner hasted. 

By twelve again we reach The Crown, 
But find our meat not yet laid down, 

So (spite of “ Gentlemen, d’ye call ?”) 

On chairs quite fast asleep we fall, 

And with clos’d eyes again survey 
In dreams what we have seen to-day ; 

Till dinner’s coming up, when we 
As ready are as that can be. 

If we describe it not, we’re undone. 

You’ll scarce believe we came from J-on 
With due attention, then prepare 
Yourself to hear our bill of fare 


567 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


For oar fiist coarse a ..ish there was 
Of soles and flounders wit*h crab-sauce, 

A stuff'd and roast calf’s-heart beside. 

With ’purt’nance minc’d, and liver fry’d ; 

And for a second course, they put on 
Green pease and roasted leg of mutton. 

The cook was much commended for’t ; 

Fresh was the beer, and sound the port, 

So that nem. con. we all agree 
(Whatever more we have to see) 

From table we’ll not rise till three. 

Our shoes are clean’d, ’tis three o’clock, 

Come let’s away tc Chatham-Dock; 

We shan’t get the e till almost four, 

To see’t will take at least an hour; 

Yet Scott and Hogarth needs must stop 
At the Court-Hall to play Scotch hop. 

To Chatham got, ourselves we treat 
With Shrimps, which as we walk we eat, 

For speed we take a round-about¬ 
way, as we afterwards found out: 

At length reach the King’s yards and docks 
Admire the ships there on the stocks, 

The men of war afloat we view. 

Find means to get aboard of two ;* 

But here I must not be prolix, 

For we went home again at six, 

There smoak’d our pipes, and drank our wia*, 
And comfortably sat till nine, 

Then, with our travels much improv’d. 

To our respective beds we mov’d. 

Sunday at seven we rub our eyes. 

But are too lazy yet to rise, 

Hogarth and Thornhill tell their dreams. 

And, reasoning deeply on those themes, 

After much learned speculation, 

Quite suitable to the occasion, 

Left off as wise as they begun. 

Which made for tis in bed good fun. 

But by and by, when up we got, 

Sam Scott was missing, “ Where’s Sam Scott f" 
“ Oh ! here he comes. Well! whence come you 
“ Why from the bridge, taking a view 
Of something that did highly please me, 

But people passing by would teaze me 
With ‘ Do you work on Sundays, friend ?’ 

So that I could not make an end.” 

At this we laugh’d, for ’twas our will 
Like men of taste that day to kill. 

So after breakfast we thought good 
To cross the bridge again to Strood : 

Thence eastward we resolve to go, 

And through the Hundred march of Hoo, 
Wash’d on the north side by the Thames, 

And on the south by Medway's streams, 

Which to each other here incline. 

Till at the Nore in one they join. 

Before we Frindsbury could gain, 

There fell a heavy shower of rain, 

When crafty Scott a shelter found 
Under a hedge upon the ground, 


• The Royal Sovereign and Marlborough . 


There of his friends a joke he made. 

But rose most woefully bewray'd; 

How against him the laugh was turn’d, 

And he the vile disaster mourn’d! 

We work, all hands, to make him clean. 

And fitter to be fitly seen. 

But, while we scrap’d his back and side, 

All on a sudden, out he cried, 

“ I’ve lost my cambrick handkercher, 

’Twas lent me by my wife so dear: 

What I shall do I can’t devise, 

I’ve nothing left to rvipe my eyes.” 

At last the handkerchief was found, 

To his great comfort, safe and sound, 

He’s now recover’d and alive ; 

So in high spirits all arrive 
At Frindsbury, fam’d for prospects fair, 

But we much more diverted were 
With what the parish church did grace, 

“ A list of some who lov’d the place, 

In memory of their good actions. 

And gratitude for their benefactions. 

Witnes our hands— Will. Oibbons, Vicar—" 

And no one else.—This made us snicker . 

At length, with countenances serious, 

We all agreed it w r as mysterious. 

Not guessing that the reason might 
Be, the Churchwardens could not write. 

At ten, in council it was mov’d. 

Whoe’er was tir’d, or disapprov’d 
Of our proceedings, might go back, 

And cash to bear his charges take. 

With indignation this was heard . 

Each was for all events prepar’d. 

So all with one consent agreed 
To Upnor-Castlc to proceed, 

And at the sutler’s there we din’d 
On such coarse fare as we could find. 

The Castle was not large, but strong. 

And seems to be of standing long. 

Twenty-four men its garrison, 

And just for every man a gun; 

Eight guns were mounted, eight men active, 

The rest were rated non-effective. 

Here an old couple, who had brought 
Some cockles in their boat, besought 
That one of us would buy a few. 

For they were very fresh and new. 

I did so, and ’twas charity; 

He was quite blind, and half blind she. 

Now growing frolicksorr.o and gay, 

Like boys, we after dinner play, 

But, as the scene lay in a fort, 

Something like war must be our sport: 

Sticks, stones, and hogs-dung were our weaooou 
And, as in such frays oft it happens, 

Poor Tothall’s cloaths here went to pot, 

So that he could not laugh at Scott. 

F rom hence all conquerors we go 
To visit the church-yard at Hoo. 

At Hoo we found an Epitaph, 

Which made us (as ’twill make you) laygJi; 

A servant maid, turn’d poetaster. 

Wrote it in honour of her master; 


5(3 3 























THE TABLE BOOK 


i therefore give you (and I hope you 
Will like it well) a Vera Copia : 

“ And . wHen . he . Died . You plainly . see 
Hee . freely . gave . al . to . Sara . passaWee. 
And . in . Doing . so . it DoTh . prevail. 
that . Ion . him . can . well. bes . Tow . this Rayel 
On . Year . I sarved . him . it is well . none . 

BuT Thanks . beto . God . it . is . all my . One.” 

* * * * * 

Long at one place we must not stay, 

’Tis almost four, let’s haste away. 

But here’s a sign ; ’tis rash, we think, 

To leave the place before we drink. 

We meet with liquor to our mind. 

Our hostess complaisant and kind : 

She was a widow, who, we found, 

Had (as the phrase is) been shod round, 

That is, had buried husbands four. 

And had no want of charms for more; 

Yet her we leave, and, as we go, 

Soott bravely undertook to show 

That through the world we could not pass, 

How thin soe’er our breeches was ; 

“ ’Tis true, indeed, we may go round, 

But through”—then pointed to the ground. 

So well he manag’d the debate, 

We own’d he was a man of weight: 

And so indeed he was this once, 

His pockets we had fill’d with stones. 

But here we’d serv’d ourselves a trick, 

Of which he might have made us sick • 

We’d furnish’d him with ammunition 
Fit to knock down all opposition ; 

And, knowing well his warmth of temper, 

Out of his reach begaa to scamper, 

Till, growing cooler, he pretends 
His passion feign'd, so all are mends. 

Our danger now becomes a joke, 

And peaceably we go to Stoke. 

About the church we nothing can see 
To strike cr entertain our fancy : 

But near a farm, or an elm tree, 

A long pole fix’d upright we see, 

And tow’rd the top of it was plac’d 
A weathercock, quite in high taste. 

Which all of us, ere we go further. 

Pronounce of the Composite order. 

First, on a board turn’d by the wind, 

A painter had a cock design’d, 

A common weathercock was above it, 

This turn’d too as the wind did move it; 

Then on the spindle’s point so small 
A shuttlecock stuck o’ertopp’d them all. 

This triple alliance gave occasion 
To much improving speculation. 

Alas ! we ne’er know when we are well. 

So at Northjieet again must quarrel; 

But fought not here with sticks and stones 
(For those, you know, might break our bones) 
A well just by, full to the brim. 

Did fitter for our purpose seem ; 

So furiously we went to dashing, 

Till our coats wanted no more washing 5 


But this our heat and courage cooling, 

’Twas soon high time to leave such fooling, 

To The Nag's Head we therefore hie, 

To drink, and to be turn d adry. 

At six, while supper was preparing, 

And we about the marsh-lands staring, 

Our two game cocks, Tothall and Scott, 

To battling once again were got: 

But here no weapons could they find, 

Save what the cows dropp’d from behind ; 
With these they pelted, till we fancy 
Iheir cloaths look’d something like a tansy 
At seven we all come home again, 

Tothall and Scott their garments clean ; 
Supper we get, and, when that’s o’er, 

A tiff of punch drink at the door ; 

Then, as the beds were only three, 

Draw cuts who shall so lucky be 
As here to sleep without a chum ; 

To Tothall’s share the prize did come; 
Hogarth and Thornhill , Scott and 1 
In pairs, like man and wife, must lie. 

Then mighty frolicksome they grow, 

At Scott and me the stocking throw, 

Fight with their wigs, in which perhaps 
They sleep, for here we found no caps. 

Up at eleven again we get, 

Our sheets were so confounded wet; 

We dress, and he down in our cloaths j 
Monday , at three, awak’d and rose, 

And of the cursed gnats complain, 

Ye* make a shift to sleep again. 

TiH six o’clock we quiet lay, 

And then got out for the whole day ; 

To fetch a barber out we send ; 

Stripp’d, and in boots, he does attend, 

For he’s a fisherman by trade ; 

Tann’d was his face, shock was his head ; 

He flowers our wigs and trims our faces, 

And the top barber of the place is. 

The cloth is for our breakfast spread, 

A bowl of milk and toasted bread 
Are brought, of which while Forrest eats, 

To draw our pictures Hogarth sits; 

Thornhill is in the barber’s hands, 

Shaving himself Will Tothall stands ; 

While Scott is in a corner sitting, 

And an unfinish’d piece completing. 

Our reckoning about eight we pay, 

And take for Isle of Greanc our way ; 

To keep the road we were directed, 

But, as ’twas bad, this rule neglected , 

A tempting path over a stile 
Led us astray above a mile ; 

Yet the right road at last we gain. 

And joy to find ourselves at Grcane ; 

Where my Dame Husbands, at The Chequer, 
Refresh’d us with some good malt liquor; 

I nto her larder then she runs, 

Brings out salt pork, butter, and buns, 

And coarse black bread, but that’s no matter. 
’Twill fortify us for the water. 

Here Scott so carefully laid down 
Uis penknife which had cost a crown, 


569 




THE TABLE BOOK. 


all in vain we sought to find it, 

And, for his comfort, say, “ Ne’er mind it 
For to Sheerness we now must go : 

To this the ferryman says, “ No.” 

We to another man repair’d : 

He too says, “ No—it blows too hard.” 

But, while we study how to get there. 

In spite of this tempestuous weather. 

Our landlady a scheme propos’d. 

With which we fortunately clos’d. 

Was to the shore to go, and try 
To hail the ships in ordinary. 

So we might get, for no great matter, 

A boat to take us e’er the water. 

We haste, and soon the shore we tread, 

With various kinds of shells bespread, 

And in a little time we spy’d 
A boat approaching on our side ; 

The man to take us in agreed, 

But that was difficult indeed. 

Till, holding in each hand an oar. 

He made a sort of bridge to shore, 

O’er which on hands and knees we crawl. 
And so get safe on board the yawl. 

In little time we seated were, 

And now to Shcpcy’s coast draw near; 

When suddenly, with loud report. 

The cannons roar from ships and fort. 

And, like tall fellows, we impute 
To our approach this grand salute . 

But soon, alas 1 our pride was humbled. 

And from this fancy’d height we tumbled, 

On recollecting that the day 
The nine and twentieth was of May. 

The firing had not long been ended. 

Before at Sheerness we were landed. 

Where on the battery while we walk. 

And of the charming prospect talk, 

Scott from us in a hurry runs, 

And, getting to the new-fir’d guns. 

Unto their touch-holes clapp’d his nose ; 
Hogarth sits down, and trims his toes ; 

These whims when we had made our sport, 
Our turn we finish round the fort. 

And are at one for Quecnborough going: 
Bleak was the walk, the wind fierce blowing, 
And driving o’er our heads the spray ; 

On loose beach stones, our pebbly way. 

But Thornhill only got a fall. 

Which hurt him little, if at all: 

So merrily along we go. 

And reach that famous town by two. 

Quecnborough consists of one short street, 
Broad, and well-pav’d, and very neat; 
Nothing like dirt offends the eye. 

Scarce any people could we spy : 

The town-house, for the better show 
Is mounted on a portico 
Of piers and arches, number four. 

And crown’d at top with a clock tower ; 

But ah this did not reach so high 
As a dag-staff, that stood just by. 

On whicn a standard huge was flying 
''The oorough’s arms, the king’s supply'{q|) 


Which on hi«th festivals thev display 
To do the honours of the day. 

As for salutes, excus’d they are, 

3ecause they have no cannon there. 

To the church-yard we first repair. 

And hunt for choice inscriptions there. 

Search stones and rails, till almost weary all 
In hopes to find something material. 

When one at last, of pyebald style 
(Though grave the subject) made us smile • 
Telling us first, in humble prose, 

** That Henry Knight doth here repose, 

A Greenland Trader twice twelve year. 

As master and as harpooner 
Then, in as humble verse, we read 
(As by himself in person said) 

“InGreenland I whales,sea-horse,and bears did slay 
Though now my body is intombed in clay.” 

The house at which we were to quarter 
Is call’d The Swans ; this rais d our laughter. 
Because the sign is The Red Lion , 

So strange a blunder we cry “ Fie on 1” 

But, going in, all neat we see 
And clean ; so was our landlady . 

With great civility she told us. 

She had not beds enough to hold us. 

But a good neighbour had just by. 

Where some of us perhaps might lie. 

She sends to ask. The merry dame 
Away to us directly came, 

Quite ready our desires to grant. 

And furnish us with what we want. 

Back to the church again we go. 

Which is but small, ill built, and low. 

View’d the inside, but still we see 
Nothing of curiosity, 

Unless we suffer the grave-digger 
In this our work to make a figure, 

Whom just beside us now we have. 

Employ’d in opening of a grave. 

A prating spark indeed he was. 

Knew all the scandal of the place. 

And often rested from his labours. 

To give the history of his neighbours; 

Told who was who, and what was what. 

Till on him we bestow’d a pot. 

(For he forgot not, you may think, 

** Masters, I hope you’ll make me drink ”’) 

At this his scurrilous tongue run faster, 

Till “ a sad dog” he call’d his master. 

Told us the worshipful the Mayor 
Was but a custom-house officer. 

Still rattling on till we departed. 

Not only with his tales diverted. 

But so much wisdom we had got. 

We treated him with t’other pot. 

Return we now to the town-hall. 

That, like the borough, is but small. 

Under its portico s a space. 

Which you may call the market place, 

Just big enough to hold the stocks. 

And one, if not two, butchers’ blocks. 

Emblems of plenty and excess. 

Though you can no where meet with te** i 


570 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


Por though ’ti> call’d a market-town 
(As they are not asham’d to own) 

Yet we saw neither butcher’s meat, 

Nor fish, nor fowl, nor aught to eat. 

Once in seven years, they say, there’s plenty, 
When strangers come to represent ye. 

Hard at The Swans had been our fare. 

But that some Harwich men were there. 

Who lately had some lobsters taken. 

With which, and eke some eggs and bacon. 

Our bellies we design to fill; 

But first will clamber up the hill, 

A most delightful spot of ground, 

O’erlooking all the country round ; 

On which there formerly has been 
The palace of Philippa, queen 
To the third Edward , as they tell. 

Now nought remains on’t but a well: 

But ’tis from hence, says common fame. 

The borough gets its royal name. 

Two sailors at this well we meet. 

And do each other kindly greet: 

“ What brings you here, my lads ?” cry we. 

‘ Thirst, please your honours, as you see ; 

For (adds the spokesman) we are here 
Waiting for our young officer, 

A mid hipman on board The Rose, 

(For GeneralS- 's son he goes) 

We and our messmates, six in all. 

Yesterday brought him in our yawl, 

And when, as we had been commanded. 

Quite safe and dry we had him landed. 

By running of her fast aground 
At tide of ebb, he quickly found 
That he might go and see Sheerness, 

So here he left us pennyless, 

To feast on Queenborough air and water. 

Or starve, to him ’tis no great matter, 

While he among his friends at ease is, 

And will return just when he pleases ; 

Perhaps he may come back to-day, 

If not, he knows that we must stay.” 

So one of us gave him a tester. 

When both cried out, “ God bless you, master I” 
Then ran to rouse their sleeping fellows, 

To share their fortune at the alehouse. 

Hence to the creek-side, one and all. 

We go to see The Rose’s yawl, 

And found her bedded in the mud. 

Immovable till tide of flood. 

The sailors here had cockles got 
Which gratefully to us they brought, 

’Twas all with which they could regale us. 
This t’ other sixpence sent to th’ alehouse . 

So merrily they went their way. 

And we were no less pleas’d than they. 

At seven about the town we walk. 

And with some pretty damsels talk. 

Beautiful nymphs indeed, I ween. 

Who came to see, and to be seen. 

Then to our Swans returning, there 
We borrow’d a great wooden chair 
And plac’d it in the open street. 

Where, in much state did Hogaith sit 


To draw the townhouse, church, and steeple, 
Surrounded by » crowd of people; 

Tag, rag, and bobtail, stood quite thick theie, 
And cry’d, “ What a sweet pretty picture 1” 
This was not finish’d long before 
We saw, about the Mayor’s fore-door. 

Our honest sailors in a throng: 

We call’d one of them from among 
The rest, to tell us the occasion ; 

Of which he gave us this relation: 

“ Our midshipman is just come back, 

And chanc’d to meet or overtake 
A sailor walking with a woman 
(May be she’s honest, may be common): 

He thought her handsome, so his honour 
Would needs be very sweet upon her : 

But this the seaman would not suf¬ 
fer, and this put him in a huflf. 

* Lubber, avast,’ says sturdy John, 

* Avast, I say, let her alone; 

You shall not board her, she's my wife. 

Sheer off, Sir, if you love your life: 

I’ve a great mind your back to lick ;’ 

And up he held his oaken stick. 

“ Our midship hero this did scare : 

I’ll swear the peace before the Mayor,” 

Says he, so to the Mayor’s they trudge : 

How such a case by such a judge 
Determin’d was I cannot say. 

We thought it not worth while to stay : 

For it strikes nine, “ How th’ evening spends 
“ Come, let us drink to all our friends 
A chearful glass, and eat a bit.” 

So to our supper down we sit, 

When something merry check’d our mirth : 
The Harwich men had got a birth 
Closely adjoining to our room. 

And were to spend their evening come : 

The wall was thin, and they sb near. 

That all they say, or sing, we hear. 

We sung our songs, we crack’d our jokes. 
Their emulation this provokes; 

And they perform’d so joyously. 

As distanc’d hollow all our glee ; 

So (were it not a bull) I’d say. 

This night they fairly won the day. 

Now plenteously we drink of flip, 

In hopes we shall the better sleep; 

Some rest the long day’s work requires ; 

Scott to his lodging first retires; 

His landlady is waiting for him, 

And to his chamber walks before him ; 

In her fair hand a light she bears. 

And shows him up the garret-stairs; 

Away comes he greatly affronted. 

And his disgrace to us recounted. 

This makes us game, we roast him for it, 

“ Scott’s too high-minded for a garret. ’ 

But Tothall more humanely said, 

“ Come, Scott, be easy, take my bed. 

And to your garret I will go.” 

(This great good-nature sure did show) 

There finding nought him to entertain 
But a flock-bed without a curtain. 


571 




THE TABLE BOOK!. 


H* too ui haste came back, and got 
Away to share his bed with Scott, 

And at eleven each goes to nest. 

Till Tuesday mom to take his rest. 

At six comes Hogarth , “ Rise, Sirs, rise,” 
Says he, with roguery in his eyes, 

“ Scott's landlady is below stairs; 

And roundly the good woman swears, 

That for his lodging he shall pay, 

(VVhere his tir’d bones he scorn’d to lay) 

Or he should go before the Mayor.” 

She’s in the right on’t, we declare, 

For this would cut the matter short, 

(At least ’twould make us special sport) ; 

But here she balk’d us, and, no doubt, 

Had wit enough to find us out. 

Our mark thus miss’d, we kindly go 
To see how he and Tothall do. 

We find the doors all open were, 

(It seems that’s not unusual here) 

They’re very well, but Scott last night 
Had been in a most dreadful fright: 

“ When to his room he got,” he said, 

“ And jirel was stepping into bed. 

He thought he saw the bed-cloaths stir, 

So back he flew in mortal fear; 

But, taking heart of grace, he try’d 
To feel what ’twas, when out it cry’d ; 

Again he starts, but to his joy 
It prov’d a little harmless boy 
Who by mistake had thither crept. 

And soundly (till he wak’d him) slept. 

So from his fears recover’d quite. 

He got to sleep, and slept all night.” 

We laugh at this, and he laughs too. 

For, pray, what better could he do ? 

At ten we leave our Lion-Swans, 

And to the higher lands advance. 

Call on our laundress by the way 
For the led shirts left yesterday 
To wash ; “ She’s sorry, they’re not yet 
Quite dry 1”—“ Why then we’ll take them wet 
They'll dry and iron’d be, we hope, 

At Minster , where we next shall stop.” 

The way was good, the weather fair, 

The prospects most delightful were. 

To Minster got, with labour hard 
We climb’d the hill to the church-yard. 

But, when arriv’d there, did not fail 
To read some verses on a rail 
Well worth transcribing, we agree, 

Whether you think so, you may see. 

“ Here mterr’d George Anderson doth lye, 

By fallen on an anchor he did dye 
In Sheerncss yard on Good Friday 
The 6th of April, I do say, 

All you that read my allegy be alwaies 
Ready for to dye—aged 42 years.” 

Of monuments that here they shew 
Within the church, we drew but two ; 

One an ambassador of Spain's, 

T’other Lord Shorlanifs dust contains, 

Of whom they have a wondrous story. 

Which (it they tell) I’ll lay before ye. 


* The Lord of Shi.eland, n a day, 

Chancing to take a ride this way, 

Anout a corpse observ’d a crowd. 

Against their priest complaining loud. 

That he would not the service say 
Till somebody his fees should pay 
On this his lordship too did rave. 

And threw the priest into the grave, 

“ .Make haste and fill it up,” said he, 

“ We’ll bury both without a fee.” 

But when got home, and <’ool, reflecting 
On the strange part he had been acting, 

He drew a state up of the case. 

Humbly petitioning for grace, 

And to the sea gallop’d away. 

Where, at that time, a frigate lay. 

With Queen Elizabeth on board. 

When (strange to tell!) this hare-brain’d Lord 
On horseback swam to the ship’s side. 

And there to see the Queen apply’d. 

His case she reads; her royal bieast 
Is mov’d to grant him his request. 

His pardon thankfully he takes, 

And, swimming still, to land he makes : 

But on his riding up the beach. 

He an old woman met, a witch: 

“ This horse, which now your life doth save 
8 ays she, “ will bring you to the grave.” 

** You’ll prove a liar,” says my lord, 

“ You ugly hag!” and with his sword 
(Acting a most ungratetul part) 

His panting steed stabb’d to the heart. 

It happen’d, after many a day, 

That with some friends he stroll’d that way, 
And this strange story, as they walk, 

Became the subject of their talk : 

When, “ There the carcase lies,” he cry’d, 

" Upon the beach by the sea side.” 

As ’twas not tar, he led them to’t. 

And kick’d the skull up with his foot. 

When a sharp bone pierc’d through his shoe. 
And wounded grievously his toe, 

Which mortify’d ; so he was kill’d, 

And the hag’s prophecy fulfill’d. 

Fee there his cross-legg’d figure laid. 

And near his feet the horse’s head! 

The tombt is of too old a fashion 
To tally well with this narration ; 

But of the truth we would not doubt. 

Nor put our Cicerone out: 


• This story is quoted by Mr. Grose in his Antoni- 
ties, Vol. II. art. Minster Monastery. “ The legend,’ 
says Mr. Grose, “ has, by a worthy friend of min* 
been hitched into doggrel rhyme. It would be payint 
the reader but a bad compliment to attempt seriously 
to examine the credibility of the story.” 

+ A cross-legg’d figure in armour, with a shield osei 
his left arm, like that of a Knight Templar, said ft 
represent Sir Robert de Shurland, who by Edioard I 
was created a Knight banneret for his gallant beha 
viour at the siege of Carlaverock in Scotland. He lief 
under a Gothic arch in the south wall, having aL 
armed page at his feet, and on his right side the head 
of a horse emerging out of the waves of the sea, as 
the action of swimming.—Gaoss. 









Of whom they have a wondrous story. 

Which (as they tell) I’ll lay before ye. Oostling. 


It gives a moral hint at least, 

That gratitude’s due to a beast. 

So far it’s good, whoever made it. 

And that it may not fail of credit, 

A horsehead vane adorns the steeple. 

And it’s Horse-church call’d by the people. 

Our shirts dry’d at The Oeorge we get, 
We dine there, and till four we sit, 

And now in earnest think of home; 

So to Sheemess again we come, 

Where for a bum-boat we agree. 

And about five put off to sea. 

We presently were under sail. 

The tide our friend, south-east the gale, 
Quite wind enough, and some to spare, . 
But we to that accustom’d were. 

When we had now got past The Nore, 
And lost the sight of Shcpey's shore. 

The ebbing tide of Thames we met. 

The wind against it fiercely set; 

This made a short and tumbling sea. 

And finely toss’d indeed were we. 

The porpoises in stormy weather 
Are often seen in shoals together 
About us while they roll’and play 
)ne La hi* gambols miss’d his way. 


And threw himself so far on shore. 

We thought he would get off no more ; 

But with great struggling, and some pain. 
He did, and went to play again. 

On this we moralising say, 

“ How thoughtless is the love of play !” 
When we ourselves with sorrow find 
Our pleasures too with pain conjoin’d. 

For troubles crowd upon us thick ; 

Our hero, Scott, grows very sick ; 

Poor Hogarth makes wry faces too 
(Worse faces than he ever drew). 

YouTT guess what were the consequences. 
Not overpleasing to our senses; 

And this misfortune w T as augmented 
By Master Tothall's being acquainted 
With the commander of a sloop. 

At Holy Haven near The Hope. 

“ There’s Captain Robinson ,” says he, 

“ A friend, whom 1 must call and see.” 

Up the ship’s side he nimbly goes. 

While we lie overvU elm’d with woes. 
Sick, and of winds and waves the sport. 
But then he made his visit short. 

And when a sup of punch he’d got. 

Some lighted match to ns he brought 


ifflomuiunt ut iH fits ter Cburcf) to Sorb gtyorlanb. 


THE TABLE BOOK. 














































THE TABLE BOOK. 


A sovereign e irdial this, no doubt. 

To men whose pipes had long been out. 

By seven o’clock our sick recover, 

And all are glad this trouble’s over. 

Now jovially we sail along. 

Our cockswain giving song for song. 

But soon our notes are chang’d; we found 
Our boat was on Bly-sand aground. 

Just in the middle of the river; 

Here Tothall shew’d himself quite clever: 
And, knowing we must else abide 
Till lifted by the flowing tide, 

Work’d without skippers, till the boa 
Was once more happily afloat. 

We all applaud his care and skill, 

So do the boatmen his good-will. 

Ere long the tide made upward, so 
With that before the wind we go, 

And, disembarking about ten. 

Our Gravesend quarters reach again. 

Here Madam, smiling, cones to tell 
How glad she is to see us well: 

This kind reception we commended. 

And now thought all our troubles ended} 
But, when for what we wanJ we call. 
Something unlucky did befall. 

When we our travels first began 
Scott (who’s a very prudent man) 

Thought a great coat could do no harm. 

And in the boat might keep him warm} 

So far perhaps you think him right. 

As we took water in the night: 

But when from hence we took our way 
On foot, the latter end of May , 

He, quite as reasonably, thought 
’Twould be too heavy or too hot; 

•* I’ll leave it here,” says he, “ and take 
“It with me at our coming back.” 

And he most certainly design’d it. 

But now the thing was, how to find it ? 

We told him he had been mistaken, 

And did without his hostess reckon. 

To him it was no jest; he swore. 

He left it there three days before. 

* This Mrs. Bramble can’t deny.” 

“ Sir, we shall find it by and by 
So out she goes, and rends her throat 
With “ Moll, go find the gem’man’s coat.” 
The house Moll searches round and round, 
At last, with much ado, ’twas found— 

’Twas found, that, to the owner’s cost, 

Or Scott's, the borrow’d coat was lost. 

“ Coat lost!” says he, stamping and staring. 
Then stood like dumb, then fell to swearing : 
He curs’d the ill-concluding ramble. 

He curs’d Gravesend and mother Bramble. 

But, while his rage he thus express’d, 

And we his anger made our jest, 

Till wrath had almost got the upper 
-Hand of lus reason, in came supper .} 

To this at once his stomach turn d, 

No longer it with fury burn’d, 

But hunger took the place of rage, 

And a good meal did both assuage 


Me eat and drank, be drank and eat. 

The wine commended, and the meat; 

So we did all, and sat so late. 

That Wednesday morn we lay till eigni. 
Tobacco then, and wine provide, 

Enough to serve us for this tide. 

Get breakfast, and our reckoning pay, 

And next prepare for London hey ; 

So, hiring to ourselves a wheiry. 

We put off, all alive and merry. 

The tide was strong, fair was the wind, 
Gravesend is soon left far behind, 

Under the tilt on straw we lay. 

Observing what a charming day, 

There stretch’d at ease we smoke and drum, 
Londoners like, and now we think 
Our cross adventures all are past, 

And that at Gravesend was the last: 

But cruel Fate to that says no ; 

One yet shall Fortune find his foe. 

While we (with various prospects cloy’d) 
In clouds of smoke ourselves enjoy’d, 

More diligent and curious, Scott 
Into the forecastle had got. 

And took his papers out, to draw 
Some ships which right ahead he saw. 

There sat he, on his work intent, 

When, to increase our merriment, 

So luckily we shipp’d a sea, 

That he got sous’d, and only he. 

This bringing to his mind a thought 
How much he wanted his great coat. 

Renew’d his anger and his grief; 

He curs’d Gravesend, the coat, and thief; 
And, still to heighten his regret. 

His shirt was in his breeches wet: 

He draws it out, and lets it fly, 

Like a French ensign, till ’tis dry. 

Then, creeping into shelter safe. 

Joins with the company and laugh. 

Nothing more happen’d worthy note: 

At Billingsgate we change our boat, 

And in another through bridge get, 

By two, to Stairs of Somerset , 

Welcome each other to the shore, 

To Covent Garden walk once more, 

And, as from Bedford Arms we started, 
There wet our whistles ere we parted. 

With pleasure I observe, none idle 
Were in our travels, or employ’d ill. 

Tothall, our t reasurer, was just. 

And worthily discharg’d his trust; 

(We all sign’d his accounts as fair ;) 

Sam Scott and Hogarth, for their share. 

The prospects of the sea and land did; 

As Thornhill of our tour the plan did ; 

And Forrest wrote this true relation 
Of our five days peregrination. 

This to attest, our names we’ve wrote all. 
Viz. Thornhill, Hogarth, Scott, and Totitll 

THE EN E. 


574 









THE TABLE BOOK. 



€i)t Met of gugsburgb 


To the Editor . 

Sir,—This engraving is from a silver 
nedal, of the same size, which commemo¬ 
rates two events—The first is that of the 
late of June 1530, which is callrd the 
Confession of Augsburgh, to settle the re¬ 
ligious disputes, in a Diet, or Assembly of 
Princes between the Lutherans and the 
Catholics—The second relates to the cele¬ 
bration of the Centenary of the Diet. 

The inscription “ Johannes ” on the side 
of the medal dated 1530, is for John 
Elector of Saxony. The inscription “ Joh. 
Geor.” on the side dated 1630, is for the 
Elector John George III. The escutcheon 
with swords saltierwise, accompanying 
their arms, denotes the dignity of Grand 
Marshal of the Empire. 

The medal is in the possession of John 
Burrell Vaux, Esq. of Thetford, in Norfolk, 
who obligingly lent it to me, with permis¬ 
sion to have a drawing taken from it for 
any purpose I pleased, together with a 
memorandum accompanying it, to the pre¬ 
ceding effect. As a friend to the compo¬ 
sure of differences, I deemed it suitable to 
tne peaceful columns of the Table Book; and 
I sna.!! be happy if so striking a memorial. 



Commemoration jie&al. 


ana tne events it refers to, receive furthe 
illustration from other correspondents. 

I am, &c. 

H. B. 


[By a mistake of the engraver, the present is the onlj 
engraving in the present sheet of the Table Book — 
Editor.] 


HIGHLAND EMIGRATION. 

Son of the Gael, how many a wierie change 
The wing of time has brought across thy hills ! 

How many a deed uncouth, and custom strange. 

The lofty spirit of thy fathers chills 1 
The usage of thy foes thy region fills. 

And low thy head is bowed their hand beneath. 

And driven by innumerable ills. 

Thy olden race is gone from hill and heath. 

To live a homeless life, and die a stranger’s death. 

The preceding stanza is the first in the 
poem entitled “ The Last Deer of Beann 
Doran.” On the last two lines its author 
Mr. James Hay Allan, appends a note as 
follows :— 

In consequence of the enormous advance 
of rents, and ti e system of throwing the 
small crofts into extensive slHep-farms, the 


2 P 


575 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Highlands have been so depopulated in the 
iast seventy-seven years,* that the inhabit¬ 
ants do not r.ovv amount to above one- 
third of their number at the commence¬ 
ment of that period. An instance of this 
melancholy fact is very striking in Glen 
Urcha: in 1745 the east half only of the 
I straith from Dalmallie to Strone sent out 
a hundred fighting men : at the present 
day there are not in the same space above 
thirty. This proportion of decrease is 
general. During the last twenty years 
fifteen hundred persons have gone from 
Argyleshire; three thousand from Inver¬ 
ness ; the same number from Ross and 
Caithness ; and five thousand from Suther¬ 
land. The desertions have been equal in 
the isles. Pennant, speaking of the inha¬ 
bitants of Skie, says: “ Migrations and 
depression of spirit, the last a common 
cause of depopulation, have since the year 
1750 reduced the number from fifteen 
thousand to between twelve and thirteen : 
one thousand having crossed the Atlantic ; 
others, sunk beneath poverty, or in despair, 
ceased to obey the first great command, 
Increase and multiply.” These observa- 
lions were written in 1774 ; so that the 
depopulation which is mentioned, took 
place in twenty-four years. 

It is impossible to paint the first depart- 
itigs of a people who held the memory of 
i heir ancestors, and the love of their soil, a 
part of their soul. Unacquainted with any 
mechanical art, and unable to obtain for 
their overflowing numbers an agricultural 
nr pastoral employment in their own coun- 
;ry, they were obliged to abandon their 
native land, and seek an asylum in the un¬ 
peopled deserts of the western world. The 
departing inhabitants of each straith and 
hamlet gathered into bands, and marched 
out of their glens with the piper playing 
before them the death lament, “ Cha pill! 
cha pill! cha pill me tulle !”—“ Never ! 
never! never shall I return!’’ Upon the 
spot where they were to lose sight of their 
native place, and part from those who 
were to remain behind, they threw them¬ 
selves upon the ground in an agony of de¬ 
spair, embracing the earth, moistening the 
heather with their tears, and clinging with 
hopeless anguish to the necks and plaids 
of the friends whom they were to see no 
more. When the hour of separation was 
rnst, they went forth upon the world a 
lonely, sad, expatriated race, rent from all 


# Mr. Allan’s poems, the “ Bridal of CaGlchairn,” 
'he “ Last Deer of Beann Doran,” Sec. were published 
t>v Carpenter, Bond-street, in 1822. 


which bound them to the earth, and lost 
amid the tide of mankind: none mixed 
with them in character, none blended with 
them in sympathy. They were left in 
their simplicity to struggle with fraud, 
ignorance, and distress, a divided people 
set apart to misfortune. 


In the third starua of the poem on 
“ Beann Doran,” its author says, 

There was a time—alas ! full long ago. 

Wide forests waved upon thy mountains’ side. 

On these lines Mr. Allan remarks as 
follows :— 

Almost every district of the Highlands 
bears the trace of the vast forests with 
which at no very distant period the hills 
and heaths were covered : some have de¬ 
cayed with age, but large tracts were pur¬ 
posely destroyed in the latter end of the 
sixteenth and the early part of the seven¬ 
teenth century. On the south side of 
Beann Nevis a large pine forest, which 
extended from the western braes of Loch- 
abar to the black w’ater and the mosses of 
Ranach, was burned to expel the wolves. 
In the neighbourhood of Loch Sloi a tract 
of woods, nearly twenty miles in extent, 
was consumed for the same purpose; and 
at a later period a considerable part of the 
forests adjoining to Lochiel was laid wrnste 
by the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, in their 
attempts to subdue the Clan Cameron. 
Nothing of late years has tended more to 
the destruction of the small woods than the 
pasturage of sheep. Wherever these ani¬ 
mals have access to a copse-w'ood which 
has been cut down, they entirely stunt its 
growth, and sometimes destroy it altoge¬ 
ther, by continually eating off the young 
shoots as soon as they appear. A consi¬ 
derable quantity of the yet remaining 
woods is also too frequently sacrificed 
to the avarice of the proprietors. On 
the west bank of Loch Catrine, near the 
Trossachs, a ground which ought now to 
have been as sacred as the vale of Tempe, j 
a beautiful copse-wood has been cut and 
sold within a recent period ; and there ap¬ 
pears in its place only the desolate side of 
a naked htather hill. It is not above sixty 
years since Glen Urcha has been divested 
of a superb forest of firs some miles in 
extent. The timber was bought by a com¬ 
pany of Irish adventurers, who paid at the 
rate of sixpence a tree for such as would 
now have been valued at five guineas 
After having felled the whole of the forest 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


the purchasers became bankrupt, and dis¬ 
persed : the overseer of the woikmen was 
hanged at Inverara, for assassinating one 
of his men. The laird never received the 
purchase of his timber, and a considerable 
number of the trees were left upon the spot 
where they fell, or by the shores of Loch 
Awe, where they were carried for convey¬ 
ance, and gradually consumed by the 
action of the weather. Those mosses where 
the ancient forests formerly stood, are over¬ 
spread with the short stocks of trees still 
! standing where they grew. Age has re¬ 
duced them almost to the core, and the 
rains and decay of the earth have cleared 
them of the soil: yet their wasted stumps, 
and the fangs of their Toots, retain their 
original shape, and stand amid the hol¬ 
lows, the realization of the skeletons of 
trees in the romance of Leonora. Abun¬ 
dance of these remains of an older world 
are to be seen in Glen Urcha and its neigh¬ 
bourhood. In Corrai Fhuar, Glen Phin- 
glass, and Glen Eitive, they are met at every 
step. In the first, a few living firs are yet 
thriving ; but they are surrounded on every 
side by the shattered stumps, fallen trunks, 
and blasted limbs of a departed forest. 

It is difficult to conceive the sad emotions 
which are excited by this picture of an aged 
existence falling without notice, and con¬ 
suming in the deepest solitude and silence: 
on every side lie different stages of decay, 
from the mouldered and barkless stock, 
half overgrown with grass and moss, to 
the overturned tree, yet bearing on its 
crashed limbs the withered leaves of its 
last summer. In Glen Phinglass there is 
no longer any living timber; but the re¬ 
mains of that which it once produced aie 
of greater magnitude than those in Corrai 
Fhuar. In this tract the trees were chiefly 
oak; firs were, however, intermixed among 
them, and in the upper part of the glen is 
the stump of one six feet in diameter. At 
intervals are stocks of oak from five to 
seven or eight feet in height; they are all 
of a great size and age : some are still 
1 covered with bark, and yet bear a few 
stunted shoots; but many are so old, that 
the mossy earth has grown on one side to 
their top, and the heath has begun to tuft 
them over like ivy. In Glen Eitive the 
remains are less obliterated : many of the 
scathed and knotted stumps yet bear a thin 
head of wreathed and dwarfish boughs, 
and in some places trunks of immense 
oaks, straight as a mast, yet lie at the foot 
of the stump from which they were snap¬ 
ped. I know not how to describe the feel¬ 
ings with which I have gazed upon these 


relics of the ancient forests which once 
covered the hills, and looked up to the 
little feathery copse-wood which is all that 
now remains upon the side of the moun¬ 
tain. What must be the soul of that man 
who can look upon the change without a 
thought ? who hears the taunts of the 
stranger revile the nakedness of his land, 
and who can stand upon his hill and 
stretch his eye for an hundred miles over 
the traces of gigantic woods, and say, 
“ This is mine;” and yet ask not the neg¬ 
lected earth for its produce, nor strive to 
revive the perished glory of his country, 
and which to be reanimated needs but to 
be sought? 

The success of those who have possessed 
this patriotism ought to be a source of 
emulation, and is a monument of reproach 
to those who do not follow their example. 
The princely avenues of Inverara, the beau¬ 
tiful woods of Glengarrie, the plantations 
of Duntroon, and the groves of Athol, must 
excite in a stranger, admiration; in a na¬ 
tive, pride and gratitude—pride in the pro¬ 
duce of his country, and gratitude to the 
noble possessors who have preserved and 
cherished that which every Scottish pro¬ 
prietor ought to support, the honour and 
the interest of his fathers' land. 


Mr. Allan’s elegant poem is a “ lament” 
on ihe desertion of the Highlands by its 
ancient inhabitants. He says :— 

Full often in the valleys still and lone. 

The ruins of deserted tints appear. 

And here and there grown o’er for many a year, 
Half-hidden ridges in the heath are seen. 

Where once the delving plough and waving corn had 
been. 

In a note on this stanza, Mr. Allan elo¬ 
quently depicts the depopulated districts, 
viz.:— 

Upon the narrow banks of lonely streams, 
amid the solitude of waste moors, in the 
bosom of desolate glens, and on the emi¬ 
nences of hills given to the foxes and the 
sheep, are seen the half-mouldered walls of 
ruined huts, and the mossy furrows of 
abandoned fields, which tell the existence 
of a people once numerous and rich. In 
these melancholy traces of desolation are 
sometimes seen the remains of eight or 
twelve houses bereft of their roofs, and 
mouldering into a promiscuous heap. Upor 
one farm* in the straith of Glen Urcha 
there were “ sixty years since” thirty-seven 
“smokes;” at this day they are all ex 
tinguished, except four. A less extensive 


577 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


but more striking instance of this falling 
away of the people will still farther illus¬ 
trate the lines in the poem. I was one 
evening passing up a solitary glen between 
Glen Phinglass and Loch Bhoile; the day 
was fast closing, and wearied with hunting, 
and at a distance from the inhabited straiths, 
I wished to discover some house where I 
might obtain refreshment. As I turned the 
shoulder of the hill, I came upon a small 
level plain where four glens met. In the 
midst stood two cottages, and I hastened 
forward in the hopes of obtaining a stoup 
of milk and a barley scone. As I drew 
near I remarked that no smoke issued from 
the chimney, no cattle stood in the straith, 
nor was there any sign of the little green 
kale yard, which is now found in the pre¬ 
cincts of a highland cottage. I was some¬ 
thing discouraged by the quiet and desola¬ 
tion which reigned around; but knowing 
the solitude and pcverty of the shepherds 
of the outward bounds, I was not sur¬ 
prised. At length, however, as I drew 
near, I saw the heath growing in the walls 
of the huts, the doors were removed, and 
the apertures of the windows had fallen 
into chasms. As I stopped and looked 
round, I observed a level space which had 
been once a field: it was yet green and 
smooth, and the grass-grown ridges of long- 
neglected furrows were perceivable, retiring 
beneath the encroaching heather. Famili¬ 
arity with such objects prevented surprise 
and almost reflection; but hunger and 
weariness reminded me not to linger, and 
I pursued my way towards Loch Bhoile. 
As I turned into the north-west glen, I 
again discovered before me a small house 
by the side of the burn, and the coinpacti- 
tude of its walls and the freshness of its 
grey roof as the setting sun glinted upon 
its ridge, assured me that it was not desert¬ 
ed. I hastened onward, but again I was 
deceived. When I came near, I found that 
although it had not been so long unin¬ 
habited, it was forsaken like the rest: the 
small wooden windows were half-closed ; 
the door stood open, and moss had crept 
upon the sill; the roof was grown over 
with a thick and high crop of long-withered 
grass: a few half-burnt peats lay in a cor¬ 
ner of the hearth, and the smoke of its last 
fire was yet hanging on the walls. In the 
narrow sandy path near the door was a 
worn space, which yet seemed smoothened 
by the tread of little feet, and showed the 
half-deranged remains of children’s play¬ 
houses built with pebbles and fragments of 
broken china: the row of stepping-stones 
vet stood as they had been placed in the 


brook, but no foot-mark was upon them, 
and it was doubtless many a day since 
they had been crossed, save by the foxes o* 
the hill. 

— 


(garrtrfe flags. 

No. XXXIII. 

[From the “True Trojans, or Fuimus 
Troes,’’ an Historical Play, Author un¬ 
known, 1633.] 

Invocation of the Druids to the Gods of 
Britain , on the invasion of Ccesar. 



Draw near, ye Heav’nly Powers, 
Who dwell in starry bowers; 

And ye, who in the deep 
On mossy pillows sleep; 

And ye who keep the centre. 
Where never light did enter; 

And ye whose habitations 
Are still among the nations. 

To see and hear our doings, 

Our births, our wars, our wooings ; 
Behold our present grief • 

Belief doth beg relief. 




By the vervain and lunary. 

By fern seed planetary. 

By the dreadful misletoe 
Which doth on holy oak grow. 
Draw near, draw near, draw near. 

Help us beset with danger, 

And turn away your anger ; 

Help us begirt with trouble. 

And now your mercy double ; 

Help us opprest with sorrow 
And fight for us to-morrow. 

Let fire consume the foeman, 

Let air infest the Roman, 

Let seas intomb their fury, 

Let gaping earth them bury. 

Let fire, and air, and water. 

And earth conspire their slaughter 
By the vervain, &c. 

We’ll praise then your great power 
Each month, each day, each hour. 
And blaze in lasting story 
Your honour and your glory. 

High altars lost in vapour. 

Young heifers free from labour. 

White lambs for suck still crying, 
Shall make your music dying. 

The boys and girls around. 

With honey suckles crown’d; 

The bards with harp and rbiming 
Green bays their brows entwining. 
Sweet tune and sweeter ditty, 

Shall chaunt your gracious pity 

By the vervain, &c. 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


Another , to the Moon. 

Thro Queer, of Heav’n, Commandress of the deep, 
Lady of lakes, Regent of woods and deer ; 

A Lamp, dispelling irksome night; the Source 
Of generable moisture ; at whose feet 
Wait twenty thousand Naiades !—thy crescent 
Brute elephants adore, and man doth feel 
Thy force run through the zodiac of his limbs. 

O thou first Guide of Brutus to this isle. 

Drive back these proud usurpers from this isle. 
Whether the name of Cynthia’s silver globe. 

Or chaste Diana with a gilded quiver. 

Or dread Proserpina, stern Dis’s spouse. 

Or soft Lucina, call’d in child-bed throes. 

Doth thee delight: rise with a glorious face. 
Green drops of Nereus trickling down thy cheeks. 
And with bright horns united in full orb 
Toss high the seas, with billows beat the banks. 
Conjure up Neptune, and th’ .fflolian slaves. 
Protract both night and winter in a storm. 

That Romans lose their way, and sooner land 
At sad Avernus’ than at Albion’s strand. 

So may’st thou shun the Dragon’s head and tail! 
So may Endymion snort on Latmian bed ! 

So may the fair game fall before thy bow !— 

Shed light on us, but light’ning on our foe. 


[From the “ Twins,” a Comedy, by W. 
Rider, A. M. 1655.] 

Irresolution. 

I am a heavy stone. 

Rolled up a hill by a weak child: I move 
A little up, and tumble back again. 

Resolution for Innocence. 

My noble mind has not yet lost all shame. 

I will desist. My love, that will not serve me 
As a true subject. I’ll conquer as an enemy. 

O Fame, I will not add another spot 
To thy pure robe. I’ll keep my ermine honour 
Pure and alive in death ; and with my end 
I’ll end my sin and shame : like Charicles, 

Who living to a hundred years of age 
Free from the least disease, fearing a sickness, 

To kill it killed himself, and made his death 
The period of his health. 


From tl Sir Giles Goosecap/ a Comedy, 
Author Unknown, 1606.] 

Friendship in a Lord; modesty in a 
Gentleman. 

Clarence , (to some musicians'). Thanks, gentle 
frends; 

Is your good lord, and mine, gone up to bed yet. 

Momford. I do assure yon not. Sir, not yet, nor yet, 
mj d*ep and studious friend, not yet, musical Clarence. 


Clar. My Lord— 

Mom. Nor yet, thou sole divider of my Lordship 
Clar. That were a most unfit division, 

And far above the pitch of my low plumes. 

I am your bold and constant guest, my Lord. 

Mom. Far, far from bold, for thou hast known m« 
long. 

Almost these twenty years, and half those years 
Hast been my bedfellow, long time before 
This unseen thing, this thing of nought indeed, 

Or atom, call’d my Lordship , shined in me; 

And yet thou mak’st thyself as little bold 
To take such kindness, as becomes the age 
And truth of our indissoluble love. 

As our acquaintance sprong but yesterday; 

Such is thy gentle and too tender spirit. 

Clar. My Lord, my want of courtship makes me 
fear 

I should be rude ; and this my mean estate 
Meets with such envy and detraction. 

Such misconstructions and reserv’d misdooms 
Of my poor worth, that should I be advanced 
Beyond my unseen lowness but one hair, 

I should be torn in pieces by the spirits 
That fly in ill-lung’d tempests thro’ the world. 

Tearing the head of virtue from her shoulders, 

If she but look out of the ground of glory ; 

'Twixt whom, and me, and every worldly fortune. 
There fights such sour and curst antipathy, 

So waspish and so petulant a star. 

That all things tending to my grace and good 
Are ravish’d from their object, as I were 
A thing created for a wilderness. 

And must net think of any place with men. 


[From the “ English Monsieur,” a Comedy 
by the Hon. James Howard, 1674.] 

The humour of a conceited Traveller, 
who is taken with every thing that is 
French. 

English Monsieur. Gentlemen, if you please, let us 
dine together. 

Vaine. I know a cook’s shop, has the best boiled and 
roast beef in town. 

Eng. Mons. Sir, since you are a stranger to me, 1 
only ask you what you mean; but, were you acquaint¬ 
ed with me, I should take your greasy proposition as 
an affront to my palate. 

Vaine. Sir, I only meant, by the consent of this com¬ 
pany, to dine well together. 

Eng. Mons. Do you call dining well, to eat out of a 
French house. 

Vaine. Sir, I understand you as little as you do 
beef. 

Eng. Mons. Why then, to interpret my meaning 
plainly, if ever you make me such offer again, expect 
to hear from me next morning— 

Vaine. What, that you would not dine with me— 

Eng. Mons. No, Sir; that I will fight with you. In 
short. Sir, I can only tell you, that I had once a dispute 
with a certain person in this kind, who defended the 


579 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


English way of eating; whereupon I sent lam a chal- 
.enge, as any man that has been in France would have 
done. We fought; I killed him : and whereabouts do 
you think I hit him ? 

Vaine. I warrant you, in the small guts— 

Eng. Mans. I run him through his mistaken palate ; 
which made me think the hand of justice guided my 
sword. 

* * * * * 

Eng. Mans. Madam, leading your Ladyship, puts me 
in mind of France. 

Lady. Why, Sir ? 

Eng , Mans. Because you lead so like French ladies. 

Lady. Sir, why look you so earnestly on the ground ? 

Eng. Mons. I’ll lay a hundred pounds, here hats been 
three English ladies walking up before us. 

Crafty. How can you tell, Sir ? 

Eng. Mons. By being in France. 

Crafty. What a devil can he mean ? 

Eng. Mons. I have often in France observed in gar¬ 
dens, when the company used to walk after a small 
shower of rain, the impression of the French ladies’ 
feet. I have seen such bon mien in their footsteps, that 
the King of P'rance’s Maitre de Daunce could not have 
found fault with any one tread amongst them all. In 
this walk I find the toes of the English ladies ready to 
tread one upon another. 

# * * # * 

Vaine. Monsieur Frenchlove, well met— 

Eng. Mons. I cannot say the like to you, Sir, since 
I’m told you’ve done a damn’d English trick. 

Vaine. In what ? 

Eng. Mons. In finding fault with a’ pair of tops I 
wore yesterday ; and, upon my parol, I never had a 
pair sat better in my life. My leg look’d in ’em not at 
all like an English leg. 

Vaine. Sir, all that I said of your tops was, that 
they made such a rushing noise as you walk’d, that my 
mistress could not hear one word of the love I made to 
aer. 

Eng. Mons. Sir, I cannot help that ; for I shall 
justify iny tops in the noise they were guilty of, since 
’twas Alamode of France. Can you say ’twas a» Eng¬ 
lish noise. 

Vaine. I can say, though yotir tops were made in 
France, they made a noise in England. 

Eng. Mons. But still, Sir, ’twas a French noise— 

Vaine. But cannot a French noise hinder a man 
from hearing ? 

Eng. Mons. No, certainly, that’s a demonstration , 
for, look you, Sir, a P’rench noise is agreeable to the 
air, and therefore not unagreeable, and therefore not 
prejudicial, to the hearing; that is to say, to a person 
that has seen the world. 

The Monsieur comforts mmself, when his 
mistress rejects him, that “ ’twas a denial 
witn a French tone of voice, so that ’twas 
agreeableand, at her final departure, 
“ Do you see, Sir, how she leaves us ? she 
walks away with a French step.” 

C. L. 



THOU AND YOU, IN POETRY. 

The promiscuous use of thou and you is 
a common error among all our poets, not 
the best or most accurate excepted. 

The cause of this anomaly is not of diffi¬ 
cult investigation. The second person 
singular not being colloquial with us, (for 
we never use it to our familiar friends like 
the French,) it at once elevates our Ian- 
guage above the level of common discourse 
—a most essential object to the poet, and 
therefore he readily adopts it; but when it 
comes to govern a verb, the combination 
of st is so harsh that he as readily aban¬ 
dons it. 

In Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, the singu¬ 
lar pronoun is constantly used till verse 65 : 

“ —HeaveD listen’d while you sung 

for tfiou sungst (without considering the 
rhyme) would have been intolerable. 

In lines 107, 109, the verb canst thou 
has a good effect; as by lengthening the 
syllable by position it becomes more em¬ 
phatic, and the harshness is amply com¬ 
pensated by the superior force of canst thou 
to can you. The fastidious critic therefore 
would do well, before he passes his sen¬ 
tence, to consider whether an inaccuracy, 
which is never discovered except it be 
sought after, is not fairly entitled to the 
favour Aristotle grants to those deviations 
from strict propriety which tend to height¬ 
en the interest of a poem. 

This change however is absolutely inde¬ 
fensible when used for the sake of rhyme • 
only. Many instances of this occur in the 
same poem; the most striking will be, 
found in two succeeding couplets : 

0 come! 0 ! teach me nature to subdue. 

Renounce my love, my life, myself,—and you : 

Fill my fond heart with God alone ; for he 
Alone can rival, can succeed to thee. 

In some cases this change is strictly justi¬ 
fiable ; as, when a person is addressed in a 
different style. For example, in Thom¬ 
son’s Tancred and Sigismunda, when Sif- 
fredi discloses to Tancred that he is the 
king, he says, 

Forgive me, sirl this trial of your heart. 

For the respectful appellation sir demands 
the more colloquial term of address, but 
he immediately adds with animation, 

Thou I thoul art he ! 

And so in Tancred’s subsequent speech to 
Silfredi, he first says, 

I think, my lord ! you said the king intrusted 
To you his will!— 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


out soon after adds, in a more impassioned 
tone, 

On this alone I will not bear dispute, 

Not even from thee, Siffredi 1 

The same distinction will, in general, be 
found in the speeches of Sigismunda to 
Tancred.* 


HARVEST-CATCH IN NORFOLK. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Your Every-Day Book contains 
several interesting accounts relating to the 
present joyous season of the year. Amongst 
others, a correspondent #.?[}. (in vol. ii. 
col. 1168,) has furnished us with some 
amusing particulars of the old customs of 
the harvest supper. It should seem, how¬ 
ever, that he is but imperfectly acquainted 
with the old “ catch” of this country. That 
which he has given is evidently compounded 
of two different songs in use on these occa¬ 
sions, and 1 have no doubt when you have 
.read and compared them you will be of 
my opinion. A few years more, and pro¬ 
bably (but for your notice of them) they 
will be entirely forgotten. 

The health-drinking catch, which is 
always the last thing before parting, is as 
follows:— 

First the mistress :— 

Now supper is over, and all things are past, 

Here’s our mistress’s good health in a full flowing 
glass ; 

She is a good mistress, she provides us good cheer, 
Here’s our mistress’s good health, boys—Come drink 
half your beer— 

She is a good mistress, she provides us good cheer, 
Here’s our mistress’s good health, boys—Come drink 
off your beer. 

During the time the catch is going round 
the whole party are standing, and, with the 
exception of the drinker, they join in 
chorus. The glass circulates, beginning 
with the “ Lord ” in regular succession 
through the “ company after that it is 
handed to the visitors,—the harvestmen of 
gone-by days,—who are not, or ought not 
to be, forgotten on the occasion. If the 
drinker be taken off his guard, and should 
drink off his beer at the pause in the catch, 
ne is liable to a forfeit: if one of the chorus 
misplaces the words half and off) which 

• Pye. 


not unfrequently happens at the heel of an 
evening, he incurs a similar penalty. 

After the mistress the master :— 

Here’s health to our master, the lord of the feast, 

God bless his endeavours, and give him increase, 

And send him good crops, that we may meet another 
year, 

Here’s our master’s good health, boys—Come drink 
half your beer. 

God send him good crops, &c.—Come drink cdf your 
beer. 

Where the beer flows very freely, and 
there is a family, it is sometimes usual tc 
carry on the catch, through the different 
branches, with variations composed for the 
purpose, perhaps at the spur of the mo¬ 
ment : some of these I have known very 
happily conceived. The other glee to 
which I alluded in the beginning of my 
letter, and which I conceive to 

have had in view, is this :— 

Here’s health unto our master, the founder of the feast 
God grant, whenever he shall die, his soul may go to 
rest, 

And that all things may prosper whate’er he has ir 
hand. 

For we are all his servants, and are at his command ' 

So drink, boys, drink, and mind you do none spill 
For if you do 
You shall drink two, 

For *tis our master’s will I 

. . I 

If the foregoing be acceptable, it will be . 
a satisfaction to have contributed a trifle to 
a miscellany, which has afforded a fund of 
instruction and amusement to 

Your constant reader and admirer, 

C. *3. 

Norfolk , August 20, 1827. 


POTTED VENISON. 

Sir Kenelm Digby, in a fanciful discourse 
on “ Sympathy,” affirms, that the venison 
which is in July and August put into 
earthern pots, to last the whole year, is very 
difficult to be preserved during the space 
of those particular months which are called 
the fence-months; but that, when that 
period is passed, nothing is so easy as to 
keep it gustful (as he words it) during the 
whole year after. This he endeavours to 
find a cause for from the “sympathy” be¬ 
tween the potted meat, and its friends and 
relations, courting and capering about in 
its native park. 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

THE DEFEAT OF TIME; 

OR A 

TALE OF THE FAIRIES. 

Titania, and her moonlight Elves, were 
assembled under the canopy of a huge oak, 
that served to shelter them from the moon’s 
radiance, which, being now at her full 
noon, shot forth intolerable rays—intolera¬ 
ble, I mean, to the subtil texture of their 
little shadowy bodies—but dispensing an 
agreeable coolness to us grosser mortals. 
An air of discomfort sate upon the Queen, 
and upon her Com tiers. Their tiny frisk- 
ings and gambols were forgot; and even 
Itobin Goodfellow, for the first time in his 
little airy life, looked grave. For the Queen 
had had melancholy forebodings of late, 
founded upon an ancient Prophecy, laid up 
in the records of Fairy Land, that the date 
of Fairy existence should be then extinct, 
when men should cease to believe in them. 
And she knew how that the race of the 
Nymphs, which were her predecessors, and 
had been the Guardians of the sacred 
floods, and of the silver fountains, and of 
the consecrated hills and woods, had utterly 
disappeared before the chilling touch of 
aian’s incredulity; and she sighed bitterly 
at the approaching fate of herself and of 
her subjects, which was dependent upon so 
fickle a lease, as the capricious and ever 
mutable faith of man. When, as if to 
realise her fears, a melancholy shape came 
gliding in, and that was— Time, who with 
his intolerable scythe mows down Kings 
and Kingdoms; at whose dread approach 
the Fays huddled together, as a flock of 
timorous sheep, and the most courageous 
among them crept into acorn cups, not en¬ 
during the sight of that ancientest of Mo- 
narchs. Titania’s first impulse was to wish 
the presence of her false Lord, King Obe- 
ron, who was far away, in the pursuit of a 
strange Beauty, a Fay of Indian Land— 
that with his good lance and sword, like a 
faithful knight and husband, he might de¬ 
fend her against Time. But she soon 
checked that thought as vain, for what 
could the prowess of the mighty Oberon 
himself, albeit the stoutest Champion in 
Fairy Land, have availed against so huge a 
Giant, whose bald top touched the skies. 
So in the mildest tone she besought the 
Spectre, that in his mercy he would over¬ 
look, and pass by, her small subjects, as 
too diminutive and powerless to add any 
worthy trophy to his renown. And she 
besought him to employ his resistless 

f B I ■■ - ■■ ■ - - -- - 


Strength against the ambitious Children o 
Men, and to lay waste their aspiring works 
to tumble down their towers and turrets, 
and the Babels of their pride, fit objects of 
his devouring Scythe, but to spare her and 
her harmless race, who had no existence 
beyond a dream; frail objects of a creed ; 
that lived but in the faith of the believer. 
And with her little arms, as well as she 
could, she grasped the stern knees of Time, 
and waxing speechless with fear, she beck¬ 
oned to her chief attendants, and Maids of 
Honour, to come forth from their hiding 
places, and to plead the Plea of the Fairies. 
And one of those small delicate creatures 
came forth at her bidding, clad all in white 
like a Chorister, and in a low melodious 
tone, not louder ^han the hum of a pretty 
bee—when it seems to be demurring whe¬ 
ther it shall settle upon this sweet flower 
or that, before it settles—set forth her hum¬ 
ble Petition. “We Fairies,” she said, 

“ are the most inoffensive race that live, 
and least deserving to perish. It is we that 
have the care of all sweet melodies, that no 
discords may offend the Sun, who is the 
great Soul of Music. We rouse the lark at 
morn ; and the pretty Echos, which respond 
to all the twittering quire, are of our mak¬ 
ing. Wherefore, great King of Years, as 
ever you have loved the music which is 
raining from a morning cloud, sent from 
the messenger of day, the Lark, as he 
mounts to Heaven’s gate, beyond the ken 
of mortals; or if ever you have listened 
with a charmed ear to the Night Bird, that 

in the flowery spring, - 

Amidst the leaves set, makes the thickets ring 

Of her sour sorrows, sweeten’d with her song : 

spare our tender tribes ; and we will muffle 
up the sheep-bell for thee, that thy pleasure 
take no interruption, whenever thou shall 
listen unto Philomel.” 

And Time answered, that “ he had heard 
that song too long; and he was even wea¬ 
ried with that ancient strain, that recorded 
the wrongs of Tereus. But if she would 
know in what music Time delighted, it 
was, when sleep and daikness lay upon 
crowded cities, to hark to the midnight 
chime, which is tolling from a hundred 
clocks, like the last knell over the soul of a 
dead world ; or to the crush of the fall of 
some age-worn edifice, which is as the 
voice of himself when he disparteth king¬ 
doms.” 

A second female Fay took up the Plea, 
and said, “ We be the handmaids of the 
Spring, and tend upon the birth of all 
sweet buds ; and the pastoral cowslips are 


582 










tv : . ~~~ ---— — ■ ■ ■ - - - - —— > 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


our friends, and the pansies; and the vio- 
ets, like nuns; and the quaking hare-bell 
is in our wardship ; and the Hyacinth, once 
a fair youth, and dear to Phoebus.” 

Then Time made answer, in his wrath 
striking the harmless ground with his hurt¬ 
ful scythe, that “ they must not think that 
he was one that cared for flowers, except to 
see them wither, and to take her beauty 
from the rose.” 

And a third Fairy took up the Plea, and 
said, “We are kindly Things; and it is 
we that sit at evening, and shake rich 
odours fiom sweet bowers upon discoursing 
lovers, that seem to each other to be their 
own sighs; and we keep off the bat, and 
the owl, from their privacy, and the ill- 
boding whistler; and we flit in sweet 
dreams across the brains of infancy, and 
conjure up a smile upon its soft lips to 
I beguile the careful mother, while its little 
soul is fled for a brief minute or two to 
sport with our youngest Fairies.” 

Then Saturn (which is Time) made 
answer, that “ they should not think that 
he delighted in tender Babes, that had de¬ 
voured his own, till foolish Rhea cheated 
him with a Stone, which he swallowed, 
j thinking it to be the infant Jupiter.” And 
thereat in token he disclosed to view his 
enormous tooth, in which appeared mon¬ 
strous dints, left by that unnatural meal; 
and his great throat, that seemed capable 
of devouring up the earth and all its in- 
; habitants at one meal. “ And for Lovers,” 
he continued, “my delight is, with a hurry¬ 
ing hand to snatch them away from their 
love-meetings by stealth at nights, and to 
ravish away hours from them like minutes 
whilst they are together, and in absence to 
! stand like a motionless statue, or their 
leaden Planet of mishap (whence I had my 
name), till I make their minutes seem ages.” 

Next stood up a male fairy, clad all in 
green, like a forester, or one of Robin 
Hood’s mates, and doffing his tiny cap, 
said, “ We are small foresters, that live in 
woods, training the young boughs in grace¬ 
ful intricacies, with blue snatches of the 
sky between; we frame all shady roofs 
and arches rude; and sometimes, when we 
are plying our tender hatches, men say, 
that the tapping woodpecker is nigh : and 
it is we that scoop the hollow cell of the 
squirrel; and carve quaint letters upon 
the rinds of trees, which in sylvan soli¬ 
tudes sweetly recall to the mind of the 
heat-oppressed swain, ere he lies down to 
slumber, the name of his Fair One, Dainty 
Aminta, Gentle Rosalind, or Chastest Laura, 
at '.l may happen.” 


Saturn, nothing moved with this courte* 
ous address, bade him be gone, or “ if he 
would be a woodman, to go forth, and fell 
oak for the Fairies’ coffins, which would 
forthwith be wanting. For himself, he 
took no delight in haunting the woods, 
till their golden plumage (the yellow 
leaves) were beginning to fall, and leave 
the brown black limbs bare, like Nature in 
her skeleton dress.” 

Then stood up one of those gentle 
Fairies, that are good to Man, and blushed 
red as any rose, while he told a modest 
story of one of his own good deeds. “ It 
chanced upon a time,”he said, “thatwhile 
we were looking cowslips in the meads, 
while yet the dew was hanging on the 
buds, like beads, we found a babe left in 
its swathing clothes—a little sorrowful de¬ 
serted Thing ; begot of Love, but begetting 
no love in others; guiltless of shame, but 
doomed to shame for its parents’ offence 
in bringing it by indirect courses into the 
world. It was pity to see the abandoned 
little orphan, left to the world’s care by an 
unnatural mother, how the cold dew kept 
wetting its childish coats; and its little 
hair, how it was bedabbled, that was like 
gossamer. Its pouting mouth, unknowing 
how to speak, lay half opened like a rose- 
lipt shell, and its cheek, was softer than 
any peach, upon which the tears, for very 
roundness, could not long dwell, but fell 
off, in clearness like pearls, some on the 
grass, and some on his little hand, and some 
haply wandered to the little dimpled well 
under his mouth, which Love himself 
seemed to have planned out, but less for 
tears than for smilings. Pity ii was, too, 
to see how the burning sun scorched its 
helpless limbs, for it lay without shade, or 
shelter, or mother’s breast, for foul weather 
or fair. So having compassion on its sad 
plight, my fellows and I turned ourselves 
into grasshoppers, and swarmed about the 
babe, making such shrill cries, as that 
pretty little chirping creature makes in its 
mirth, till with our noise we attracted the 
attention of a passing rustic, a tender¬ 
hearted hind, who wondering at our small 
but loud concert, strayed aside curiously, 
and found the babe, where it lay on the 
remote grass, and taking it up, lapt it in 
his russet coat, and bore it to his cottage, 
where his wife kindly nurtured it, till it 
grew up a goodly personage. How this 
Babe prospered afterwards, let proud Lon¬ 
don tell. This was that famous Sir Thomas 
Gresham, who was the chiefest of her Mer¬ 
chants, the richest, the wisest. Witness 
his many goodly vessels on the Tnimeg, 


583 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


freighted with costl) merchandise, jewels 
from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, and 
silks of Samarcand. And witness more 
than all, that stately Bourse (or Exchange) 
which he caused to be built, a mart for 
merchants from East and West, whose grace¬ 
ful summit still bears, in token of the 
Fairies’ favours, his chosen crest, the Grass¬ 
hopper. And, like the Grasshopper, may 
it please you, great King, to suffer us also 
to live, partakers of the green earth !” 

The Fairy had scarce ended his Plea, 
when a shrill cry, not unlike the Grass¬ 
hopper’s, was heard. Poor Puck — or 
llobin Goodfellow, as he is sometimes 
called—had recovered a little from his 
first fright, and in one of his mad freaks 
had perched upon the beard of old Time, 
which was flowing, ample, and majestic, 
and was amusing himself with plucking at 
a hair, which was indeed so massy, that it 
seemed to him that he was removing some 
huge beam of timber rather than a hair; 
which Time by some ill chance perceiving, 
snatched up the Impish Mischief with his 
great hand, and asked “ What it was ?” 

“ Alas !” quoth Puck, “ A little random 
Elf am 1, born in one of Nature’s sports, a 
very weed, created for the simple sweet 
enjoyment of myself, but for no other pur¬ 
pose, worth, or need, that ever I could 
learn. ’Tis I, that bob the Angler’s idle 
cork, till the patient man is ready to 
breathe a curse. I steal the morsel from 
the Gossip’s fork, or stop the sneezing 
Chanter in mid Psalm ; and when an in¬ 
fant has been born with hard or homely 
features, mothers say, that I changed the 
child at nurse; but to fulfil any graver 
purpose I have not wit enough, and hardly 
the will. I am a pinch of lively dust to 
frisk upon the wind, a tear would make a 
puddle of me, and so I tickle myself with 
the lightest straw, and shun all griefs that 
might make me stagnant. This is my small 
philosophy.” 

Then Time, dropping him on the ground, 
as a thing too inconsiderable for his ven¬ 
geance, grasped fast his mighty Scythe; 
and now not Puck alone, but the whole 
State of Fairies had gone to inevitable 
wreck and destruction, had not a timely 
Apparition interposed, at whose boldness 
Time was astounded, for he came not 
with the habit, or the forces, of a Deity, 
who alone might cope with Time, but as a 
simple Mortal, clad as you might see a 
Forester, that hunts after wild coneys by 
the cold moonshine; or a Stalker of stray 
deer, stealthy and bold. But by the golden 
lustre in his eye, and the passionate wanness 


in his cheek, and by the fair and ample 
space of his forenood, which seemed a 
palace framed for the habitation of all 
glorious thoughts, he knew that this was 
his great Rival, who had power given him 
to rescue whatsoever victims Time should 
clutch, and to cause them to live for ever 
in his immortal verse. And muttering the 
name of Shakspeare, Time spread his 
Roc-like wings, and fled the controuling 
presence. And the liberated Court of the 
Fairies, with Titania at their head, flocked 
around the gentle Ghost, giving him thanks, 
nodding to him, and doing him curtesies, 
who had crowned them henceforth with a 
permanent existence, to live in the minds 
of men, while verse shall have power to 
charm, or M idsummer moons shall brighten 

* * * 

What particular endearments passed 
between the Fairies and their Poet, passes 
my pencil to delineate; but if you are 
curious to be informed, I must refer you, 
gentle reader, to the “ Plea of the Fairies,” 
a most agreeable Poem, lately put forth by 
my friend, Thomas Hood : of the first half 
of which the above is nothing but a meagre, 
and a harsh, prose-abstract. Farewell. 

Elia. 

The words of Mercury are harsh aftei 
the songs of Apollo. 


PARODIES ON HORACE 

Mr. James Petit Andrews, the continua- 
tor of Dr. Henry’s History of England, 
mentions a whimsical instance of literary 
caprice—a parody of Horace, by a German 
David Hoppius, who had interest enougl 
to have his book printed at Brunswick, it: 
1568, under the particular protection o* 
the elector of Saxony. Hoppius, with in 
finite labour, transformed the odes anc 
epodes of Horace into pious hymns, pre 
serving the original measure, and, as far as 
possible, the words of the Roman poet. 
“ The classical reader,” Mr. Andrews says, 
“ will, at one glance, comprehend the 
amazing difficulties which such a parodist 
must undergo, and will be surprised to 
find these productions not wanting in pure 
Latinity.” A specimen or two are annexed 

Ad Pyrrham. Ode v. lib. 1. 

Quis multci gracilis te puer in rosft 
Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus 
Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro ? 

Cui flavam religas comara 
Simplex munditiis? &c. 























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ad Mariam Deiparam. Parodia v. no. 1 

Quis foeno recubans, in grac li tene< 

Innexus teneris te, pia, fasciis 
Blandus, Virgo, puellus ? 

Cui primos adhibes cibos. 

Dives munditiis ? &c. 

In Juliam Barinen . Ode viii. lib 2. 

Ulla si juris tibi pejerati 
Poena, Barine, nocuisset unquam, 

Dente si nigro fieres, vel uno 
Ttlrpior unqui. 

Crederem—Sed tu simul obligasti 
Perfidum votis caput, enitescis 
Pulchrior multo, juvenumque prodis 
Publica cura, &c. 

; ileorQuvyuns Christi ad Peccatorem. Parodia 
ix. lib. 2. 

Ulla si juris tibi pejerati 
Culpa, peccator, doluisset unquam 
Mente, si tantum fieres vel uni 
Tristior hora 

Plauderem—Sed tu, simul obligasti 
Perfidum votis caput, ingemiscis 
Ob scelus nunquam, scelerumque prodis 
Publicus autor, &c. 

In Bacchum. Odexxiii. lib. 3 

Quo me, Bacche, rapis tui 
Plenum, Quae in nemora, aut quod agor in specus, 
Velox mente novA ; quibus 
Antris, egregie Caesaris audiar 
Aiternum meditans decus 
Stellis inserere et consilio Jovis, &c. 

Ad Christum. Parodia xxiii. lib. 3. 

Quo me, Christe, feram mali 
Plenum, Quae in nemora, aut quos fugiam in specus, 
Pressus mole gravi? Quibus 
Antris ob maculam criminis occultar 
ASternam meditans facem 
Infernum effugere, et simplicium Stygis? &c. 


A GENTLEMAN’S FASHION. 

In the reign of Henry Vll. sir Philip 
Calthrope, a Norfolk knight, sent as much 
cloth, of fine French tauney, as would 
make him a gown, to a tailor in Norwich, 
it happened one John Drakes, a shoe¬ 
maker, coming into the shop, liked it so 
well, that he went and bought of the same 
as much for himself, enjoining the tailor to 
make it of the same fashion. The knight 
was informed of this, and therefore com¬ 
manded the tailor to cut his gown as full 
of holes as his sheers could make. John 
Drakes’s was made “of the same fashion,” 
aut he vowed he never would be of the 
gentleman s fashion again 


fflfetbbm'ts 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. VII. 

In the present stage of the inquiry will 
be adduced examples of the knowledge of 
the ancients, respecting the essential prin¬ 
ciples that “ uphold the world.” 

Gravity, Attractionthe Law of 

Squaring the Distances—Centripe¬ 
tal and Centrifugal Force. 

The moderns, who imagine that they 
were the first to discover universal gravita¬ 
tion, have only trod in the paths of the an¬ 
cients. It is true, that they have demon¬ 
strated the laws of gravitation, but this is all. 

Besides universal gravitation, the an- 
fcients knew that the circular motion de¬ 
scribed by the planets in their courses, is 
the result of two moving forces combined— 
a rectilinear and a perpendicular ; which, 
united together, form a curve. They knew 
also why these two contrary forces retain 
the planets in their orbs; and explained 
themselves, as the moderns do, excepting 
only the terms of “ centnpetal” and “cen¬ 
trifugal instead of which, however, they 
used what was altogether equivalent. 

They also knew the inequality of the 
course of the planets, ascribing it to the 
variety of their weights reciprocally consi¬ 
dered, and of their proportional distances; 
or, which is the same thing, in more modern 
terms, they knew the “ law of the inverse 
ratio of the square of the distance from the 
centre of the revolution.” 

Some have thought, that in Empedocles’s 
system the foundation of Newton’s was to 
be found ; imagining, that under the name 
of “ love,” he intended to intimate a law, 
or power, which separated the parts ol 
matter, in order to join itself to them, and 
to which nothing was wanting but the name 
of attraction ; and that by the term “ dis¬ 
cord, ” he intended to describe another 
force, which obliged the same parts to 
recede from one another, and which New¬ 
ton calls a repellingybrce. 

The Pythagoreans and Platonics per 
ceived the necessity of admitting the force 
of two powers, viz. projection and gravity, 
in order to account for the revolution of the 
planets. Timaeus, speaking of the soul o' 
the world, which animates all nature, says 
that “ God hath endowed it with tw, 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


powers, which, in combination, act accord¬ 
ing to certain numeric proportions.” 

Plato clearly asserts, that God had im¬ 
pressed upon the planets “ a motion which 
was the most proper for them.” This 
could be nothing else than that perpendi¬ 
cular motion, which has a tendency to the 
centre of the universe, that is, gravity ; and 
what coincides with it, a lateral impulse, 
rendering the whole circular 

Diogenes Laertius says, that at the be¬ 
ginning, the bodies of the universe were 
agitated tumultuously, and with a disor¬ 
derly movement; but that God afterwards 
regulated their course, by laws natural and 
proportional. 

Anaxagoras being asked what it was 
that retained the heavenly bodies in their 
orbit, notwithstanding their gravity, re¬ 
markably answered, that “ the rapidity of 
their course preserved them in their sta¬ 
tions ; and that should the celerity of their 
motions abate, the equilibrium of the world 
being broken, the whole machine would 
fall to ruin.” 

Plutarch, who knew almost all the shin¬ 
ing truths of astronomy, in explaining what 
it was that made bodies tend towards the 
earth, attributes it to “ a reciprocal attrac¬ 
tion, whereby all terrestrial bodies have 
this tendency, and which collects into one 
the parts constituting the sun and moon, 
and retains them in their spheres.” lie 
afterwards applies these particular pheno¬ 
mena to others more general; and, from 
what happens in our globe, deduces, ac¬ 
cording to the same principle, whatever 
must thence happen respectively in each 
celestial body; and then considers them in 
their relative connections one towards ano¬ 
ther. He illustrates this general relation¬ 
ship and connection, by instancing what 
happens to our moon in its revolution 
round the earth, comparing it to “ a stone 
in a sling, which is impressed by two 
powers at once ;” that of projection, which 
would carry it away, were it not retained 
by the embrace of the sling; which, like 
the central force, keeps it from wandering, 
whilst the combination of the two moves it 
in a circle. In another place, he speaks 
“ of an inherent power in bodies, that is, 
in the earth, and other planets, of attract¬ 
ing to themselves whatever is within their 
reach.” In these two passages, there is a 
plain reference to the centripetal force, 
which binds the planets to their proper, or 
common centres; and to the centrifugal, 
which makes them roll in circles at a dis¬ 
tance. 

The anctents, then, attribute to the celes¬ 


tial bodies a tendency towards one common 
centre, and a reciprocal attractive power. 
It appears also, that they knew, as well aj 
the moderns, that the cause of gravitation, 
that attracted all things, did not reside 
solely in the centre of the earth. Their 
ideas were even more philosophic; foi 
they taught, that “ this power was diffused 
through every particle of the terrestrial 
globe, and compounded of the various 
energy residing in each.” 

It remains to inquire, whether they knew 
the law by which gravity acts upon the 
celestial bodies, that it was in an inverse 
proportion of their quantity of matter, and 
the square of their distance. Certainly 
they were not ignorant, that the planets in 
their courses observed a constant and in¬ 
variable proportion; though some sought 
for it in the difference of the quantity of 
matter contained in the masses, of which 
the planets were composed; and others, 
in the difference of their distances. Lucre¬ 
tius, after Democritus and Aristotle, thought 
that “the gravity of bodies was in propor¬ 
tion to the quantity of matter of which they 
were composed.” It is true, that the 
penetration and sagacity of a Newton, a 
Gregory, and a Maclaurin, were requisite 
to perceive and discover, in the few frag¬ 
ments of the ancients now remaining, the 
inverse law respecting the squares of the 
distances, a doctrine which Pythagoras had 
taught; but they acknowledge that it was 
contained in those writings; and they 
avail themselves of the authority of Pytha¬ 
goras, to give weight to their system. 

Plutarch, of all the philosophers who 
have spoken of Pythagoras, had a better 
opportunity of entering into the ideas of 
that great man, and has explained them 
better than any one besides. Pliny, Ma- 
crobius, and Censorinus, have also spoken 
of the harmony which Pythagoras observed 
to reign in the course of the planets; but 
Plutarch makes him say, that it is probable 
that the bodies of the planets, their dis¬ 
tances, the intervals between their spheres, 
the celerity of their courses and revolutions, 
are not only proportionable among them¬ 
selves, but to the whole of the universe. 
Dr. Gregory declares it to be evident, tha 
Pythagoras understood, that the gravitation 
of the planets towards the sun was in a 
reciprocal ratio of their distance from that 
luminary; and that illustrious modern, 
followed herein by Maclaurin, maxes tha* 
ancient philosopher speak thus : — 

“ A musical string, says Pythagoras, 
yields the very same tone with any other 
of twice its length, because the tension ol 


586 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


the latter, or the force whereby it is ex¬ 
tended, is quadruple to that of the former; 
and the gravity of one planet is quadruple 
to that of any other , ivhich is at double the 
distance. In general, to bring a musical 
string into unison with one of the same 
kind, shorter than itself, its tension ought 
to be increased in proportion as the square 
of its length exceeds that of the other; and 
that the gravity of any planet may become 
equal to that of any other nearer the sun t 
it ought to be increased in proportion as 
the square of its distance exceeds that of 
the other. If, therefore, we should suppose 
musical strings stretched from the sun to 
each of the planets , it ivould be necessary , 
in order to bring them all to unison, to 
augment or diminish their tensions, in the 
very same proportion as would be requisite 
to render the planets themselves equal in 
gravity. This, in all likelihood, gave 
foundation for the repcits, that Pythagoras 
drew his doctrine of harmony from the 
spheres."* 

Galileo duly honours Plato, by acknow¬ 
ledging that he is indebted to him for his 
first idea of the method of determining, how 
the different degrees of velocity ought to 
produce that uniformity of motion discern¬ 
ible in the revolutions of the heavenly 
bodies. His account is, that “ Plato being 
of opinion that no movable thing could 
fass from a state of rest to any determinate 
degree of velocity, so as perpetually and 
equably to remain in it, without first pass¬ 
ing through all the inferior degrees of cele¬ 
rity or retardation; he thence concludes, 
that God, after having created the celestial 
bodies, determining to assign to each a 
particular degree of celerity, in which they 
should always move, impressed upon them, 
when he drew them from a state of rest, 
such a force as made them run through 
their assigned spaces, in that natural and 
direct way wherein we see the bodies 
around us pass from rest into motion, by a 
continual and successive acceleration. And 
ne adds, that having brought them to that 
degree of motion, wherein he intended 
they should perpetually remain, he after¬ 
wards changed the perpendicular into a 
tirculary direction, that being the only 
course that can preserve itself uniform, and 
make a body without ceasing keep at an 
equal distance from its proper centre." 

This acknowledgment of Galileo is re¬ 
markable. It is a homage to antiquity 


* Gre^orii Asfronomiae Elements; and Maclaurin’s 
Systems of the Philosophers, in a discourse prefixed to 
his philosophy of Newton, p. 32. Wallis, vol. iii. p. 13b. 
.tad 150. 


from an inventive genius, who least of any 
owes his eminence to the aid of the an¬ 
cients. It is the disposition of noble minds 
to arrogate to themselves as little as pos. 
sible any merit, but what they have the 
utmost claim to; and thus Galileo and 
Newton, the greatest of modern philoso¬ 
phers, set an example, which will never be 
imitated but by men of distinguished 
greatness. 


AVON MILL, WILTS. 

The Gleaning or Leasing Cake. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—It may not be deemed an intrusion 
to inform your readers, that when Avon 
Mill was devoted to the grinding of corn 
it was very centrally situated for the con¬ 
venience of the poor gleaners. This mill 
then kept by a family of the name of Tan¬ 
ner, (the sons were renowned swimmers,) 
had also much business with the neighbour¬ 
ing farmers and maltsters. At the time, 
dame Tanner, one of the best-hearted wo¬ 
men then living, had a custom of her own, 
(perhaps to discharge the dictates of a good 
conscience for the double toll taken by the 
millers.) She made after the harvest-season 
a cake, somewhat after the manner of the 
Jews’ passover cakes, given to their Gentile 
friends, which she called the “ Gleaning 
cake," and gave it to every poor person that 
brought gleaned corn to be ground at the 
mill. A few years after her death the mill 
was purchased (I think a chancery suit was 
pending) for a clothing manufactory, (one 
pair of stones only being kept,) which it 
still remains. When the shearing machines 
were here first introduced to cut and dress 
cloth by water, detachments of troops were 
nightly stationed in the lanes and mill to 
prevent large bodies of the shearmen, then 
out of employ, from setting fire to the pre¬ 
mises. At subsequent periods much busi¬ 
ness has been done here in the manufacture 
of superfine broadcloth, but owing to the 
fluctuation of trade Avon Mill has not 
generally done half the work of its water 
power. 

A neighbouring mill, once also a great 
corn mill, at Christian Malford, but which 
is now a spacious edifice, has shared nearly 
the same fate and devotedness. The water¬ 
wheels being partly undershot on this beau¬ 
tiful river, the water in autumn is often 
insufficient to the demand; but when afte. 
heavy rains the floods are out, the meadows 


587 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


present a sneet of blue expanse truly pic¬ 
turesque, and the bridges, by the depth and 
rapidity of the current near the mills, are 
nearly impassable. Many peasants return¬ 
ing home, and farmers riding from market, 
nave by their adventure missed their way 
and been drowned. 

A “ pretty considerable number ” of 
ghost stories are floating in the memories 
of the aged cottagers, of persons appearing 
after death on the Avon and its banks in 
this part of the country. 

I am, sir, 

Yours respectfully, 

An Old Correspondent. 

T -n, T —— e, 

August 21, 1827. 


SONG. 

[ long to forget thee! bv^t every sweet scene 
Reminds me too strongly of days that have been ; 
Where can I look round me, but something recalls 
Our friendship, our love,—and my spirit enthralls * 
Each nook of the mountain—each cot of the gill— 

The rush of the river—the flow of the rill— 

The trees of the forest—the gems of the lea— 

All whisper of childhood, of virtue, and thee. 

When in spring-time the violets and primroses bloom, 
When in summer the wild thyme is wafting perfume ; 
When autumn is mellowly tinging the trees. 

And in winter’s cold blast when the mountain streams 
freeze; 

When bright glows the sun-ray—when soft moon light 
shines 

On the aged church tower, and dark waving pines— 
Each season shall tell of some ever-fled bliss. 

Of the press of thine hand, or the balm of thy kiss. 

Thou wert long the sole theme of my earliest lays, 

And my wild harp’s first breathings were all in thy 
praise; 

When in fancy that wild harp I hung on the yew, 

I thought not the fancy would e’er prove untrue. 

I deem’d not the form that beside me reclin’d 
In the haunt of the green-wood would e’er prove un¬ 
kind— 

Unkind to a heart that but liv’d for thy love, 

And has pray’d for thy weal to the spirit above. 

'Tis evening ! the hues of the sun-set are fled— 

A deep sombre rnist o’er the valley is spread— 

The tall cliffs are wrapp’d in the shades of the night, 
Ynd Demebrook no longer is lapsing in light: 
f ne burst of the morning the gloom shall dispel, 

Ana a haio of glory gild valley and fell— 

Yet a shade o’er my destiny ever will be, 

! And, Emma l that shade is—remembrance of thee ! 

T. Q. M. 


TRASHING. 

A Bridal Custom in Yorkshire. 

To the Editor. 

Morley , near Leeds , July 21, 1827 

Sir,—There is a custom prevalent in 
various parts of Yorkshire, which I do not 
remember to have seen noticed in the 
works of Strutt, Brand, Fosbroke, or any 
other learned writer upon such subjects. 
It is called “ trashing,’’ which signifies pelt¬ 
ing people with old shoes on their return 
from church on the wedding-day. There 
were certain offences which subjected the 
parties formerly to this disagreeable lia¬ 
bility ; such as refusing to contribute to 
scholars* “ potations,’’ or other convivi¬ 
alities; but in process of time the reason 
of the thing became forgotten, and “ trash¬ 
ing” was indiscriminately practised among 
the lower orders. Turf-sods or mud being 
substituted for lack of old shoes, and gene¬ 
rally thrown in jest and good-humour rather 
than in anger or ill-will. 

Although it is true that an old shoe is to 
tins day called “ a trash,” yet it did not, 
ce.’tamiy, give the name to the nuisance 
To “ trash” originally signified, to clog 
incumber, or impede the progress of any 
one; (see Todd’s Johnson ;) and agreeably 
to this explanation we find the rope tied by 
sportsmen round the necks of fleet pointers 
to tire them well, and check their speed, is 
hereabouts universally called the “ trash- 
cord,” or dog trash. But why old shoes 
in particular were selected as the mis¬ 
siles most proper for impeding the pro¬ 
gress of new married persons, it is now 
perhaps impossible to discover. 

Yours respectfully, 

N. S. 


BILBOCQUET. 

In 1585, Henry III. of France diverted 
himself, when passing through the streets 
of Paris, by playing with a “ bilbocquet,” 
a cup and ball. The dukes d’Epernon and 
do Joyeuse accompanied him in his child¬ 
ish frolic, which, by this example, became 
so general, that gentlemen, pages, lackeys, 
and all sorts of people, great and small, 
made the management of the “ bilbocquet’ 
a serious and perpetual study. The same 
king traversed his capital with a basket 
hanging by a girdle from his neck, out ol 
which peeped the heads of half a dozen 
punpies. 


588 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


REMARKABLE CHARACTERS. 
i.—E rasmus. 

Erasmus, while a schoolboy, composed 
a panegyric on king Philip, (father of 
Charles V.,) on his coining out of Spain 
into Germany. His majesty took such 
notice of his early wit, that he honoured 
him with a yearly pension during his life. 

King Henry VIII. of England wrote to 
him with his own hand, ordered him several 
very valuable presents, offered him a house 
and land, with six hundred florins a year, 
if he would reside in England. 

Francis I., king of France, also wrote to 
him, offering him a bishopric, and one 
thousand florins a year, if he would live in 
France. 

The emperor Charles V. offered him a 
bishopric in Sicily, made him one of his 
privy council, allowed him a pension of 
four hundred florins a year, and promised 
to make it five hundred, if he would occa¬ 
sionally reside in his court. 

Sigismond, king of Poland, and Ferdi¬ 
nand, king of Hungary, were very bounti¬ 
ful to him, and repeatedly invited him to 
dwell in their dominions. 

Ann, princess of Verona, allowed him a 
pension of one hundred florins a year. 

Frederick, duke of Saxony, and William, 
duke of Gulick, made him several presents. 

Pope Adrian VI. wrote to him three 
times with his own hand; and pope Cle¬ 
ment VII., on being raised to the purple, 
sent him five hundred florins, and invited 
him to Rome. 

Pope Paul III. i nfprded to have raised 
him to the rank of caidinal, if death had 
not prevented him. 

William Warham, archbishop of Canter¬ 
bury, gave him an exhibition. 

Cardinal Wolsey allowed him a pension 
out of a prebend at York. 

The bishops of Lincoln and Rochester 
,; berally supplied him with money, &c. oq 
ad occasions. 

Polidore Virgil sent him money to buy 
a horse, and the lord Cromwell sent him 
thirty angels. 

Lord Mountjoy, sir Thomas More, bishop 
Tonstall, and dean Collet, were his constant 
benefactors. 

Cardinal Mattheo offered him a pension 
of five hundred a year to live in Rome, 
and sent him a cup of pure gold. 

Albertus, archbishop, cardinal, and elec¬ 
tor of Mentz, sent him also a cup of gold, 
richly ornamented with precious stones. 


Cardinal Campegius, among other pre- 
seats, sent him a ring of great value. 

Stanislaus Olmucensis sent him a silvei 
bowl, double gilt, with four pieces of gold 
ancient coin. 

The bishop of Basil offered him half ths 
revenue of his bishopric. 

Thurxo, bishop of Uratislavo, went six 
days’ journey out of his way to see him. 

William, earl of Eyrenberg, gave him a 
dagger, which by the inscription “ he 
wished in the hearts of all his enemies.” 


JI.—Nicholas Wood, the Glutton. 

One Nicholas Wood, of Harrison, in tin 
county of Kent, yeoman, did eat with eas< 
a whole sheep of sixteen shillings price 
and that raw, at one meal. Another tim< 
he eat thirty dozen of pigeons. At si: 
William Sedley’s he eat as much as would 
have sufficed thirty men. At lord Wot 
ton’s in Kent, he devoured in one meal 
eighty-four rabbits ; another time eighteen 
yards of black pudding, London measure 
He once eat sixty pounds of cherries, and 
said they were but wastemeat. He eat ;; 
whole hog, and afterwards swallowed three 
peck of damsons: this was after breakfast 
at which he had taken a pottle of milk and 
pottage, with bread, butter, and cheese. 

“ He eat in my presence,” saith Taylor, 
the water-poet, “ six penny wheaten loaves, 
three sixpenny veal-pies, one pound oi 
fresh butter, one good dish of thornback. 
and a sliver of a peck household lpaf, ai 
inch thick, all within the space of an hour : 
the house yielding no more he retired un 
satisfied.” 

One John Dale, at Lenham, laid him a 
wager, he could fill his belly for him with 
good wholesome victuals for two shillings. 
He took this wager and said, when he had 
finished the two shillings worth, he would 
eat up a sirloin of beef. Dale, however, 
brought six pots of mighty ale and twelve- 
new penny white loaves, which he sopped 
therein, the powerful fume whereof con¬ 
quered this gluttonous conqueror, and laid 
him asleep before he had finished his meal, 
whereby the roast beef was preserved and 
the wager lost. 

Wood spent all his estate in provender 
for his enormous stomach, and, although a 
landed man and a true labouiev, he died 
very poor in 1630. 

Sam Sam’s Sow. 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


JUST JUDGMENT. 

A good Judge, and a good Jury. 

It is of most essential impoitance to the 
due administration of justice that juries 
should be sensible of their own dignity ; 
and, when occasion requires, that they 
should not implicitly and servilely bow to 
he opinion of any judge, however high he 
may be held in estimation. An instance of 
the beneficial result of a jury asserting, in 
a respectful manner, the privilege of having 
an opinion of their own, occurred, not at 
the assizes now holding, but not very long 
ago. Two men were indicted for a bur¬ 
glary : after the counsel for the prosecution 
had opened, the amiable and learned judge 
who presided, addressing the jury, said, 
“ Gentlemen, there does not appear to me 
any probability that a case of burglary can 
be made out against the prisoners, it is 
therefore needless to occupy your time any 
further.” The jury having, however, con¬ 
ferred for a short time, the foreman replied, 
“ With perfect deference to your lordship's 
opinion we should rather prefer hearing 
the evidence.” To this his lordship readily 
assented : the case went on, and the guilt 
of the prisoners was proved beyond the 
possibility of a doubt. After the verdict 
was returned, the learned judge said, 
“ Well, gentlemen of the jury, I will not 
say that you are better lawyers than I am, 
but I am quite sure that in the present in¬ 
stance you have proved yourself to be 
better judges."* 


OLD ENGLISH ALE. 

About 1620 some doctors and surgeons, 
during their attendance on an English 
gentleman, who was diseased at Paris, 
discoursed on wines and other beverages; 
and one physician, who had been in Eng' 
land, said, “ The English had a drink whicl 
they call ale, and which he thought the 
wholesomest liquor that could be drank ; 
for whereas the body of man is supported 
by natural heat and radical moisture, there 
is no drink conduceth more to the preser¬ 
vation of the one, and the increase of the 
»ther, than ale : for, while the Englishmen 
drank only ale, they were strong, brawny, 
able men, and could draw an arrow an ell 
•ong; but when they fell to wine and 
beer, they are found to be much impaired 
in their strength and ageand so the ale 
bore away the bell among the doctors.^ 

* Times, August 27, 18^7. 

t Howell. 


A SOLDIER’S AGE. 

Napoleon, in his Italian successes, took 
a Hungarian battalion prisoners. The 
colonel, an old man, complained bitterly ot 
the French mode of fighting—by rapid and 
desultory attacks, on the flank, the rear, 
the lines of communication, &c., concluding 
by saying, “ that he fought in the army of 
Alaria Theresa.” 

“ You must be old V* said Napoleon. 

“ Yes, I am either sixty or seventy.” 

“ Why, colonel, you have certainly lived 
long enough to know how to count years a 
little more closely V* 

“ General,” said the Hungarian, “ I 
reckon my money, my shirts, and my horses ; 
but as for my years, I know that nobody 
will want to steal them, and that I shall 
never lose one of them 1” 


COUNSELS AND CAUTIONS 
By Dr. A. Hunter. 

Beware ! 

Leave your purse and watch at home 
when you go to the playhouse or an auction 
room. 

Travelling. 

When you take a journey in winter put 
on two shirts; you will find them much 
warmer than an additional waistcoat. 

Building Repairs. 

% 

If you mean to buy a house that you 
intend to alter and improve, be sure to 
double the tradesman’s estimate. 

Your Staircase. 

Paint the steps a stone colour; it will 
save scouring and soap. 

Housekeeping. 

If you are in trade keep no more houses 
than you can support; a summer-house and 
a winter-house have forced many a man 
into a poor-house. 

Enough should suffice. 

A man who has obtained a competency, 
and ventures upon a speculation that may 
be capable of consuming all that he has 
already got, stakes ease and comfort against 
beggary and disgrace. 

Loquacity. 

A gossip has no home. 


590 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Cfie notetr 3oI;it Cooke of Cpeten 

« DRAWN FROM NATURE.” 


To Me Editor, 

Corporations in old times kept fools, 
and there are still traces of the custom. 
The antiquary admires the carving of a 


fool, <( a motley fool,” at the porchway 01 
the King John tavern at Exeter, and con. 
templates it as probably the faithful reprc* 
sentation of an obsolete servant of thai 
ancient city ; while the traveller endeavour.' 



591 












































THE TABLE BOOK. 


to obtain a sight of the “ noted Captain 
Cooke, all alive ! alive !”—the most public, 
and not the least important officer of its 
lively corporation. 

A tract, published without a title-page, 
yet symbolically, as it were, bearing a sort 
of half-head, whereby it is denominated 
“ A Pamphlet called Old England for 
Ever!” is the production of captain Cooke 
himself; and a lithographed print represents 
that “ noted ” personage “ drawn from na¬ 
ture, in his full costume, as “ Captain of 
the Sheriffs troop at 74 assizes for the 
county of Devon.’ 1 An engraving from 
the print is at the head of this article; the 
original is “ published by George Howe, 
38, Paris-street, Exeter,” price only a 
shilling. The present representation is 
merely to give the reader some notion of 
the person of the captain, previously to in¬ 
troducing so much of his “ particular con¬ 
fession, life, character, and behaviour,” as 
can be extracted from his aforesaid printed 
narrative. 

The tract referred to, though denomi¬ 
nated “ Old England for Ever,” seems in¬ 
tended to memorialize “ Captain Cooke —for 
ever.” Aspiring to eclipse the celebrated 
autobiography of “ P. P. Clerk of this 
Parish,” tire captain calls his literary 
production “ a pamphlet of patriotic home 
achievements during the late direful war 
from 1793 to 1815;” and, accordingly, it 
is a series, to adopt his own words, of 
“twenty-twoyears multifariousbut abridged 
memoirs, novelties, anecdotes, genealogy, 
and bulletins, by the author’s natural in¬ 
stinct.” 

The first most important information re¬ 
sulting from the captain’s “ natural in¬ 
stinct,” is this:—that u the duke of Welling¬ 
ton, marshal Blucher, the allied officers, 
and armies, defeated the atheist, the enemy 
of the Sabbath and of peace to the world, 
on Sunday, 18th of June 1815, at half after 
eight o’clock in the evening:” which day 
the captain, therefore, calls “ an indelible 
day and says, “ I built a cottage that 
year, and have a tablet over my door— 
IVaterloo Cottage, in memory of Europe's 
victory , Sunday, 18 th June, 1815; and I 
went to Wellington-hill to see the founda¬ 
tion-stone laid for a Wellington column, 
in honour of the duke. So much for Buo¬ 
naparte’s fanfaronade ! —At daybreak of 
the 15th of July, he (Buonaparte) surren¬ 
dered himself to the English captain Mait¬ 
land, of the Bellerophon — an appropo 
name to the refugee.—I was called up the 
next morning at one o’clock; I wrote 
e.venty letters to country gentlemen of the 


O !-be-joyful news, by the same morning’ 
post. 1 have been often called up oa 
express news.” 

From hence may be deduced the value 
cf the captain and his opinions in the city 
of Exeter; and, no doubt, due importance 
will be attached to his proposition, thru 
“ parliament should always meet of a Fri¬ 
day or Saturday, and prorogue of a Mon¬ 
day, to prevent sabbath-breaking as little 
as possible;” and that “ the mails should 
be prohibited from blowing their horns in 
the dead of the night or morning, m towns 
or villages.” It was contemplated to carry 
these measures into effect by joint stock 
companies, wherein all the captain’s friends 
were shareholders, when the “ panic” came 
down from London by an opposition coach, 
and destroyed public confidence in the 
captain’s plans. They are noticed here in 
the order wherein he states them himself; 
and, pursuing the like order, it is proper to 
state, in the first place, something of the 
house wherein this self-eminent person 
was born; then, something respecting 
“ Ashburton Pop;” and, lastly, something 
respecting his apprenticeship, and his ser¬ 
vices as a loyal man and a saddler to “ the 
city of Exeter, and the corporation and 
trade thereof.” 

“I was born,’’says the captain,“ at the Bose 
and Crown public-house on the old bridge, 
in the borough town of Ashburton, 1765; 
where a good woollen-manufactory has 
been carried on ; and it has produced a ' 
great character, or so, for learningand 
“ has been as famous for a beverage, called 
Ashburton Pop, as London is for porter. ' 
I recollect its sharp feeding good taste, far 
richer than the best small beer, more of 
the champaign taste, and what was termed 
a good sharp bottle. When you untied I 
and hand-drew the cork, it gave a report 
louder than a pop-gun, to which I attribute , 
its name; its contents would fly up to the 
ceiling; if you did not mind to keep the 
mouth of the stone bottle into the white ! 
quart cup, it filled it with froth, but not I 
over a pint of clear liquor. Three old 
cronies would sit an afternoon six hours, I 
smoke and drink a dozen bottles, their 
reckoning but eight-pence each, and a 
penny for tobacco. The pop was but two¬ 
pence a bottle. It is a great novel loss to 
?he town ; because its receipe died with its 
brewer about 1785.” 

From the never-enough-sufficiently to be 
lamented and for-ever-departed “ Poo,” 
the captain returns to himself. “ My mo¬ 
ther,” says he, “ put me apprentice at fif¬ 
teen to the head saddler in Exeter, th* hr* 


592 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Mr. Charter, whom I succeeded when I 
same of age, and have lived in the same 
nouse thirty-seven years, up to 18 i 7, where 
my son now lives, under the firm of Cooke 
and Son.’ 7 He evidently takes great 
pleasure in setting forth the names of his 
customers; and he especially relates, “ I 
got to be saddler, through the late Charles 
Fanshawe, recorder of Exeter, to the late 
lord Elliott Ileathfield, colonel ot dragoons. 
His lordship was allowed to be one of the 
first judges of horses and definer of saddlery 
in the kingdom ; his lordship’s saddle- 
house consisted from the full bristed to the 
demy pick, shafto, Hanoverian, to the 
Dutch pad-saddles; and from the snaffle, 
Pelham, Weymouth, Pembroke, Elliott, 

; Mameluke, and Chifney bridles. Chitney 
was groom to the prince regent. Besides 
all this, the vast manage horse-tackling, 

| tomies, dumb-jockies, hobbles, lunging, 
lifting, and side reins, llis lordship’s sad¬ 
dle and riding-house was a school for a 
i saddler and dragoon. And I had the 
honour of being saddler to other colonels 
of dragoons, connoisseurs of saddlery, when 
they were at Exeter quarters.’’ 

Here the captain's enthusiasm increases : 

‘ I could write,” says he, “ a treatise on 
all the parts of the bearings and the utility 
of all the kinds of saddles, bridles, stirrups, 
and harness-collars, made for the last thirty 
years, for the benefit of horse or rider ; 
from the bullock-back horse to the finest 
withered.” With just judgment, while on 
the saddle, the captain expatiates on the 
mode of riding to the best advantage. “ As 
is said, keep your head cool, feet warm, 
and live temperate, and you w'on't need 
the doctor, without something is amiss ; so 
let your saddle clear your finger with all 
your weight in the stirrups going down 
hill; the same on the hind part with all 
your weight on the seat going up hill; you 
won’t need the saddler without some¬ 
thing is amiss.” A miss is as good as a 
mile, and the captain diverges to a “ great 
mystery,” which must be related in his 
own words:— 

“ The great mystery to know a horse's 
age is between five and eight years old. 
A horse may live to thirty ; but not one 
out of a thousand but what are woiked out 
of their lives at fifteen. From their sucking 
first teeth, they loose, and get their perma¬ 
nent teeth at five years old; at six they 
have a small pit-hole, a bean’s eye, a cavity 
in two of their outer lower teeth ; at seven 
they have this mark but in one, the out¬ 
side tooth ; at eight years old the teeth are 
all filled up; then the mark is out of the 


mouth. But dealers and judges look to the 
upper teeth ; there is a mark to twelve 
years old, but no vestige afterward. An 
old horse has long large teeth, worn off on 
the top edge. The prime of a horse is 
between six and twelve years of age. IJe 
is weak and faint before Six, and stiff' ami 
dull after twelve. Some say a horse is out 
of mark at seven ; but it is at eight. The 
average age of horses is at twelve years— 
the average of man not at the half of his 
time appointed on earth I” 

To a posey of poesy, occupying nearly 
a page in this part of the pamphlet, it is 
impossible to do justice with equal satis 
faction to the reader and the captain ; yet, 
in courtesy, it is proper to cull 

-a twig. 

Or two, to stick about his wig. 

As a specimen of the materials w'hereon 
he relies for a laurel crown, the following 
lines are drawn out from his “ snarl ” oi 
versifyings:— 

As few began the world, so I multiplied. 

Plain, at twenty-one, I did begin 
Which in my manuscript was seen. 

Tho’ I did not know the use of grammar, 

I was well supported by my hammer. 

I sticked to my King, leather, and tools ; 

And, for order, wrote a set of shop rules. 

Working with the hands only is but part, 

The head’s the essential to make the work smart. 

After this poetical effusion the captain 
rises to “ the height of his great argument,” 
his undying doings. “ Now,” says the 
captain, “ now for my sixty home achieve¬ 
ments during the late war for my king and 
country.” Alas ! the captain seems to have 
disdained the “ use of numbers,” except 
when inspired by the muses, or the “ sweet 
voices” of the people of Exeter, when they 
honoured him with a “ Skimmington,” 
which he passes over with a modesty equal 
to that of the Roman genera' who never 
mentioned his great ovation. The captain's 
“ sixty achievements ” are doubtless in his 
pamphlet; but they in “ icrong order go,” 
and are past the arithmetician’s art to enu¬ 
merate. The chief of them must he 
gathered from his own account. Foremost 
stands “ the labour T took in pleasing and 
accommodating my customers;” and almost 
next, “ the many hours I have knocked 
my head, as it were, against Samuel John¬ 
son, to find words for handbills and adver¬ 
tisements all at my own expense, to avoid 
inflammatory pamphlets. I gloried in the 
name of ‘ John Bull,’ and shall to my life's 
end. I went into the pot-houses at Exet.ei. 


593 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


and treated with mugs round, and gave 
loyal toasts and sentiments. I became a 
volunteer in the infantry, before the cavalry 
were equipped by my brother tradesmen, 
that they should not say my loyalty was 
for tiade. After this, I joined the second 
troop of the first Devon Royal Cavalry. 
One of my advertisements in the difficult 
times, at a guinea each, in the Exeter, 
Sherborne, and Sun, which was then the 
ministerial paper, was reprinted for its loy¬ 
alty and novelty in Philadelphia, and in 
two miscellaneous volumes of Literary Lei¬ 
sure, by Solomon Sumpter, Esq.; and 
from the attention I paid to the nobility, 
gentry, dragoon and militia officers, &c. 
when they tarried at Exeter or its neigh¬ 
bourhood, it was a pleasure and.an honour 
mixed with fatigue. Besides my own 
business, I procured for them, gratis, ma¬ 
nors, estates, houses, lodgings, carriages, 
horses, servants, fish, fowl, hunting, shoot¬ 
ing, and trout fishing. I may say John 
Cooke, the saddler of Exeter, is known from 
England to the Indies; on the Continent, 
Ireland, in Scotland, by the lord chief 
baron Dundas, from Berwick-upon-Tweed 
to Penzance. I had two direction-posts at 
my door during the war, that no one had 
in the kingdom beside; one to the various 
places and distances, from Exeter to Lon¬ 
don 170 miles, &c. &c.; the other a large 
sheet .of paper written as a daily monitor 
gratis, a bulletin of news, to cheer people 
in the worst of times, to guide them in the 
constitutional road. I even made myself a 
direction-post , and wore a conspicuous 
breastplate painted with this motto, ‘ Fear 
God, honour the king, and revere his mi¬ 
nisters ;’ which made not only the auditory, 
but the judges, sheriff, and counsel stare at 
me. I went from Exeter to London, to 
the funeral of lord Nelson, the late hero of 
-he Nile, in 1805.” The truth of the latter 
of the captain’s achievements “ nobody can 
deny.” He did go to the funeral, and sat 
on a wall in solemn silence, fast asleep, 
while it passed, and then returned to Exe¬ 
ter, great as the great Bourbon, who 

---with forty thousand men, 

Went up the hill, and then came down again. 

From hence the captain diverges to other 
of his achievements. “ I used to rise, be¬ 
fore we had firemen, at the dead of night 
or morning with my apprentices at any 
alarm of fire, desiring all women, children, 
and lookers on, if they did not help they 
were of harm, being in the way. I put in 
my bulletins, you are to f ake the left 


of all you meet in riding, and tne Tight in 
walking. I was the means of the watering 
cart to lay the dust of the streets in sum¬ 
mer. I have subscribed to all the institu¬ 
tions at Exeter, and at rejoicings of news I 
was not behindhand. When I saw the 
allied sovereigns in London, I compared 
colonel Hain of the North Devon, if he 
wore mustachios, to marshal Blucher, who 
came forward to his window at signals ; ' 
Mr. Chubb, of St. Thomas, Exeter, and 
Mr. Gribble, attornies, of Newton Bushel, 
to the emperor Alexander in face ; the king 
of Prussia and his sons like healthy Eng¬ 
lish country esquires in their best clothes. 

I saw the duke of Wellington, who looked 
thinner than his picture. I saw Buonaparte 
at Torbay, exact like his picture; a huge 
stiff broad back, strong neck, big calf to 
his legs, he looked about fifty, and about 
five feet eight, resembling a country master 
builder, a sturdy one, full of thought as 
about a building.—I end this pamphlet. 
Four words : thought is the quickest; time 
the wisest; the laws of necessity the strong¬ 
est; truth the most durable. 

“ This from a Devonshire Jog-trot, who 
has done enough to be termed a public 
character in his way ; a John Bull trades¬ 
man. 

“ John Cooke.” 

“ Waterloo Cottage , 

18 th Feb. 1819.” 

So end the achievements of the chief ot 
the javelin-men of Exeter, written by him¬ 
self, concerning whom, give me leave, Mr. 
Editor, to inquire, if there be any thing 
more to be told than is set down in his 
book. I think that captain Cooke’s 
“ Skimmington ” took place after he fa¬ 
voured the public with appearing in print; 
and I remember to have heard that the 
procession was highly ludicrous, and ho¬ 
noured by every shop in the High-street of 
Exeter being closed, and every window 
above being filled. I may venture to affirm 
in behalf of your readers, that an account 
of it would be highly amusing; and if it be 
agreeable to your inclination, as I think it 
may, that such a narrative of the recent 
celebration of a very ancient custom should 
be permanently recorded, do me the favour 
to let me express an earnest hope that some 
of your Exeter readers will enable you to 
give particulars in the Table Book. 

I. V 

[Communications respecting the ceremony referred {; 
in the preceding letter will be very acceptable, ani 
are therefore solicited.— Editor.1 


591 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


©atTtrk |)Iap5. 

No. XXXIV. 

[From the “ Antipodes,” further extracts: 
see No. XX J 

A Doctor humours his patient, who is 
crazed with reading lying books of travels, 
by pretending that he himself has been a 
great traveller in his time. 

Peregrine, the patient. Doctor. Lady. 

Peregrine. All the world over have you been ? 
Doctor. Over and under too. 

Per. In the Antipodes ? 

Doct. Yes, through and through. 

Nor isle nor angle in the other world 
But I have made discovery of. Do you 
Think, Sir, to the Antipodes such a journey ? 

Per. I think there’s none beyond it, and that Man- 
devil 

Was the only man came near it. 

Doct. Mandevil went far. 

Per. Beyond all English legs that I can read of. 
Doct. What think you, Sir, of Drake, our famous 
countryman ? 

Per. Drake was a Didapper to Mandevil. 

Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our voyagers 
Went short of Mandevil: but had he reach’d 
To this place—here—yes here—this wilderness ; 

And seen the trees of the sun and moon, that speak. 
And told King Alexander of his death ; 

He then 

Had left a passage ope for travellers, 

That now is kept and guarded by wild beasts; 

Dragons and serpents, elephants white and blue ; 
Unicorns and lions, of many colours; 

And monsters more, as numberless as nameless. 

Doct. Stay there— 

Per. Read here else : can you read? 

Is it not true ? 

Doct. No truer, than I have seen it 
You hear me not deny that all is true. 

That Mandevil delivers of his travels; 

Yet I myself may be as well believed. 

Per. Since you speak reverently of him, say on. 
Doct. Of Europe I’ll not speak, ’tis too near home ; 
Who’s not familiar with the Spanish garb, 

Th ; Italian cringe, French shrug, and German hug ? 
Nor will I trouble you with my observations 
Fetch’d from Arabia, Paphlagonia, 

Mesopotamia, Mauritania, 

Syria, Thessalia, Persia, India ; 

All still is too near home : tho’ I have touch’d 
The clouds upon the Pyrenean mountains; 

And been on Paphos hill, where I have kiss’d 
The image of bright Venus ; all is still 
Too near home to be boasted. They sound 
In a far traveller’s ear, 
like the reports of those, that beggingly 
Have put out on returns from Edinburgh 
Paris, or Venice ; or perhaps Madrid, 


Wnither a Millaner may with half a nose 
Smell out his way; and is not near so difficult. 

As for some man in debt, and unprotected, 

To walk from Charing Cross to the Old Exch mge. 
No, I will pitch no neare than the Antipodes; 

That which is furthest distant; foot to foot 
Against our region. 

Lady. What, with their heels upwards ? 

Bless us, how ’scape they breaking of their necss ? 

Doct. 1 hey walk upon firm earth, as we do here; 
And have the firmament over their heads. 

As we have here. 

Lady. And yet just under us ! 

W here is Hell then ? if they, whose feet are towaru l. 
At the lower part of the world, have Heaven too 
Beyond their heads, where’s Hell ? 

Doct. You may find that 
Without enquiry. 

Scene, at the Antipodes. 

N.B. In the Antipodes, every thing goes 
contrary to our manners: wives rule 
their husbands; servants govern their 
masters; old men go to school again,&c. 

Son. Servant. Gentleman, and Lady, na¬ 
tives. English Traveller. 

Servant (to his young Master.) How well you saw 
Your father to school to day, knowing how apt 
He is to play the truant 1 
Son. But is he not 
Yet gone to school ? 

Servant. Stand by, and you shall see. 

Enter three old men with satchels. 

All tLrec. (singing) Domine, domine, duster: 

Three knaves in a cluster. 

Son. L Ais is gallant pastime. Nay, come on 
Is this your school ? was that your lesson, ha ? 

1st old man. Pray now, good son, indeed, indeed— 
Son. Indeed 

You shall to school. Away with him; and take 
Their wagships with him, the whole cluster of’em. 

2d old man. You sha’nt send us now, so you sba’nt— 
3d old man. We be none of your father, so we be’nt— 
Son. Away with ’em, I say; and tell their school 
mistress 

What truants they are, and bid her pay ’em soundly 
All three. Oh, oh, oh I 
Lady. Alas 1 will nobody beg pardon for 
The poor old boys ? 

English Traveller. Do men of such fair years here 
go to school ? 

Gentleman. They would die dunces else. 

These were great scholars m their youth, bat when 
Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes. 

And so decays, that if they live until 
Threescore, their sons send them to school again ; 
They’d die as speechless else as new-born children. 

English Traveller. Tis a wise nation ; . rd the pietj 
Of the voung men most rare and comrcendab’.e. 

Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to Kg 
Tkvir liberty this dav. 


5 ( J5 

























THE TABLE BOOK 


So i. T’.s granted. 

Hold up your heads, and thank the gentleman, 

1 ike scholars, with your heels now 
All three. Gratias, gratias. gratias. (exeunt singing.) 


[From the “Asparagus Garden,” a 
Comedy, by the same Author, 1634.] 

Private Conference. 

Father-m-Law. You’ll not assault me in my own 
house, nor urge me beyond my patience with your 
borrowing attempts. 

Spendthrift A light. I have not used the -word of 
loan or borrowing; 

: )nly some private conference 1 requested. 

Fnth. Private conference! a new-coined word for 
borrowing of money. I tell you, your very face, your 
countenance, tho’ it be glossed with knighthood, looks 
so borrowingly, that the best words you give me are as 
•ireadful as Stand and Deliver. — Your riotousness 

• broad, and her long night-watchings at home, short- 
•med my daughter’s days, and cast her into her grave ; 
tnd ’twas not long before all her estate was buried 
■oo. 

Spend. I wish my life might have excused 
tier’s far more precious ; never had a man 
A jnster cause to mourn. 

Fatli. Nor mourn’d more justly, it is your only 
wearing; you have just none other ; nor have had any 
means to purchase better any time these seven years, 
1 take it; by which means you have got the name of 

• he Mourning Knight. 

Timothy Hoyden , the Yeoman's Son, de¬ 
sires to be made a Gentleman. He consults 
with his friends. 

Moneylaek. Well, Sir, we will take the speediest 
course with you. 

Huyd. But must I bleed ? 

Mon. Yes, you must bleed; your father’s blood 
must out. 

He was but a Yeoman, was he ? 

Huyd. As rank a Clown {none dispraised) as any in 
Somersetshire. 

Mon. His foul rank blood of bacon and pease por- 
ritch 

Must out of you to the last dram— 

Springe. Fear nothing, Sir. 

Your blood shall be taken out by degrees; and your 
veins replenished with pure blood still, as you lose the 
puddle. 

Hoyd. I was bewitch’d, I think, before I was begot, 
to have a Clown to my father. Yet my mother said 
she was a Gentlewoman. 

Spr. Said ! what will not women say ? 

Mon. Be content. Sir; here’s half a labour saved: 
you shall bleed but of one side. The Mother vein shall 
not be pricked. 

Old Striker, after a quarrelling bout 
with old Touchwood. 

Touchwood. I have put him into these fits this forty 
years, and hope to choke him at last, (aside; and 

Vf't.) 


StriJirr. Huh, huh, huh! so he is gone, tne villain’s 
gone in hopes that he has killed me, when my comfort 
is he has recovered m 0 . I was heart-sick with a con 
ceit, which lay so mingled with my flegm, that I had 
perished if I had not broke it, and made me spit it out; 
hem, he is gone, and I’ll home merrily. I would not 
he should know the good he has done me for half my 
estate; nor would I be at peace with him to save it 
all. I would not lose his hatred for all the good 
neighbourhood of the parish. 

His malice works upon me 

Past all the drugs and all the Doctors’ counsels. 

That e’er I copea with ; he has been my vexation 
E’er since my wife died; if the rascal knew it, 

He would befriends, and I were instantly 
But a dead man ; I could not get another 
To anger me so handsomely. 


BEAR AND TENTER. 

To the Editor. 

Morlcy, near Leeds, July, 1827. 

Sir,—On surveying the plays and pas¬ 
times of children, in these northern parts 
especially, it has often struck me with re-, 
spec' - to some of them, that if traced up to 
their origin, they would be found to have 
been “ political satires to ridicule such 
follies and corruptions of the times, as it 
was, perhaps, unsafe to do in any other 
manner.” In this conjecture I have lately 
been confirmed, by meeting with a curious | 
paper, copied from another periodical woil 
by a contributor to the old London Maga¬ 
zine, vol. for 1738, p. .59. It is an article 
which many would doubtless be glad to i 
find in the Table Book, and nobody more 
so than myself, as it would be a capital 
accompaniment to my present remarks. 

To come at once to the point; we have, 
or rather had, a few years ago, a game 
called the “ bear and tenter,” (or bear and 
bear warden, as it would be called in the 
south,) which seems, certainly, to have 
been one of the sort alluded to. A boy is 
made to crawl as a bear upon his hands 
and knees, round whose neck is tied a rope 
which the keeper holds at a few yards’dis¬ 
tance. The bystanders then buffet the 
bear, who is protected only by his keeper, 
who, by touching any of the assailants, 
becomes liberated ; the other is then the 
bear, and the buffeted bear becomes the 
keeper, and so on. If the “ tenter” is 
sluggish or negligent in defence of his 
charge, it is then that the bear growls, and 
the blows are turned upon the guardian, 
wholly or partially, as the bearbaiters elect. 

Now, my conjecture as to the origin o’ 


690 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


the game of “ bear and tenter” is this.— 
Our English youths and their tutors, or 
j companions, were formerly distinguished 
I in foreign countries by the names of the 
i bear and the bear leader, from the absurd 
custom of sending out the former, (a bois¬ 
terous, ungovernable set,) and putting them 
under the care of persons unfit to accom¬ 
pany them. These bears were at first 
generally sprigs of royalty or nobility, as 
headstrong as need be; and the tutor was 
often some needy scholar, a Scotsman, or a 
courtier, who knew little more of the world 
than his pupil; but who, when he had put 
on his bag-wig and sword, was one of the 
most awkward and ridiculous figures ima¬ 
ginable. While these people were abroad, 
there can be no doubt that they were for¬ 
merly the dupes and laughingstocks of 
those who dealt with them ; and that, in 
exchange for the cash out of which they 
were cheated, they brought home a stock 
of exotic follies, sufficient to render them 
completely preposterous characters in the 
eyes of their own countrymen. Consider¬ 
ing therefore how much good English gold 
was wasted and lost in these travels, how- 
hurtful to the national pride the practice 
was, and how altered for the worse were 
both guardian and ward, it is not to be 
wondered at if the middling and lower 
classes of Englishmen were highly in¬ 
censed or disgusted. But as complaints 
w'ould, at least, be unavailing when such 
persons as “ Baby Charles” and “ Stormy” 
Buckingham were the “ bear and tenter,” 
the people revenged themselves, as far as 
they dared, by the institution of this game, 
in which they displayed pretty well what 
hard knocks, ill treatment, derision, and 
scorn, awaited those who forsook their 
homes to wander in a land of strangers. 
And not only so, but they illustrated, at 
the same time, the contamination which 
ensued the touch of bad tutors, and the 
general character of the parties ridiculed. 

I am well aware, Mr. Editor, that there 
was formerly a pastime of buffeting tne 
bear; but that, as I apprehend, was a very 
different sport from that of “ bear and 
tenter and had not a political origin. 
That this had, I am well assured, from the 
game being kept up in these parts, where 
the Stuarts were ever almost universally 
execrated; where patriotism once shone 
forth in meridian splendour, and the finest 
soldiers that the world ever saw, were ar¬ 
ranged under the banners of Cromwell, of 
Fairfax, or of Lambert. 

I remain, yours respectfully, 

N. S. 


GLANCES AT BOOKS ON MY TABLE. 

The History and Antiquities 0 /Weston 
Favell, in the County of Northamp¬ 
ton. By John Coi.e, Editor of 1 Her- 
veianaf &c. Scarborough: Printed : 
(only 50 copies) and published by John 
Cole ; and Longman and Co. London, 
1827.—8vo. pp. 74. 

According to Mr. Cole, Weston Favell is; 
entered in Domesday book as “ Westone,” j 
and the addition of Favell was derived 
from a family of that name, who formerly 
possessed the manor. From each of three 
mansions standing there at the commence¬ 
ment of the last century, but not one of 
which remained at its close, the important 
equipage of a “ coach and six ” formerly 
issued to the admiration of the villagers. 
The churcli is dedicated to St. Peter, “ and 
consists of a body, south porch, and chan¬ 
cel, with a coped tower at the west end, con¬ 
taining five bells.” Mr. C. remarks, on 
the authority of tradition , that the tower 
had once a spire to it, which was many 
years ago destroyed by lightning ; and this 
observation induces him to cite, by way of j 
note, that “ Tradition is a very poetical, a| 
very pleasing personage; we like to meet! 
him in our travels, and always ask him a 
question. You will find him grey and 
blind, sitting among old ruins, and ‘ Death 
standing, dim, behind.’ ” 

Mr. Cole copies several monumental in- ( 
scriptions within the church, chiefly in 
memory of the Hervey family, and one 
especially on his favourite, viz. :— 

HERE LIE THE REMAINS 
OF THE REV. JAMES HERVEY, A. M. 

LATE RECTOR OF THIS PARISH : 

THAT VERY PIOUS MAN 
AND MUCH ADMIRED AUTHOR! 

WHO DIED DEC. 25TI1 1758 
IN THE 45tII YEAR OF HIS AGE. 

Reader expect no more to make him known 
Vain the fond Elegy and figur'd Stone, 

A name more lasting shall his Writings give; 
There view displayed his heavenly Soul, and live 

Such are the lines on the tomb of the 
author of the “ Meditations among the 
Toml is; Reflections on a Flower Garden ; I 
an 1 Contemplations on the Night, and on 
the Starry Heavens.” He was buried under 
the middle of the communion-table in the 
chancel: when his body was conveyed to 
the church it w 7 as covered, according to his 
express desire, with the poor’s pall. He 
was the most popular rector ot Weston 
Favell, of which living he was the patron 
and incumbent, as his father had been. 
Hervey was not born in that parish, but in 
the neighbouring one of flardingston. 


597 































Jjerbeg’S 23trtl)--piacc at TOartimgston. 


In this house (the representation of which 
is derived from Mr. Cole’s History of Wes¬ 
ton Favell) the author of the “ Meditations” 
tirst saw light. He was instructed by his 
mother in reading till the age of seven, 
and then sent to the free grammar-school 
at Northampton, where he remained till 
seventeen, at which age his father placed 
him at Lincoln college, Oxford, and there 
he resided seven years, and gained an ex¬ 
hibition of twenty pounds. In 1736 he 
returned to his father, who was then rector 
of Weston Favell, and became his curate. 
In May, 1737, he succeeded the celebrated 
George Whitefield in the curacy of Dum- 
mer, Hampshire, and in about a twelve- 
month removed to Stoke Abbey, Devon, 
where he lived with his friend, Mr. Orchard, 
upwards of two years. In 1739 he ac¬ 
cepted the curacy of Bideford, which he 
retained till his final settlement at Weston 
Favell, where he 

To ampler plenitude and sweeter days 

Proceeded hourly. 

It was in Hervey’s native parish, Hard- 
mgston, that the battle of Northampton 
was fought on the 10th of July, 1460, and 
king Henry VI. taken prisoner by the earl 
of Warwick : the duke of Buckingham, 


the earl of Shrewsbury, and other noble¬ 
men were killed : and many of the slain 
were buried in the convent of Delapre, and 
at St. John’s hospital, Northampton. In 
Iiardingston parish is a military work, sup¬ 
posed to have been raised by the Danes, 
and therefore called the Danes’ camp. 

The wake of Weston Favell is held on the 
next Sunday after St. Peter’s day. In the 
afternoon the rector preaches an appropri¬ 
ate sermon, the choristers prepare suitable 
psalms, and throngs of visitants from the 
neighbouring villages attend the service in 
the church. During the first three or four 
days of the feast-week there are dances at 
the inns, with games at bowls and quoits, 
and throughout the week there are dinner 
and tea-parties from the environs, whose 
meetings usually conclude with a ball. On 
St. Valentine’s day the village lads and 
lasses assemble, and go round with a wish 
of “ Good morrow, morrow, Valentine !’’ 
to the principal inhabitants, who give mo¬ 
ney to the juvenile minstrels. On Shrove 
Tuesday, at noon, it is the custom to ring 
one of the church-bells, called the ** Pan¬ 
cake bell its sound intimates a holiday 
and allowance of sport to the village young¬ 
sters. The fifth of November is jovially- 
celebrated with a bonfire, which may b« 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


598 





















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


viewed throughout a circuit of many miles. 
Christmas is kept merrily, but the ancient 
asages of the season have passed away, ex¬ 
cept the singing by the church-choir, of 
whose carols Mr. Cole produces three, 
* which may serve,” he says, “ as an ad¬ 
dition to Mr. Gilbert’s collection.” 

In this “ history ” there is an engraving 
of two “ figures on bricks, near the pulpit 
the other engravings are from a former 
work by Mr. Cole, entitled “ Herveiana,’’ 
(2 vols. foolscap 8vo. 1822,) wherein is 
collected a large number of particulars 
concerning Hervey from various sources. 
The latter work enumerates from Ilervey’s 
“ Theron and Aspasio,” the plants of the 
parish, and agreeably describes the common 
but beautiful plant, called Cuckoo-pint, or 
Wake Robin, which abounds under the 
hedge-rows. I*t is spoken of by its scientific 
name: “ Arum —a wild herb, which un¬ 
folds but one leaf, formed after a very sin¬ 
gular pattern, bearing some resemblance to 
the hare’s ear- It is really one of the pret¬ 
tiest fancies in Nature's wardrobe, and is 
so much admired by the country-people, 
that they have dignified it with the appel- 
/ation of lords and ladies; because it looks, 
I suppose, somewhat like a person of qua¬ 
lity, sitting with an air of ease and dignity 
in his open sedan. In autumn, after both 
flow r ers have vanished, a spike of scarlet 
berries, on a simple stalk, is all that re¬ 
mains.” 

On the first publication of Hervey’s 
“ Meditations and Contemplations,” and 
for several years afterwards, they were 
highly popular, and are still greatly ad¬ 
mired by young persons, and others who 
are delighted by a florid interjectional man¬ 
ner of writing. Ilervey’s work occurs in 
Mr. Bohn’s “ Catalogue of the Library of 
the late reverend and learned Samuel Parr, 
LL.D.” with the following remarkable note 
attached to the volume—“ This book was 
the delight of Dr. Parr, when he was a 
boy; and, for some time, was the model 
on which he endeavoured to form a style.” 

* 


ARUM—CUCKOO- PINT—STARCH- 
WORT. 

Old John Gerard, who was some time 
gardener to Cecil lord Burleigh, in the 
reign of queen Elizabeth, says, in his 
“ Herbal,” that “ beares, after they have 
Her .n their dens forty dayes without any 
manner of sustenance, but what they get 


with licking and sucking their owne feet, 
do, as soon as they come forth, eate the 
herbe Cuckoo-pint, through the windie na¬ 
ture whereof the hungry gut is opened, and 
made fit againe to receive sustenance.” 

Gerard further tells, that “ the most pure 
and white starch is made of the roots of 
Cuckow-pint; but is most hurtful to the 
hands of the laundresse that hath the hand¬ 
ling of it, for it choppeth, blistereth, and 
maketh the hands rough and rugged, and 
withall smarting.” From this ancient do¬ 
mestic use of the arum, it was called 
“ Starch-wortit bore other and homelier 
names, some of them displeasing to a mo¬ 
dern ear. 

Gerard likewise relates of the arum, 
medically, that after being sodden in two 
or three waters, whereby it may lose its 
acrimony, and fresh put to, being so eaten, 
it will cut thick and tough humours in the 
chest and lungs ; “ but, then, that Cuckow- 
pint is best that biteth most—but Dragon's 
is better for the same purpose.” 

I know not whether I have fallen in with 
the sort of arum “ that biteth most," but, a 
summer or two ago, walking early in the 
afternoon through the green lanes to Wills- 
den, and so to Harrow on the Hill, its 
scarlet granulations among the way-side 
browse and herbage, occasioned me to re¬ 
collect the former importance of its root to 
the housewife, and from curiosity I dug up 
one to taste. The piece I bit off was 
scarcely the size of half a split pea, yet it 
gave out so much acrid milk, that, for more 
than an hour, my lips and tongue were in¬ 
flamed and continued to burn, as if cau¬ 
terized by hot - iron ; nor did the sensation 
wholly cease till after breakfast the next 
morning. Gerard says that, according to 
Dioscorides, “ the root hath a peculiar vir¬ 
tue against the gout,” by way of cataplasm, 
blister-wise. 

Hervey introduces the flower of the 
Cuckoo-pint as one of the beautiful pro¬ 
ducts of the spring. “ The hawthorn in 
every hedge is partly turgid with silken 
gems, partly diffused into a milk-white 
bloom. Not a strangling furze, nor a soli¬ 
tary thicket on the heath, but wears a rural 
nosegay. Even amidst that neglected dike 
the arum rises in humble state : most cu¬ 
riously shrouded in her leafy tabernacle, 
and surrounded with luxuriant families, 
each distinguished by a peculiar livery of 
green.” I am almost persuaded that I 
have seen the fruited arum among the or¬ 
naments of gothic architecture, surmount¬ 
ing pinnacles of delicate shrine-work. 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


MEMORIALS OF JOHN KEATS. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The anecdote of Keats, which ap¬ 
peared in a late number of your Table 
Book * recalled his image to my “ mind's 
eye” as vividly, through the tear of regret, 
as the long-buried pictures on the walls of 
Pompeii appear when water is thrown over 
them; and I turned to reperuse the writ¬ 
ten record of my feelings, at hearing him 
spoken of a few months since. These lines 
I trouble you with, thinking they may gra¬ 
tify the feelings of some one of his friends, 
and trusting their homeliness may be par¬ 
doned for the sake of the feeling which 
dictated them. 

I should also be glad of this opportunity 
to express the wishes of many of his ad¬ 
mirers for a portrait of Keats. There are 
two in existence; one, a spirited profile 
sketch by Haydon; the other, a beautiful 
miniature by his friend Severn; but nei¬ 
ther have been engraved. Mr. Severn’s 
return to England will probably produce 
some memorial of his “ span of life,” and a 
more satisfactory account of his last mo¬ 
ments than can be gleaned from report. 
The opportunity that would thus be afforded 
of giving to the world the posthumous 
remains of his genius, will, it is to be 
hoped, not be neglected. Such a volume 
would be incomplete without a portrait; 
which, if seen by the most prejudiced of 
his literary opponents, would turn the 
laugh of contempt into a look of thoughtful 
regret. Hoping my rhymes will not frus¬ 
trate my wishes, I remain, sir. 

Your obliged correspondent, 

and humble servant, 

Sept. 13, 1827. Gaston. 

Extemporaneous Lines, suggested by 

SOME THOUGHTS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF 

John Keats, the Poet. 

Thy name, dear Keats, is not forgotten quite 
E’en in this dreary pause—Fame’s dark twilight— 
The space betwixt death’s starry-vaulted sky, 

And the bright dawn of immortality. 

That time when tear and elegy lie cold 

Upon the barren tomb, and ere enrolled 

Thy name upon the list of honoured men, 

i n the world’s volume writ with History’s lasting pen. 

\ T o ! there are some who in their bosom’s haven 
Cherish thy mem’ry—on whose hearts are graven 
The living recollections of thy worth— 

Thy frank sincerity, thine ardent mirth ; 

That nobleness of spirit, so allied 
To those high qualities it quick descried 

• Col. 249. 


*n others’ natures, that by sympathies 

It knit with them in friendship’s strongest ties— 

Th’ enthusiasm which thy soul pervaded— 

The deep poetic feeling, which invaded 
The narrow channel of thy stream of life. 

And wrought therein consuming, inward strife.— 

All these 3nd other kindred excellencies 
Do those who knew thee dwell upon, and thence is 
Derived a cordial, fresh remembrance 
Of thee, as though thou wert but in a trance. 

I, too, can think ofthee, with friendship’s glow, 

Who but at distance only didst thee know ; 

And oft thy gentle form flits past my sight 
In transient day dreams, and a tranquil light, 

Like that of warm Italian skies, comes o’er 
My sorrowing heart—I feel thou art no more— 

Those mild, pure skies thou long’st to look upon, 

Till friends, m kindness, bade thee oft “ Begone 
To that more genial clime, and breathe the air 
Of southern shores; thy wasted strength repair.” 

Then all the Patriot burst upon thy soul; 

Thy love of country made thee shun the goal 
(As thou prophetically felt ’twould be,) 

Of thy last pilgrimage. Thou cross’d the sea. 

Leaving thy heart and hopes in England here 
And went as doth a corpse upon its bier! 

Still do I see thee on the river’s strand 
Take thy last step upon thy native land— 

Still feel the last kind pressure of thy hand. 

A calm dejection in thy youthful face. 

To which e’en sickness lent a tender grace— 

A hectic bloom—the sacrificial flower. 

Which marks th’ approach of Death’s all-witlieiiny 

power. 

Oft do my thoughts keep vigils at thy tomb 
Across the sea, beneath the walls of Rome; 

And even now a tear will find its way. 

Heralding pensive thoughts which thither stray.— 
How must they mourn who feel what I but know t 
What can assuage their poignancy of woe, 

If I, a stranger, (save that I had been 
Where thou wast, and thy gentleness had seen,) 

Now feel mild sorrow and a welcome sadness 
As then I felt, whene’er I saw thee, gladness ?— 

Mine was a friendship all upon one side ; 

Thou knewest me by name and nought beside. 

In humble station, I but shar’d the smile 
Of which some trivial thought might thee beguile 1 
Happy in that—proud but to hear thy voice 
Accost me : inwardly did I rejoice 
To gain a word from thee, and if a thought 
Stray’d into utterance, quick the words I caught. 

I laid in wait to catch a glimpse of thee. 

And plann’d where’er thou wert that I might be. 

I look’d on thee as a superior being. 

Whom I felt sweet content in merely seeing 
With thy fine qualities I stor’d my mind ; 

And now thou’rt gone, their mem’ry stays behind. 
Mixt admiration fills my heart, nor can 
I tell which most to love—the Poet or the Man. 

Gaston 

November , 1826. 


GOO 



















THE TABLE BOOK. 


FUNERALS IN CUMBERLAND. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—It is usual at the funeral of a per¬ 
son, especially of a householder, to invite 
persons to attend the ceremony ; and in 
Carlisle, for instance, this is done on the 
day of interment by the bellman, who, in 
a solemn and subdued tone of voice, an¬ 
nounces, that “ all friends and neighbours 

of -, deceased, are requested to 

take notice, that the body will be lifted at 

-o'clock, to be interred at- 

church.” On this occasion the relatives 
and persons, invited by note, repair to the 
dwelling of the deceased, where they usually 
partake of a cold collation, with wine, &c.; 
and at the outside of the door a table is 
set out, bountifully replenished with bread 
and cheese, ale and spirits, when “ all 
friends and neighbours” partake as they 
think proper. When the preparations for 
moving are completed, the procession is 
accompanied by those persons who are 
disposed to pay their last mark of respect 
to the memory of the deceased. This 
custom, it has been remarked, gives an 
opportunity for “ that indulgence which 
ought to belong to the marriage feast, and 
! that it is a practice savouring of the gothic 
! and barbarous manners of our unpolished 
ancestors.” With deference to the writer’s 
opinion, I would say that the custom is 
worthy of imitation, and that the assem¬ 
bling together of persons who have only 
this opportunity of expressing their respect 
for the memory of the deceas-ed, cannot fail 
to engage the mind to useful reflections, 
and is a great contrast to the heartless 
mode of conducting interments in many 
other places, where the attendants frequently 
do not exceed half a dozen. 

The procession used often to be preceded 
by the parish clerk and singers, who sang 
a portion of the Psalms until they arrived 
at the church. , This part of the ceremony 
is now, I understand, seldom performed. 

I am, 

Newcastle upon Tyne y Yours, &c. 

August, 1827. W. C. 


BIDDEN WEDDINGS 
In Cumberland. 

Sir,—It was a prevalent custom to have 
‘bidden weddings” when a couple of re¬ 
spectability and of slender means were on 
the eve of marriage; in this fase they gave 


publicity to their intentions through the 
medium of the Cumberland Pacquet,” a 
paper published at Whitehaven, and which 
about twenty-nine years ago was the only 
newspaper printed in the county. The ; 
editor, Mr. John Ware, used to set off the | 
invitation in a novel and amusing manner, 
which never failed to ensure a large meet¬ 
ing, and frequently the contributions made 
on the occasion, by the visitors, were of so 
much importance to the new married cou¬ 
ple, that by care and industry they were 
enabled to make so good “ a fend as niver 
to look ahint them .”* 

A long absence from the county pre¬ 
cludes me from stating whether this “ good 
old custom” continues to be practised : per¬ 
haps some of your readers will favour you 
with additional information on this subject, 
and if they would also describe any other 
customs peculiar to this county, it would to 
me, at least, be acceptable. 

The following is a copy of an advertise¬ 
ment, as it appeared in the Cumberland 
Pacquet in a number for June, 1803 : — 

A PUBLIC BRIDAL. 

ONATIIAN and GRACE MUS- 
GRAVE purpose having a PUBLIC 
BRIDAL, at Low Lorton Bridge End, 
near Cockermouth, on THURSDAY, the 
16th of June, 1803; when they will be 
glad to see their Friends, and all who may 
please to favour them with their Company; 
— for whose Amusement there will be 
various RACES, for Prizes of different 
Kinds; and amongst others, a Saddle, and 
Bridle ; and a Silver-tipt Hunting Horn, 
for Hounds to run for.—There will also be 
Leaping, Wrestling, &c. &c. 

gSp" Commodious ROOMS are likewise 
engaged for DANCING PARTIES, in the 
Evening. 

Come, haste to the BRIDAL !—to Joys we invite Yon, 
Which, help’d by the Season, to please You can’t 
fail: 

But should LOVE, MIRTH, and SPRING strive in 
vain to delight You, 

You’ve still the mild Comforts of Lorton’s sweet 
Vale. 

And wnere does the Goddess more cnarmmg.y reve. ? 
Where, Zephyr dispense a more health-cheanng 
Gale, 

Than where the pure Cocker, meandnng 'he Level, 
Adorns the calm Prospects of Lorton’s sweet 
Vale ? 


* An endeavour as to render any additional assist 
ance unnecessary. 



G01 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


To the BRIDAL then come ;—taste the Sweets of our 
Valley; 

Your Visit, good Cheer and hind Welcome shall hail, 
•ound the Standard of Old English Custom, we’ll 
rally,— 

And be blest in Love , Friendship , and Lorton’s 
sweet Vale. 

With this, the conclusion of the bridal 
bidding,'' I conclude, Sir, 

Your constant reader, 

W. C. 

Newcastle upon Tyne, 

August , 1827. 


2D t $cob mess 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. VIII. 

The Milky Way. 

That lucid whitish zone in the firmament 
among the fixed stars, which we call the 
“ Milky Way," was supposed by the Py¬ 
thagoreans to have once been the sun's 
path, wherein he had left that trace of 
white, which we now observe there. The 
Peripatetics asserted, after Aristotle, that 
it was formed of exhalations, suspended 
high in air. These were gross mistakes; 
but all the ancients were not mistaken. 
Democritus, without the aid of a telescope, 
preceded Galileo in remarking, that “ what 
we call the milky way, contained in it an 
innumerable quantity of fixed stars, the 
mixture of whose distant rays occasioned 
the whiteness which we thus denominate 
or, to express it in Plutarch’s words, it was 

the united brightness of an immense 
number of stars." 

The Fixed Stars — Plurality of 
Worlds. 

The conceptions of the ancients respect¬ 
ing the fixed stars were not less clear than 
du rs. Indeed, the opinions of the moderns 
on this subject have been adopted within a 
century from those great masters, after 
naving been rejected during many ages. 
It would be reckoned almost an absurdity 
at present, to doubt of those stars being 
suns like ours, each respectively having 
planets of their own, revolving around 
them, and forming various solar systems, 
more or less resembling ours. Philosophy, 
at present, admits this theory, derived from 


the ancients, and founded on the mos* 
solid reasonings of astronomical science 
The elegant work of Fontenelle, on the 
“ Plurality of W orlds," first rendered the 
conception familiar to common minds. 

This notion of a plurality of worlds was 
generally inculcated by the Greek philo¬ 
sophers. Plutarch, after giving an account 
of it, says, that “ he was so far from find¬ 
ing fault with it, that he thought it highly 
probable there had been, and were, like 
this of ours, an innumerable, though not 
absolutely infinite, multitude of worlds ; 
wherein, as well as here, w'ere land and 
water, invested by sky.” 

Anaximenes was one of the first who 
taught, that “ the stars were immense 
masses of fire, around which certain ter¬ 
restrial globes, imperceptible to us, ac¬ 
complished their periodic revolutions." 
By these terrestrial globes, turning round 
those masses of fire, he evidently meant 
planets, such as ours, subordinate to their 
own sun, and forming a solar system. 

Anaximenes agreed with Thales in this 
opinion, which passed from the Ionic to 
the Italic sect; who held, that every star 
was a world, containing in itself a sun and 
planets, all fixed in that immense space, 
which they called ether. 

Heraclides, and all the Pythagoreans 
likewise taught, that “ every star was a 
world, or solary system, having, like this 
of ours, its sun and planets, invested with 
an atmosphere of air, and moving in the 
fluid ether, by which they were sustained." 
This opinion seems to have been of still 
more ancient origin. There are traces of 
it in the verses of Orpheus, who lived in 
the time of the Trojan war, and taught 
that there was a plurality of worlds; a 
doctrine which Epicurus also deemed very 
probable. 

Origen treats amply of the opinion of 
Democritus, saying, that “ he taught, that 
there was an innumerable multitude of 
worlds, of unequal size, and differing in 
the number of their planets; that some of 
them were as large as ours, and placed at 
unequal distances; that some were inha¬ 
bited by animals, which he could not take 
upon him to describe; and that some had 
neither animals, nor plants, nor any thing 
like what appeared among us." The phi¬ 
losophic genius of the illustrious ancient 
discerned, that the different nature of those 
spheres necessarily required inhabitants of 
different kinds. 

This opinion of Demociitus surprised 
Alexander into a sudden declaration of his 
unbounded ambition. iElian reports, that 


002 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


this young prince, upon hearing Democri¬ 
tus’s doctrine of a plurality of worlds, 
burst into tears, upon reflecting that he 
had not yet so much as conquered one of 
them. 

It appears, that Aristotle also held this 
opinion, as did likewise Alcinoiis, the 
Platonist. It is also ascribed to Plotinus ; 
who held besides, that the earth, compared 
-o the rest of the universe, was one of the 
meanest globes in it. 

Satellites.—Vortices. 

In consequence of the ancient doctrine 
of the plurality of worlds, Phavorinus re¬ 
markably conjectured the possibility of the 
existence of other planets, besides those 
known to us. “ He was astonished how it 
came to be admitted as certain, that there 
were no other wandering stars, or planets, 
but those observed by the Chaldeans. As 
for his part, he thought that their number 
was more considerable than was vulgarly 
given out, though they had hitherto escaped 
our notice.” Here he probably alludes to 
the satellites, which have since been mani¬ 
fested by means of the telescope; but it 
, required singular penetration to be capable 
of forming the supposition, and of having, 
as it were, predicted this discovery. Seneca 
mentions a similar notion of Democritus ; 
who supposed, that there were many more 
of them, than had yet come within our 
view. 

However unfounded may be the system 
of vortices promulgated by Descartes, yet, 
as there is much of genius and fancy in it, 
the notion obtained great applause, and 
ranks among those theories which do 
honour to the moderns, or rather to the 
ancients, from whom it seems to have been 
drawn, notwithstanding its apparent no¬ 
velty. In fact, Leucippus taught, and 
after him Democritus, that “the celestial 
bodies derived their formation and motion 
from an infinite number of atoms, of every 
sort of figure; which encountering one 
another, and clinging together, threw them¬ 
selves into vortices; which being tho¬ 
roughly agitated and circumvolved on all 
sides, the most subtile of those particles 
that went to the composition of the whole 
mass, made towards the utmost skirts of 
the circumferences of those vortices ; whilst 
the less subtile, or those of a coarser ele¬ 
ment, subsided towards the centre, forming 
, themselves into those spherical concretions, 
which compose the planets, the earth, and 
the sun.” They said, that “ those vortices 
were actuated by the rapidity of a fluid 


matter, having he earth at die centre of 
it; and that the planets were moved, each 
of them, with more or less violence, in pro¬ 
portion to their respective distance from 
that centre.” They affirmed also, that the 
celerity with which those vortices moved 
was occasionally the cause of their carrying 
off one another; the most powerful and 
rapid attracting, and drawing into itse'fi j 
whatever was less so, whether planet or i 
whatever else. 

Leucippus seems also to have known 
that grand principle of Descartes, that “ all 
revolving bodies endeavour to withdraw 
from their centre, and fly off in a tangent.” 


RELIQUIAE TIIOMSONIANA. 

To the Editor. 


Sir,—The article relating to Thomson, in 
a recent number of the Table Book , cannot 
fail to have deeply interested many of your 
readers, and in the hope that further similar 
communications may be elicited, I beg to 
offer the little I can contribute. 

The biographical memoranda, the sub¬ 
ject of the conversation in the article refer¬ 
red to, are said to have been transmitted to 
the earl of Buchan by Mr. Park. It is not 
singular that no part of it appears in his 
lordship’s “ Essays on the Lives and Writ¬ 
ings of Fletcher of Saltoun, and the Poet ' 
Thomson, 1792.” 8vo. Mr. Park’s commu¬ 
nication was clearly too late for the noble 
author’s purpose. The conversation pro¬ 
fesses to have been in October, 1791 ; to 
my own knowledge the volume was finished 
and ready for publication late in the pre¬ 
ceding September, although the date 1792 
is affixed to the title. 

Thomson, it is believed, first tuned his 
Doric reed in the porter’s lodge at Dry- 
burgh, more recently the residence of David 
Stuart Erskine, earl of Buchan; hence the 
partiality which his lordship evinced for 
the memory of the poet. At p. 194 of the 
Essays are verses to Dr. De (la) Cour, in 
Ireland, on his Prospect of Poetry, which 
are there ascribed to Thomson, and ad¬ 
mitted as such by Dr. Thomson, who 
directed the volume through the press; 
although it is certain that Thomson in his 
lifetime disavowed them. The verses to 
Dr. De la Cour appeared in the Daily 
Journal for November 1734; and Cave, the 


proprietor and editor of the Gentleman’s 
Magazine, at the end of the poetical de¬ 
partment in that miscellany for August, 
1736, states himself “assured, from Mrjj 


603 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Thomson, that, though the verses to Dr. De 
“a Cour have some lines from his Seasons , 
lie knew nothing of the piece till he saw it 
in the Daily Journal.” 

The appellation of the u oily man of 
God,” in the Essays, p. 258, was intended 
by the earl of Buchan for Dr. Murdoch, 
who was subsequently a biographer of 
Thomson. Such designations would puzzle 
a conjuror to elucidate, did not contempo¬ 
rary persons exist to afford a clue to them. 

The recent number of the Table Book is 
not at hand, but from some MS. papers 
now before me,—James Robertson, sur¬ 
geon to the household at Kew, who mar- 
I ried the sister of Amanda, was the bosom 
friend of Thomson for more than twenty 
years. His conversation is said to have 
been facetious and intelligent, and his 
character exemplarily respectable. Be died 
at his residence on Richmond Green after 
four days’ illness, 28th October, 1791, in 
his eighty-fourth year. 

The original MS. of the verses to Miss 
! Young, the poet’s Amanda, on presenting 
her with his “ Seasons,’’ printed in the 
Essays, p. 280, were communicated by a 
Mr. Ramsay, of Ocherlyne, to his lordship. 
Some other presentation lines, with the 
Seasons, to the poet Lyttleton, were tran¬ 
scribed from a blank leaf of the book at 
Hagley, by Johnstone, bishop of Worces¬ 
ter, and transmitted by his son to the earl 
of Buchan in 1793 or 1794, consequently too 
late for publication. They follow here :— 

Go, little book, and find our friend. 

Who Nature and the Muses loves; 

Whose cares the public virtues blend. 

With all the softness of the groves. 

A fitter time thou can’st riot choose 
His fostering friendship to repay :— 

Go then, and try, my rural muse. 

To steal his widowed hours away. 

Among the autograph papers which I 
possess of Ogle, who published certain ver- 
j sifications of Chaucer, as also a work on 
the Gems of the Ancients, are some verses 
by Thomson, never yet printed; and their 
transcripts, Mr. Editor, make their obei¬ 
sance before yo:::— 

Come, gentle god of soft desire ! 

Come and possess my happy breast; 

Not fury like, in flam ;s and fire, 

In rapture, rage and nonsense drest. 

These are the vain disguise of love, 

And, or bespeak dissembled pains, 

Or else a fleeting fever prove. 

The frantic passion of the veins. 


But come in Friendship’s angel-guise, 

Yet dearer thou than friendship art. 

More tender spirit at thine eyes, 

More sweet emotions at thy heart. 

Oh come ! with goodness in thy train ; 

With peace and transport, void of storm. 

And would'st thou me for ever gain ? 

Put on Amanda’s waning form. 

The following, also original, were written 
by Thomson in commendation of his much 
loved Amanda:— 

Sweet tyrant Love, but hear me now ! 

And cure while young this pleasing smart. 

Or rather aid my trembling vow, 

And teach me to reveal my heart. 

Tell her, whose goodness is my bane. 

Whose looks have smil’d my peace away. 

Oh ! whisper how she gives me pain. 

Whilst undesigning, frank, and gay. 

’Tis not for common charms I sigh. 

For what the vulgar, beauty call; 

’Tis not a cheek, a lip, an eye. 

But ’tis the soul that lights them all. 

For that I drop the tender tear. 

For that I make this artless moan ; 

Oh ! sigh it, Love, into her ear. 

And make the bashful lover known. 

In the hope that the present may draw 
forth further reliquiae of the poet of the 
“ Seasons ” in your excellent publication, 1 
beg leave to subscribe myself, 

Sir, &c. 

Will o’ tiie Wisp. 

Sept. 17, 1827. 


THE BERKSHIRE MISER. 

The economy and parsimony of the Rev. 
Morgan Jones, late curate of Blewbury, a 
parish about six miles from Wallingford, 
were almost beyond credibility ; he having 
outdone, in many instances, the celebrated 
Elwes, of Marcham. 

For many of the last years of Mr. Jones’s 
ministerial labours, he had no servant to 
attend any of his domestic concerns; and 
he never had even the assistance of a fe¬ 
male within his doors for the last twelve 
years. The offices of housemaid, chamber¬ 
maid, cook, and scullion, and even most 
part of his washing and mending, were 
performed by himself; he was frequently 
known to beg needles and thread at some 
of the farm-houses, to tack together hi. 
tattered garments, at which, from practice. 


604 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


he had become very expert. Ue was curate 
of' Blewbury upwards of forty-three years; 
and the same hat and coat served him for 
his every-day dress during the whole of 
that period. The brim of his hat had, on 
one side, (bv much handling,) been worn 
off quite to the crown, but on coming one 
day from the hamlet of Upton across the 
fields, lie luckily met with an old left-off 
hat, stuck up for a scarecrow. lie imme¬ 
diately secured the prize, and with some 
tar-twine, substituted as thread, and a 
piece of the brim, quite repaired the defi¬ 
ciencies of his beloved old one, and ever 
after wore it in common, although the old 
one was of a russet brown, and the new 
brim nearly as black as jet. His coat, 
when he first came fiom Ashton Keyns in 
1781, was a surtout much the worse for 
wear; after some time he had it turned in¬ 
side out, and made up into a common one. 
Whenever it became rent or torn, it was as 
speedily tacked together w-ith his own 
hands: at length pieces fell out and were 
! lost, and, as he found it necessary, he 
: cut pieces off the tail to make good the 
t upper part, until the coat was reduced to a 
| jacket, stuck about with patches of his ow n 
applying. In this hat and coat, when at 
home on working days, he was constantly 
! decorated, but he never wore it abroad or 
j before strangers, except he forgot himself, 

1 as he several times had been much vexed 
; & the ridicule his grotesque appearance 
I had excited when seen by those w ith whom 
he was not much acquainted. This extra¬ 
ordinary coat (or more pioperly jacket) is 
now in the possession of one of the parish¬ 
ioners, and prized as a curiosity. His 
stockings were washed and mended by 
himself, and some of them had scarcely a 
vestige of the original worsted. He had a 
great store of new shirts, which had never 
been worn, but for many years his stock 
became reduced to one in use ; his parsi¬ 
mony would not permit him to have this 
washed more than once in two or three 
months, for which he reluctantly paid a 
poor woman fourpence. He always slept 
without his shirt, that it might not want 
washing too often, and by that means be 
worn out; and he always went without one 
while it was washed, and very frequently 
at other times. This solitary shirt he 
mended himself, and as fa«t as it required 
to be patched in the body he ingeniously 
supplied it by cutting off the tail; but, as 
nothing will last for ever, by this constant 
clipping it unfortunately became too short 
to reach down his small-clothes. This, of 
course, was a sad disaster, and there was 


some fear least one of the new ones mnxl 
be brought into use; but, after a diligent j 
search, he fortunately found in one of hij 
drawers the top part of a shirt with a fril 
on, which had probably lain by ever since 
his youthful and more gay days. This 
with his usual sagacity, he tacked on, to the 
tail of the old one, with the frill down¬ 
wards, and it was thus worn untd the day 
before he left Blewbury. Latterly his 
memory became impaired. He severa. 
times forgot to change his dress, and was 
more than once seen at the buiial of a 
corpse dressed in this ludicrous and curious 
manner, with scarcely a button on any part 
of his clothes, but tied together in various 
parts with string. In this state he was by 
strangers mistaken for a beggar, and barely 
escaped being offered their chaiity. 

His diet was as singular as his dress, for 
he cooked his pot only once a week, which 
was always on a Sunday. For his sub¬ 
sistence he purchased but three articles, 
which he denominated two necessaries and 
a luxury — the necessaries were bread 
and bacon, the luxury was tea. For many 
years his weekly allowance of bread was 
half a gallon per week ; and in the season, 
when his garden produced fruit, or when 
he once or twice a week procured a meal at 
his neighbours’, his half-gallon loaf lasted 
him a day or two of the following week ; 
so that in five weeks he often had no more 
than four half-gallon loaves. He was also 
equally abstemious in his other two arti¬ 
cles. lie frequently ate with his parish¬ 
ioners; yet for the last ten years there was 
but a solitary instance of a person eating 
with him in return, and that a particular 
friend, who obtained only a bit of bread 
with much difficulty and importunity. For 
the last fifteen years there was never within 
his doors any krnd of spirits, beer, butcher's 
meat, butter, sugar, lard, cheese, or milk; 
nor any niceties, of which he was particu¬ 
larly fond when they came free of expense, 
but which he could never find the heart to 
purchase. His beverage was cold water; 
and at morning and evening weak tea, 
without milk or sugar. 

However cold the weather, he seldom 
had a fire, except to cook with, and that 
was so small that it might easily have 
been hid under a half-gailon measure, 
lie was often seen roving the churchyard 
to pick up bits of stick, or busily lopping 
his shrubs or fruit-trees to make this tire, 
while his woodhouse was crammed with 
wood and coal, which he could not prevai 
upon himself to use. In very cold weather 
he would frequently get by some of his 


605 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


neighbours’ fires to warm his shivering 
limbs; and, when evening came, retire to 
bed for warmth, but generally without a 
candle, as he allowed himself only the 
small bits left of those provided for divine 
service in the church by the parish. 

He was never known to keep dog, cat, or 
any other living creature : and it is certain 
the whole expenses of his house did not 
amount to half a crown a week for the last 
twenty years; and, as the fees exceeded 
that sum, he always saved the whole of 
his yearly salary, which never was more 
than fifty pounds per annum. By con¬ 
stantly placing this sum in the funds, and 
the interest, with about thirty pounds per 
annum more, (the rent of two small estates 
left by some relations,) he, in the course of 
forty-three years, amassed many thousand 
pounds, as his bankers, Messrs. Child and 
Co., of Fleet-street, can testify. 

In his youthful days he made free with 
the good things of this life; and when he 
first came to Blewbury, he for some time 
boarded with a person by the week, and 
during that time was quite corpulent: but, 
as soon as he boarded and lived by himself, 
his parsimony overcame his appetite, so 
that at last he became reduced almost to a 
living skeleton. He was always an early 
riser, being seldom in bed after break of 
day ; and, like all other early risers, he 
enjoyed an excellent state of health ; so 
that for the long space of forty-three 
years he omitted preaching only two Sun¬ 
days. 

His industry was such, that he composed 
with his own hand upwards of one thousand 
sermons; but for the last few years his 
hand became tremulous, and he wrote but 
little; he therefore only made alterations 
and additions to his former discourses, and 
this generally on the back of old marriage 
licenses, or across old letters, as it would 
have been nearly death to him to have 
purchased paper. His sermons were usually 
plain and practical, and his funeral dis¬ 
courses were generally admired; but the 
fear of being noticed, and the dread of ex¬ 
pense, was an absolute prohibition to his 
sending any thing to the press, although he 
was fully capable, being well skilled in the 
English and Latin languages. The ex¬ 
pense of a penny in the postage of a letter 
has been known to deprive him of a night’s 
rest! and yet, at times, pounds did not 
grieve him. He was a regular and liberal 
subscriber to the Bible, Missionary, and 
the other societies for the propagation of 
the Gospel and the conversion of the Jews; 
and more than orvee he was generous 


enough to give a pound or two to assist a 
distressed fellow-creature. 

Although very fond of ale, he spent only 
one sixpence on that liquor during the 
forty-three years he was curate of Blew¬ 
bury ; but it must be confessed he used to 
partake of it too freely when he could have 
it without cost, until about ten years ago, 
when at a neighbour’s wedding, having 
taken too much of this his favourite beve¬ 
rage, it was noticed and talked of by some 
of the persons present. Being hurt by 
this, he made a vow never more to taste a 
drop of that or any other strong liquor; 
and his promise he scrupulously and 
honestly kept, although contrary to his 
natural desires, and exposed to many 
temptations.* 


A BALLAD. 

For the Table Book. 

“ A very fine gentleman treads the lawn, 

He passes our cottage duly ; 

We met in the grove the other morn. 

And he vow’d to love me truly ; 

He call’d me his dear, his love, his life. 

And told me his heart was burning; 

But he never once said—will you be my wife? 

So I left him his offers spurning.” 

“ And what were his ofFers to thee, my child ?” 
Old Woodland said to Nancy— 

“ Oh many things, which almost beguil’d 
Your simple daughter’s fancy ; 

He talk’d of jewels, laces, and gold. 

Of a castle, servants, and carriage ; 

And I could have lov’d the youth so bold. 

But he never talk’d of marriage. 

“ So I drew back my hand, and saved my lips. 
For 1 cared not for his money ; 

And I thought he was like the bee which sips 
From ev’ry flower its honey • 

Yet I think his heart is a little bent 
Towards me,” said Nancy, “ and marriage; 

For last night, as soon as to sleep I went, 

I dream’d of a castle and carriage.” 

“ ’Twere wrong, my child,” old Woodland said, 

“ Such idle dream to cherish 

The roses of life full soon will fade. 

They never should timeless perish ; 

The flower that’s pluck’d will briefly die, 

Tho’ placed on a peerless bosom ; 

And ere you look with a loving eye, 

Think, think on a fading blossom.” 

August 22,1827. C. Coll. 


* Devizes Gazette., Sept. 1827. 


GOG 


















\ HUT,ERECTED BY WILLIAM CORRALL, A POOR AND AGED LABOURED, 
AFTER THE VIOLENT AND LAWLESS DESTRUCTION OF HIS COTTAGE, 
EARLY IN THE MORNING OF THE SIXTH OF SEPTEMBER, 1027 


'Twas strange; ’twas passing strange! 

l _i»_it) 


’Twas pitiful! ’twas wond’rous pitiful 


I thought, in the Every-Day Book , that I 
nad done with “ Hagbu-sh-lane” altogether— 
the tale of the poor man’s wrongs, when 
“ the proud man’s contumely ” grew into 
open aggression, had passed from me; and 
f presumed that, for hia little while on this 


side the grave, the oppressed might u go 
free,” and “ hear not the voice of the op¬ 
pressor”—but when selfishness is unwatch¬ 
ed it has a natural tendency to break forth 
and a sudden and recent renewal of an out 
rage, which every honest mind had con- 


TLLE TABLE BOOK. 


Uiclu ut ©aglntsl) lanr, Ssltngton. 


607 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


demned, furnishes a fresh story. It is well 
related in the following letter:— 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—In the first volume of the Every- 
Day Book you have favoured the lovers of 
rural scenery with an historical and descrip¬ 
tive notice of Ilagbush-lane, Islington, 
accompanied with an engraving of the 
“ mud edifice” which formerly stood there; 
of which you have given “ the simple an¬ 
nals —its erection by a poor labourer who, 
else, had no shelter for himself, wife, and 
child, to “ shrink into,” when “ pierced 
by wintry winds;”—its demolition by the 
wealthy occupants of the neighbouring 
fields;—the again-houseless man's endea¬ 
vour to rebuild his hovel;—the rich man’s 
repetition of the destruction of his half- 
finished hut;—and finally, the labourer’s 
succeeding in the erection of a cottage, 
more commodious than the first, where he 
continued unmolested to sell small beer to 
poor workmen and wayfarers.—Allow me, 
sir, the melancholy task of informing you 
of the “ final destruction ” of this sample 
of rusticity.—Hngbush-lane is despoiled of 
its appropriate ornament. 

I have ever been an admirer of the beau¬ 
tiful scenery that is to be met with on that 
side of the metropolis; and never, since 
reading your interesting narrative and de¬ 
scription, have I strolled that way, without 
passing through Hagbush-lane. On enter¬ 
ing the wide part from the field by Copen¬ 
hagen-house, one day last week, I was sadly 
astonished at the change—the cottage, with 
its garden-rails and benches, had disap¬ 
peared ; and the garden was entirely laid 
waste : trees, bushes, and vegetables rudely 
torn up by the roots, lay withering where 
they had flourished. Upon the site of his 
demolished dwelling stood the poor old 
man, bent by affliction as much as by age, 
.eaning on his stick. From the heart¬ 
broken expression of his features, it did 
not take me a moment to guess the cause 
of this devastation : — the opulent land¬ 
holder has, for the third time, taken this 
ungentle expedient to rid his pastures of a 
neighbouring “ nuisance ” — the hut of 
cheerless poverty. 

The distressed old rustic stated, that on 
Thursday, (which was the sixth of Septem¬ 
ber,) at about six o’clock in the morning, 
before the inmates had arisen, a party of 
workmen came to the cottage ; and, merely 
informing them that “ they must disturb 
them,” instantly commenced the work of 
destruction. Ilis dwelling was soon level¬ 
led with the ground; and the growth of 


nis garden torn up, and thrown in a heap 
into the lane. He declared, with a tear, 
that “ it had ruined him for ever, and 
would be the death of him.” I did not 
ask him many questions : it had been a sin 
to probe his too deeply wounded feelings. 

Proceeding up the lane, to where it is 
crossed by the new road, I perceived that, 
in the open space by the road-side, at the 
entrance into the narrow part of the lane, 
the old man had managed to botch up, with 
pieces of board and old canvass, a misera¬ 
ble shed to shelter him. It was surrounded 
with household utensils, and what materials 
he had saved from the ruins of his cottage 
—a most wretched sty—but little larger 
than the dog-kennel that was erected near 
it, from which a faithful cur barked loudly 
at the intruder’s footstep. 

Being a stranger in the neighbourhood, 1 
cannot pretend to know any thing of the 
motives that have induced his rich neigh¬ 
bours thus to distress the poor and aged 
man;—perhaps they are best known to 
themselves, and it is well if they can justify 
them to any but themselves !—but surely, 
surely he will not be suffered to remain 
thus exposed in the approaching season, 

“ —all amid the rigours of the year. 

In the wild depth of winter, while without 
The ceaseless winds blow ice.”—— 

Perhaps, sir, I give too much room to 
my feelings. My intention was but to in¬ 
form you of a regretted change in a scene 
which you have noticed and admired in the 
Every-Day Book. Should you consider it 
worthy of further notice in the Table Book , 
you will oblige me by putting it forward in 
what form best pleases yourself. 

I remain, &c. 

Sept. 19, 1827. So and So. 

This communication, accompanied by 
the real name and address of its warm¬ 
hearted writer, revived my recollections 
and kindled my feelings. I immediately 
wrote to a friend, who lives in the vicinage 
of Hagbush-lane, requesting him to hasten 
to the site of the old cottasre, which was 
quite as well knowm to him as to me, and 
bring me a drawing of the place in its pre¬ 
sent state, with such particulars of the 
razing of the edifice as he could obtain 
His account, as I collect it from verbal nar 
ration, corroborates that of my correspond¬ 
ent. 

So complete has been the devastation, 
that a drawing of the spot whereon the 
cottage stood would merely be a view oi 
the level earth. My friend walked over it 


608 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


and along Hagbush-lane, till he came into 
the new road, (leading from the King’s 
Mead at Holloway to the lower road from 
London to Kentish Town.) Immediately at 
the corner of the continuation of Hagbush- 
.ane, which begins on the opposite side of the 
aew road, he perceived a new hut, and near 
t the expelled occupant of the cottage, 
which had been laid waste in the other 
part of the lane. On asking the old man 
•especting the occasion and manner of his 
ejectment, he cried. It was a wet and 
Ireary day; and the poor fellow in tears, and 
ais hastily thrown up tenement, presented 
i cheerless and desolate scene. His story 
was short. On the Thursday, (mentioned 
n the letter,) so early as five in the morning, 
some men brought a ladder, a barrow, and 
a pickaxe, and ascending the ladder began 
to untile the roof, while the old man and 
nis wife were in bed. He hastily rose; 
.hey demanded pf him to unlock the door; 
on his refusing they burst it open with the 
pick-axe, and having thus forced an en¬ 
trance compelled his wife to get up. They 
then wantonly threw out and broke the few 
household utensils, and hewed down the 
walls of the dwelling. In the little garden, 
they rooted up and destroyed every tree, 
shrub, and vegetable; and finally, they 
levelled all vestiges which could mark the 
place, as having been used or cultivated for 
the abode and sustenance of human beings. 
Some of the less destructible requisites of 
the cottage they trundled in the barrow 
up the lane, across the road, whither the 
old man and his wife followed, and were 
left with the few remnants of their miser¬ 
able property by the housebreakers. On 
that spot they put together their present 
hut with a few old boards and canvass, as 
represented in the engraving, and there 
they remain to tell the story of their un¬ 
redressed wrongs to all who desire the par¬ 
ticulars. 

The old man represents the “ ringlead¬ 
er,” as he calls him, in this last work of 
ruin, to be the foreman of a great cow- 
Keeping landholder and speculator, to 
whose field-possessions the cottage on the 
waste was adjacent. Who employed this 
“ ringleader ” and his followers ? Who 
was the instigating and protecting accessary 
before and after this brutal housebreaking, 
and wilful waste? 

The helpless man got his living by sell¬ 
ing small beer, and a little meat, cooked 
by his wife, to others as poor and helpless 
as themselves; and they eked out their 
existence by their garden produce. In the 
summer of 1825 I heard it said, that their 


cottage was the resort and drinking-place 
of idle and disorderly persons. I took some 
pains to ascertain the fact; but could never 
trace it beyond—the most dubitable autho- 
rity—general report. It is quite true, that 
I saw persons there whom l preferred not 
to sit down with, because their manners 
and habits were different from my own; 
yet I not unfrequently took a cup of the 
old man’s beer among them, and silently 
watched them, and sometimes talked with 
them ; and, for any thing that I could ob¬ 
serve—and I know myself to be a close 
observer—they were quite as honourable 
and moral, as persons of more refined lan¬ 
guage and dress, who frequent respectable 
coffee-houses. I had been, too, withinside 
the cottage, which was a place of rude ac¬ 
commodation for no more than its settled 
occupants. It was on the outside that the 
poor couple entertained their customers, 
who usually sat on the turf seat against the 
foot-path side of the hut, or on an empty 
barrel or two, or a three-legged milking- 
stool. On the hedge side of the cottage 
was a small low lean-to, wherein the old 
man kept a pig to fatten. At the front end 
was an enclosure of a few feet of ground, 
with domestic fowls and their callow 
broods, which ran about cackling, and 
routing the earth for their living. In the 
rear of the cottage was a rod or two of 
ground banked off, and well planted with 
potatoes, cabbages, and other garden stuff, 
where I have often seen the old man fully 
employed in weeding and cultivating; 
digging up old, or preparing for new crops, 
or plashing and mending his little fences. 
Between his vegetables, and his live stock, 
and his few customers, he had enough to 
do; and I never saw him idle. I never 
saw him sitting down to drink with them; 
and if he had, there was nothing among 
them but the small beer. From the early 
part of the spring to the end of the year just 
mentioned, I have been past and loitered 
near the cottage at all hours of the day, 
from the early dawn, before even the sun, 
or the inmates had risen, till after they had 
gone to rest, and the moon was high, and 
the stars were in their courses. Never in 
the hours I spent around the place by 
day or night, did I see or hear any persons 
or practices that would be termed disor¬ 
derly by any but the worst judges of human 
nature and morals—the underbred overpa- 
lite, and vulgarly overdressed. There I have 
seen a brickmaker or two with their wives 
and daughters sitting and regaling, as much 
at home, and as sober and innocent, as parties 
of French ladies and gerulemen at Chedrcui’s 


609 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


in Leicester square; and from these peo¬ 
ple, if spoken to civilly, there was lan¬ 
guage as civil. There I have seen a com¬ 
fortably dressed man, in a clean shirt, and 
a coat and hat as good as a Fleet-street 
t.adesman’s, with a jug of small “ entire ” 
before him, leisurely at work on a pair of 
shoes, joining in the homely conversation, 
and in choruses of old English songs, raised 
by his compeers. There, too, I have heard 
1 a company of merry-hearted labourers and 
holiday-making journeymen, who had 
: straggled away from their smithies and 
fur aces in the lanes of London, to breathe 
the fresh air, pealing out loud laughter, 
while the buds whistled over their heads 
from the slender branches of the green 
elms. In the old man I saw nothing but 
unremitting industry ; and lr. his customers 
nothing but rudeyet inoffensive good-nature. 
He was getting his bread by the sweat of 
i nis brow, and his brow was daily moistened 
by labour. 

When I before related something of this 
poor man’s origin,* and his former endur¬ 
ances, I little suspected that I should have 
to tell that, after the parochial officers of Is¬ 
lington had declined to receive him into the 
poor-house, the parish would suffer him to 
be molested as a labourer on its waste. He 
has been hunted as a wild beast; and, per¬ 
haps, had he been a younger man, and with 
vindictive feelings, he might have turned 
round upon his enemies, and layvlessly 
avenged himself for the lawless injuries in¬ 
dicted on him. Vagrancy is easily tempted 
to criminality, and the step is short. 

It is scarcely three weeks since the old 
cottager was in a snug abode of his own 
handmaking, with a garden that had yielded 
support to him and his wife through the 
summer, and roots growing in it for their 
winter consumption. These have been 
mercilessly laid waste at the coming-in of 
the inclement season. Will no one further 
investigate the facts, and aid him in obtain¬ 
ing “ indemnity for the past, and security 
for the future ?” 

Respecting the rights of the parish of 
Islington in Hagbush-lane, as the ancient 
and long disused north road into London, 
I do not pretend to determine; because, 
after the warm discussions and strong reso¬ 
lutions of its vestries, sometime ago, re¬ 
specting a part of this road which had been 
partially appropriated to private use, the 
parish may have thoroughly good reasons 
for acquiescing in the entire stopping up 

* In the first volume of the Every-Day Booh , No. 
28, which contains the account «f Hagbush-lane and 
iu vicinage, col. 857 to 872., 


of a carriage thoroughfare, between the back 
road to Holloway and Islington upper 
street, which, if now open, wouid be of great 
use. Many of the inhabitants, however 
may not be so easily satisfied as a few 
that the individual, who has at length 
wholly enclosed it, and shut it against the 
public, has any more right to stop up, and 
take the ground of this highway to himself, 
than to enclose so much of the road to 
Hoiloway through which the mails pass. 

I have often perambulated Hagbush-lane, 
as the old London north road, from Old- 
street across the City-road, the Lower and 
Upper Islington, and Holloway roads, by 
the Islington workhouse, on to the Bull ring 
field ; (which is in private hands, no one 
knows how ;) from thence, over the site ol 
the destroyed cottage to the old man’s pre¬ 
sent hut; then along the meadows; across 
the Highgate-archway-cut into other mea¬ 
dows, through which it winds back again, 
and recrosses the archway-cut, and after¬ 
wards crosses the London road, between 
stately elms, towards Hornsey 

Perhaps the Commissioners of Crown 
Lands, or Woods and Forests, may find it 
convenient and easy to institute an inquiry 
into the encroachments of Hagbush-lane, 
as a disused public road; and devise a 
method of obtaining its worth, in aid of 
the public service. 

Meantime, the aggression on the old cot¬ 
tager must not be forgotten. The private 
wrong he has sustained is in the nature of 
a public wrong; apd it is open to every 
one to consider of the means by which 
these repeated breaches of the peace may 
be prevented, and redress be obtained fo 
the poor man’s injuries. * 


fei'ttft Paps. 

No. XXXV. 

[From the “ Hectors,” a Comedy; by 
Edmund Prestwick, 1641.] 

A Waiting Maid ivheedles an old Justice 
into a belief , that her Lady is in love ivith 
him. 

Maid. I think there never was Woman of so strange 
a humour as she is for the world ; for from her infancy 
she ever doted on old men. I have heard her say, thal 
in these her late law troubles, it has been no sma 
comfort to her, that she hath been conversant with 
grave counsellors and serjeants; and what a happiness 
she had sometimes to look an hour together upon th" 
Judges. She will go and walk a whole afternoon ir. 
Charter House Garden, on purpose to view the ancu-nt 
Gentlemen there. Not long ago there was a younp 
Gentleman here about the town who. hearing of he 


610 












r 


THE TABLE BOOK 


nches, and knowing; this her humour. had almost got 
ner, by counterfeiting himself to be an old man. 

Justice. And how came he to miss her ? 

Maid. The strangliest that ever you heard ; for all 
things were agreed, the very writings drawn, and when 
he came to seal them, because he set his name without 
using a paii of spectacles, she would netfer see him more. 

Justice. Nay, if she can love an old man so—well— 

The Waiting Maid places the Justice , 
where he can overhear a sham discourse of 
the Lady with a pretended Brother. 

Brother. What is the matter, Sister ? you do not 
use to be so strange to me. 

Lady. I do not indeed; but now methinks I cannot 
conceal any thing; yet I could wish you could now 
guess my thoughts, and look into my mind; and see 
what strange passions have ruled there of late, without 
forcing me to strain my modesty. 

Broth. What, are yon in love with anybody ? Come, 
let me know the party; a brother’s advice may do you 
no harm. 

Sist. Did you not see an ancient geutleman with me, 
when you came in ? 

Broth. What, is it any son or kinsman of his ? 

Sist. No, no. (She weeps.) 

Broth. Who then ? 

Sist. I have told you— 

Broth. What, that feeble and decrepit piece of age-- 

Sist. Nay, brother— 

Broth. That sad effect of some threescore years and 
ten—that antic relique of the last century— 

Sist. Alas, dear brother, it is but too true. 

Broth. It is impossible. 

Sist. One would think so indeed. 

Broth. I grant, you may bear a reverence and re¬ 
gard, as to your father’s ashes, or your grandsire’s tomb. 

Sist. Alas, brother, you know 1 never did affect 
those vain though pleasing braveries of youth, but still 
have set my mind on the more noble part of man, 
which age doth more refine and elaborate, than it doth 
depress and sink this same contemptible clod. 

Justice. 1 see, she loves me. 


[From “ Hey for Honesty,” a Comedy, 
^y T. Randolph, 1651.] 

To Plutus. 

Did not Will Sommers break his wind for thee ? 

And Shakespeare therefore writ his comedy ? 

All things acknowledge thy vast power divine. 

Great God of Money, whose most powerful shine 
Gives motion, life ; day rises from thy sight. 

Thy setting though at noon makes pitchy night. 

Sole catholic cause of what we feel and see, 

All in this all are but the effects of thee. 

Riches above Poverty ; a syllogism. 

— Mv major. That which is most noble, is moat 
honorable. But Poverty is more noble. My minor I 
prove thus. Whose houses are most ancient, those are 
most noble. But Poverty’s houses are most ancient; 
fcr some of them are so old, like Vicarage bouses, they 
are every hour in danger of falling. 


Stationer s Preface before the Play. 

Reader, this is a pleasant Comedy, though some 
may judge it satirical, ’tis the more like Aristophanes, 
the father; besides, if it be biting, ’tis a biting age we 
live in ; then biting for biting. Again, Tom Randal, 
the adopted son of Ben Jonsori, being the Translator 
hereof, followed his father’s steps. They both of them 
loved Sack, and harmless mirth, and here they shew 
it; and I, that know myself, am not averse from it 
neither. This I thought good to acquaint thee with 
Farewell. Thine, F. J. 

[From the “ Example,” aTragi-Comedy, 
by Jas. Shirley, 1638.] 

The humour of a wary Knight , who sleeps 
all day , and wakes all night, for security .— 
He calls up his Household at midnight. 

Plot. Dormant, why Dormant, thou eternal sleeper 
Who would be troubled with these lethargies 
About him ? are you come, dreamer ? 

Dormant (entering.) Would I were so happy. 
There’s less noise in a steeple upon a Coronation-day. 

O sleep, sleep, tho’ it were a dead one, would be com¬ 
fortable. Your Worship might be pleased to let my 
fellow Old-rat watch as well as I. 

Plot. Old-rat! that fellow is a drone. 

Dorm. He has slept this half hour on the iron chest. 
Would I were in my grave to take a nap ; death would 
do me a courtesy; I should be at rest, and hear no 
noise of “ Dormant.” 

Plot. Hah! what’s the matter? 

Dorm. Nothing but a yawn, Sir, I do all I can to 
keep myself waking. 

Plot. ’Tis done considerately This heavy dulness 
Is the disease of souls. Sleep in the night! 

Dorm. Shall I wake my fellow Old-rat ? he is re¬ 
freshed. 

Plot. Do ; but return you with him ; I have business , 
with both— 

Dorm. To hear us join in opinion of what’s a clock ! 
They talk of Endymion : now could I sleep three lives. 

(exit.) 

Plot. When other men measure the hours with sleep, ' 
Careless of where they are and whom they trust, 
Exposing their condition to danger 
Of plots, I wake and wisely think prevention. 

Night was not made to snore in ; but so calm, 

For our imaginations to be stirring 

About the world ; this subtle world, this world 

Of plots and close conspiracy. There is 

No faith in man nor woman. Where’s this Dormant ? 

Dorm, (re-entering with Old-rat.) Here is the sleepy 
vermin. 

Old. It has been dsy this two hours. 

Plot. Then ’tis time for me to go to bed. 

Dorm , Would my hour were once come ! 

Plot. Keep out daylight, and set up a fresh taper. 

Dorm. By that time we have dined, he will nave 
slept out his first sleep. 

Old. And after supper call for his breakfast. 

Plot. You are sure *tis morning ? 

Dorm. As sure as I am sleepy. 

C L. 


Oil 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Tabic Book. 

IMPERIAL FATE. 

— i n -Let us sit upon the ground, 

And tell sad stories of the death of Kings 
How some have been depos’d, some slain in war ; 
Some haunted by the ghoSts they have depos'd ; 
Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping killed ; 
All murder’d :—For within the hollow crown, 

That rounds the mortal temples of a king, 

Keeps Death his court— 

Richard II. 

Does any man envy the situation of 
monarchs ? Let him peruse the following 
statement, which particularizes the deaths 
of the forty-seven Roman emperors, from 
Julius Csesar to Constantine the Great; 
only thirteen of whom encountered “ the 
last enemy ” in the ordinary course of na¬ 
ture :— 

a. c. 

42. Julius Ccesar was murdered by Brutus 
and others in the senate-house. 

A. D. 

15. Augustus Ca:sar died a natural 
death. 

39. Tiberius was smothered with pillows, 
at the instigation of Macro, the 
friend of Caligula. 

42. Caligula was stabbed by Cherea and 
other conspirators, when retiring 
from the celebration of the Pala¬ 
tine games. 

55. Claudius was poisoned by the artifice 
of his wife Aggrippina. 

69. Nero in the midst of a general revolt 
was condemned to death by the 
senate. Upon hearing of which 
he killed himself with a dagger. 

69. Sergius Galba conspired against by 

Otho, by whose partisans he was 
beheaded. 

70. Otho destroyed himself, to avoid fur¬ 

ther contest with his competitor 
Vitellius. 

70. Vitellius was massacred by the popu¬ 
lace, who threw his dead body 
into the Tiber. 

79. Vespasian died a natural death. 

81. Titus. It is suspected that his death 
was hastened by his brother Do- 
mitian. 

96. Domitian was murdered by Stephanus 
and other conspirators. 


98. Nerva died a natural death. 

117. Trajan ditto . 

138. Adrian ditto. 

161. Titus Antoninus, called Antoninui 
Pius, ditto. 

180. Marcus Aurelius, called Antoninus 
the Philosopher, ditto. 

192. Commodus was strangled by Narcissus 
and other conspirators. 

192. Pertinax was murdered by the sol¬ 
diers. 

195. Didius Julian was beheaded by the 
soldiers. 

211. Septimus Severus died a natural 
death. 

217. Caracalla and Geta, joint emperors. 

Geta was killed by his brother 
Caracalla, who was afterwards 
killed by Martial. 

218. Opillius Macrinus was killed by the 

partisans of Ileliogabalus. 

222. Heliogabalus was murdered by the 
soldiers, who threw his dead body 
into the Tiber. 

235. Alexander was beheaded by the sol¬ 
diers. 

238. Maximin was murdered by his own 
guards. 

238. Maximus and Balbiniis , joint empe 
rors, were both murdered by the 
praetorian guards. 

243. Gordian was murdered by order of 
Phi'ip, whom he had associated 
with him in the command of the 
empire. 

248. Philip was murdered by the soldiers. 

251. Decius destroyed himself, after having 
been defeated by the Goths. 

253. Gallus was slain in battle, with his 
competitor Emilianus. 

259. Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapo*, 
king of Persia, who caused him 
to be cruelly murdered. 

268. Galienus was slain by his own sol¬ 
diers. 

270. Claudius died a natural death. 

275. Aurelian was murdered by Menesthus 
and other conspirators. 

275. Tacitus died a natural death. 

292 Probus was murdered by his sc’iiers 


C12 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


284. Carus and his sons, Carinus and 
Numerical , joint emperors. The 
father was struck dead by light¬ 
ning, and both his sons were 
murdered. 


304. Dioclesian and Maximian , joint em¬ 
perors. Dioclesian resigned the 
empire, and died either by poison 
or madness. Maximian also re¬ 
signed, but was afterwards con¬ 
demned to death by Constantine. 


j 306. 

| 31 1. 


Constantius and 
GaleJrius, 


{ joint emperors, 
both died a na¬ 
tural death. 


343. Constantine the Great died a na 
tural death. 


Where did these events occur? Among 
the savage tribes of interior Africa, or the 
rude barbarians of modern Europe? No: 
but in Rome — imperial Rome — in her 
“ high and palmy state/' when she was 
mistress of the world, and held within her 
dominion all the science and literature of 
which the earth conld boast. Surely we 
may with reason doubt, whether the moral 
improvement of mankind invariably keeps 
pace with their intellectual advancement. 


O. Z. 


ILL-FATED ROYAL FAMILIES. 

The Lf ne of Charlemagne. 

The successors of Charlemagne in his 
French dominions, were examples of a 
melancholy destiny. 

His son, Louis le Debonnaire, died for 
want of food, in consequence of a supersti¬ 
tious panic. 

His successor, Charles the Bald, was 
poisoned by his physician. 

The son of Charles, Louis the Stutterer, 
fell also by poison. 

Charles, king of Aquitaine, brother to 
Louis, was fatally wounded in the head by 
a lord, named Albuin, whom he was en¬ 
deavouring, by way of frolic, to terrify, in 
disguise. 

Louis III., successor to Louis the Stut¬ 
terer, riding through the streets of Tours, 
pursued the handsome daughter of a citizen 
named Germond, till the terrified girl took 
refuge in a house ; and the king, thinking 
more of her charms than of the size of the 
gateway, attempting to force his horse after 
her, broke his back, and died. 


Ilis successor, Cailoman, fell by an ill 
directed spear, thrown, by his own servant, 
at a wild boar. 

Charles the Fat perished of want, grief, 
and poison, all together. 

His successor, Charles the Simple, died 
in prison of penury and despair. 

Louis the Stranger, who succeeded him, 
was bruised to death as he was hunting. 

Lotharius and Louis V., the two last 
kings of the race of Charlemagne, were 
both poisoned by their wives. 

After a revolution of two hundred and 
thirty years, there remained of the whole 
line of Charlemagne, only Charles, duke 
of Lorrain; and he, after ineffectually 
struggling in defence of his rights against 
Hugh Capet, sunk beneath the fortune of 
his antagonist, and ended his life and race 
in solitary confinement. 

The French historians observe, that the 
epithets given to the princes of the line of 
Charlemagne, were, almost all, expressive 
of the contemptuous light in which that 
family was held by the people over whom 
it reigned. 

The Stuarts. 

The royal line of Stuart was as steadily 
unfortunate as any ever recorded in history. 
Their misfortunes continued with unabated 
succession, during three hundied and ninety 
years. 

Robert III. broke his heart, because his 
eldest son Robert was starved to death, 
and his youngest, James, was made a cap¬ 
tive. 

James I., after having beheaded three of 
his nearest kinded, was assassinated by his 
own uncle, who was tortured to death 
for it. 

James II. was slain by the bursting of a 
piece of ordnance. 

James III., when flying from the field 
of battle, was thrown from his horse, and 
murdered in a cottage, into which he had 
been carried for assistance. 

Janies IV. fell in Flodden field. 

James V. died of grief for the wilful ruin 
of his army at Solway Moss. 

Henry Stuart, lord Darnley, was as¬ 
sassinated, and then blown up in his pa¬ 
lace 

Mary Stuart was beheaded in England, 

James I. (and VI. of Scotland) died, 
not without suspicion of being poisoned 
by lord Buckingham. 

Charles 1. was beheaded at Whitehall. 

Charles II. was exiled for many years; 
and when he ascended the throne becarc 
























TABLE BOOK. 


in slave to his pleasures: he lived a sen¬ 
sualist, and died miserably. 

James II. abdicated the crown, and died 
in banishment. 

Anne, after a reign, which though glo¬ 
rious, was rendered unhappy by party dis¬ 
putes, died of a broken heart, occasioned 
by the quarrels of her favoured servants. 

The posterity of James II. remain pro¬ 
scribed and exiled. 


(Original lJortn>. 

For the Table Booh. 

TALES OF TINMOUTHE PRIORIE. 
No. I. 

THE MAIDEN OF THE SEA. 

“ Al loaner Mynstralcye, 

“ That any man kan specifye, 

* * * * 

“ And many unkouth notys new, 

“ Offe swicke folke als lovid trewe.” 

John Lidgate 

O loud howls the wind o’er the blue, blue deep. 

And loud on the shore the dashing waves sweep, 

And merk is the night by land and by sea, 

And woe to the stranger that’s out on the lea. 

Closed fast is the gate of the priory hall,* 

Unscathed stand the towers of the castle* so tall. 
High flare the fl ames on the hearth-stane so wide, 

But woe to the stranger that crosses the tide. 

Hark! hark ! at the portal who’s voice is so bold— 

11 cannot be open’d for silver or gold— 

The foeman is near with hi6 harrying brand. 

And brent are the homes of Northumberland. 

I’m no foeman, no Scot, in sooth now to say, 

But a minstral who weareth the peaceful lay ; 
W'ynkeh de Mowbray the Prior doth know, 

Then open the gate, for the north winds blow. 

Who hath not heard De Mowbray’s song ? 

The softest harp in the minstrel throng ; 

0 many a true love tale can he sing. 

And touch the heart with his melting string. 

Now while the welkin with tempest raves, 

A nd the angry ocean maddens his waves, 

A.round the hearth-stane we’ll listen to thee, 

And beguile the long night with minstralcye. 


* Tynemouth castle and priory, which stand together 
on a bleak promontory. 


O BAveet and wild is the harper’s strain. 

As its magic steals o’er the raptur’d braia. 

And hush’d is the crowd of hearers all. 

As thronged they sit in the priory hall. 

“ 0 what is sweeter and softer than thou 
“ Heather-bell on the mountain brow ? 

“ And what is more pure than the sparkling dew 
“ That kisses that heather-bell so blue ? 

“ Yes ! far far sweeter and purer is she, 

“ The dark-eyed Maiden of the Sea. 

“ What is more sweet in the leafy grove 
“ Than the nightingale’s plaintive song of love ? 

“ And what is more gay than the lark of spring, 
“ As he carrols lightly on heaven-bent wing? 

“ O yes, more sweet and more gay is she, 

“ The dark-eyed Maiden of the Sea. 

“ Her raven-tresses in ringlets flow, 

“ Her step is more light than the forest doe, 

“ Her dark eyes shine ’neath their silken lash. 

“ Like the bright but lambent light’ning flash 
“ Of a summer eve, as noiseless it plays 
“ ’Midst a million stars of yet softer rays. 

“ The beauteous Eltha’s evening song 
“Is wafted o’er the swelling wave, 

“ And it catches the ear, as it steals along, 

“ Of wondering seamen, while billows lave 
“ In gentle murmurs his vessel’s prow, 

M As he voyages to where the cedars grow. 

“ A shallop is riding upon the sea, 

“ With her broad sail furl’d to the ma6t; 

“ A pennon brave floats fair and free 
“ On the breeze, as it whispers past: 

“ And who is that stranger of lofty mien 
“ Who is rock’d on the salt, salt tide ? 

“-He is from a foreign land I ween, 

• “ A stranger of meikle pride. 

“ He has heard the beauteous Eltha’s notes 
“ Borne far on the eventide breeze, 

“ Like the eastern perfume that distant floats 
“ O’er the silver surfac’d seas. 

“ The stranger hath seen dark Eltha’s eye, 

“ As it glanc’d o’er the wave so green ; 

“ And mark’d her tresses of raven-dye, 

“ (More beauteous than golden sheen,) 

“ Interwoven with sea-flowers of whiten’d hue, 

“ Sueh floAvers as never in garden grew, 

“ But pluck’d from the caverns of ocean deep 
u By the last stormy tvaves’ fast rushing sweep, 

“ And left on the strand as a tribute to thee, 

“ Thou dark-eyed Maiden of the Sea. 

“ The stranger lov’d dark Eltha’s lay, 

“ And he lov’d her bright, bright eye; 

“ And he sued for the love of that maiden gay, 

“ As she wander’d the ocean nigly 

“ He gain’d her love, for his form had giaoe, 

“ And stately was his stride ; 


014 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


His gentle^e show’d Kim of noble race, 

“ Tho’ roaming on billows wide :— 

" But fair skims the breeze o’er the placid sea, 

“ And the stranger must hie to a far countrie. 

Dark Eltha still sings but her song is slow, 

* And the west wind catches its mournful 
“ The mariners wonder the changed lay, 

“ As their slothful barks calm lingering stay : 

The songstress* cheek is wan and pale, 

“ And her tresses neglected float on the gale ; 

“ The sea flower is thrown on its rocky bed, 

“ The once gay Eltha’s peace is fled, 

“ The eye of the Maiden is dark and bright, 

“ But it rivals no more the diamond’s light. 

“ Now many a day thou hast gaz’d o’er the sea 
“ For the bark of thy lover in vain, 

’* And many a storm thou hast shudder’d to see 
“ Spread its wings o’er the anger’d main : 

—“ Is he faithless the stranger ?—forgetful of thee ? 

“ Thou beauteous Maiden of the Sea. 

“ On many a whiten’d sail hast thou gaz’d, 

“ Till the lazy breeze bore it on. 

But they pass, and thy weary eyes are glaz’d, 

“ As they trace the bark just gone: 

, None have the pennon, so free and fair, 

“ As the stranger ship which once tarried there 

On yon tall cliff to whose broken base 

* Loud surging waves for ever race, 

“ A form is bent o’er the fearful height, 

“ So eager, that a feather’s weight 
•* Would cast its poised balance o’er, 

Ahd leave a mangled corse on the shore. 

“ —’Tis Eltha’s form, that with eager glance, 

“ Scans the wide world of Waves, as they dance, 

“ Uprais’d by the sigh of the east wind chill, 

“ Which wafts to the ear the scream so shrill 
“ Of the whirling sea mews, as landward they fly, 

“ —To seamen a mark that the storm is nigh. 

“ And what is yon distant speck on the sea, 

“ That seems but a floating beam, 

“ Save that a pennon fair and fiee 
“ Waves in the sun’s bright, gleam ? 

“ A bark is driven with rapid sail, 

“ Its pennon far spread on the moaning gale, 

“ A foamy track at its angry keel, 

“ And the billows around it maddening reel; 

“ The white fring’d surges dash over its prow 
“ As its masts to the pressing canvass bow— 

*• But O with rapid, fiend-like, haste, 

‘ The breeze rolls o’er the watery waste, 

•* And louder is heard the deaf’ning roar 
• Of the waves dashing fierce on the trembling shore, 
Ten thousand eddying billows recede, 

And return again with an arrow’s speed, 

- Till the flaky foam on the wind is spread, 

Far, far above their ocean bed. 

And boom o’er the cliff where Eltha's form 
Is seen to await the deadly storm. 


“ Keep to the wind with a tnughten’d sheet,* 

*• Thou bark from a stranger land, 

" No daring northern pilot would meet 
“ A storm like this near the straud ; 

** No kindly haven of shelter is here, 

“ Then whilst thou may,—to seaward steer ; 

•* But thou com’st, with a wide and flowing sail, 
To a rock bound coast in an eastern gale, 

11 Thou wilt see the danger around thee at last, 

" When the hour of safety for ever is past; 

“ -And O it is past, thou art now embay’d, 

“ And around thee gathers the evening shade, 

“ T\y last sun has set in a red, red sky, 

“ Thy last Vesper hymn is the fearful cry 
“ Of the ominous sea bird shrieking on high. 

“ The night and the storm have hidden from view 
“ The fated ship and her gallant crew, 

“ And the last sight seen on the foamy sea 
" Was a pennon broad streaming fair and free. 


•* The morrow is come and the storrti is o’er, 

“ And the billows more slowly dash, 

“ But shatter’d timbers are spread on the shore 
44 Beyond the ebb-waves’ wash : 

“ Still are the hearts of the gallant band 
“ Which erst did beat so true ; 

“ They’ll never more see their fatherland, 

“ Where their playful childhood grew. 

“ And on a shelving rock is seen, 

“ Enwrapp’d in a shroud of sea-weed green, 

A noble corse, whose marble brow 
“ Is cluster’d with locks of auburn hue; 

And even in death, his manly form 
•• Seems to mock the rage of the northern storm. 

“In his hand is clasp’d a jewel rare 
“ Enshrining a lock of black, black hair : 

44 And on his cold breast, near his heart, is display’d 
44 A golden gift of the dark-ey’d maid. 

44 The lovely Eltha’s smiles are fled, 

44 And she wildly looks o’er the ocean-bed 
44 With sunken glance and a pale, pale cheek, 

44 And her once bounding step is slow and weak ; 

44 On the \^ave she launches the blue sea-shell 
44 Which swims for a momefit then sinks in the 6weil 
44 And wilder’d she bends o’er the chrystal billow 
44 As it eddying whirls to its coral pillow : 

44 She fancys a fai*ry bark is sped 

44 To bring her cold love from the land of the dead ; 

“ But no tears on her sunken eye-lids quiver, 

44 Her reason is fled for ever 1—for ever!—” 

De Mowbray’s soft harp ceas’d the mournful strain 
But awaken’d the broken notes once again, 

Like the throb of the heart strings when dying they 
sever. 

They stop—thrill—stop—and are silent for ever. 

Alpha. 

September, 185)7. 

• Keep to the wind. &c. This line is a technics 
description of the sails of a vessel when contendia, 
against the wind.— 


G15 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

MY POCKET-BOOK. 

I crave good Mr. Du B-’s pardon 

for my “ flat burglary ” with regard to the 
title of the present little paper. It is very 
far from my intention to endeavour in any 
way to place myself in competition with 
that great satirical genius, of whose very 
superior talents and brilliant wit I am 
pleased to be thus afforded an opportunity 
of avowing myself an ardent admirer: but 
as this title suits my purpose, I must en¬ 
treat his permission to appropriate it, and 
merely remind h*im of the poet Puff’s ex¬ 
cuse on a somewhat similar occasion- 

“ All that can be said is—that two people 
happened to hit upon the same thought, 

(title,) and Shakspeare (Du B-) made 

use of it first, that is all.” 

Pocket-books (as implied by their name) 
were originally intended as portable recep¬ 
tacles for our different memoranda, remarks 
and communications. But now it is no 
longer honoured by an immediate attend¬ 
ance on our person; its station at present 
is confined to the bureau, desk, or private 
drawer. What man who can boast of being 
cl'uti assez bon air would consent to injure 
his exquisite adonisation of coat, by wear¬ 
ing a pocket-book in his side-breast pocket, 
and thus ungratefully frustrate all poor 
Mr. Stultz’s efforts at an exact and perfect 
fit. The ladies, for some reason, concern¬ 
ing which I do not so much as venture 
even a surmise, (for Heaven forefend that 
1 should attempt to dive into these sacred 
mysteries, or, as “ Uncle Selby” would call 
them, femalities,) have entirely given up 
the use ol pockets, therefore I would ad¬ 
vise that memorandum-books destined for 
the use of the fair sex should in future be 
styled— reticule- books. 

Old pocket-books are like some old la¬ 
dies’ chests of drawers—delightful things 
to rummage and recur to. Looking over 
an old pocket-book is like revisiting scenes 
of past happiness after a lapse of years. 
Recollections and associations of both a 
painful and pleasurable nature are vividly 
recalled, or forcibly present themselves to 
our mind. Treasured letters, private re¬ 
marks, favourite quotations, dates of days 
spent in peculiar enjoyment, all these meet 
our eye, and rise up like the shadows of 
those past realities connected with them, 
whose memory they are intended to per¬ 
petuate to us. 

-Pocket-books are indexes to their 

owner’s mind — were an allowable ac¬ 


tion to inspect another s pocket-book, 
we might form a tolerably shrewd guess at 
the character and disposition of its pos¬ 
sessor. On picking up a lost pocket-book 
by chance in the streets, one can be at no 
loss to divine the quality of its former pro¬ 
prietor. A large rusty black leather pocket- 
book, looking more like a portmanteau than 
a memorandum book, stuffed with papers 
half printed, half written, blank stamp re¬ 
ceipts, churchwarden’s orders and direc¬ 
tions, long lists of parishioners, with a 
small ink-horn in one corner—denotes the 
property of a tax-gatherer. The servant- 
maid’s is an Old greasy red morocco one— 
in the blank leaf is written in straggling 
characters reaching from the top of one 
side to the bottom of the other— 

Sarah Price her book, 

God give her grace therein to look. 

In the part designated “ cash account” are 
various items, for the most part concerning 
tea, sugar, and ribbon. Among the me¬ 
moranda are the following :—“ Spent last 
Easter Monday was a twel'month with Tom 
Hadley, at Greenwich—in great hopes 1 
shall get leave to go again this year. My 
next wages comes due 4th August, 13—. 
Jane Thompson says she pays only 4s. for 
the best sowtchong tea; and I pay 4s. 6d.— 
to speak to Mr. Ilford the grocer about it.” 
—The pockets are crammed full of songs 
and ballads, of which her favourites are 
“ Black eyed Susan,” “ Auld Robin Gray,” 
and “ Lord William and Fair Margaret.” 
Perhaps a letter from Tom Hadley, an old 
silver coin, his gift, and a lucky penny 
with a hole in it.—The young lady’s is 
elegantly bound in red and gilt. In the 
blank leaf is written in a little niminy 
piminy hand-writing — “ To my sweet 
friend Ellen Woodmere, from her affection¬ 
ate Maria Tillotson.” Quotations from 
Pope, Young, Thomson, Lord Byron, and 
Tom Moore, occupy the blank pages— 
“Memoranda. June 16th saw Mrs. Sid- 
dons riding in her chariot in Hyde Park. 
Mem. Wonder why pa’ won’t let me read 
dear lord Byron’s new work the ‘ Don 
Juan ’—there must be something odd in it. 
Mem. To remember and ask Maria what 
she paid a yard for that beautiful lace round 
her collar. Mem. What a horrid wretch 
that Robespierre must have been ! I’m glad 
he was killed himself at last. Mem. To 
tell pa’ that it is quite impossible for me to 
go to the ball next Tuesday without a new 
lutstring dress. Mem. How I wish I had 
been Joan of Arc!—But I would not have 
put on the men’s clothes again in prison— 











---- - -—- ■ ■ . .-.. 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


1 wonder why she did so—How silly !”— 
In the pockets are some of her dear Ma¬ 
ria’s letters—a loose leaf torn out of 3 ir 
Charles GraridiSOn describing Miss Harriet 
Byron’s dress at the masquerade — and 
Several Copies of verses and sonnets, the 
productions of some of her former school¬ 
fellows. 

The old bachelor’s pocket-book is of 
russia leather, glossy with use, yet still re¬ 
taining its grateful and long-enduring odour. 
The memoranda chiefly consist of the dates 
of those days on which he had seen or 
spoken to remarkable or celebrated people. 
Opposite the prognostics concerning wea¬ 
ther, which he has since found incorrect, are 
to be seen the words: “ No such thing”— 
“ Pshaw, the fellow talks about what he 
does not understand”—“ Absurd folly,” 8tc. 
—In the pockets are sundry square scraps 
of paper cut out at different periods from 
old newspapers—a copy of “ The Means 
to be used for the recovery of persons ap- 
patently drowned”—a watch-paper cut out 
for him by his little grand-niece—and, 
(wrapped up in several folds of silver pa¬ 
per,) a long ringlet of auburn hair with its 
wavy drop, and springy relapse as you hold 
it at full-length between your finger and 
thumb. Among the leaves is a small sprig 
of jasmin which she had worn in her bosom 
a whole evening at a party, and which he 
had gently possessed himself of, on taking 
leave of her for the night.- 

M. II. 


WOMEN. 

That venerable people—who were the 
ancients to those whom we call the an¬ 
cients—the wise Egyptians, in the disposi¬ 
tion which they allotted to the genders of 
their nouns, paid a singular and delicate 
compliment to the fair sex. In the four 
elements, beginning with water, they ap¬ 
pointed the ocean, as a rough boisterous 
existence, to the male sex; but streams 
md fountains thej left to the more gentle 
females. As to earth, they made rocks 
and stones male; but arable and meadow 
lands female. Air they divided thus : to 
ihe masculine gender, rough winds and 
hurricanes of every kind ; to the female, 
the sky and the zephyrs. Fire, when of a 
consuming nature, they made male, but 
irtificial and harmless flames they rendered 
• eminine 


Dtfirobrrics 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 
No. IX. 


Co tf)e Scatter. 

In the present volume has bean commenced, arid will 
be concluded, a series of Articles under this title, 
which to some readers may not have been suffi¬ 
ciently attractive. It is therefore now re-stated, 
that they present very curious particulars concern¬ 
ing the extent to which the ancients were ac¬ 
quainted with several popular systems and theo¬ 
ries, usually supposed to have originated in modern 
times. 

Sir Isaac Newton’s Theory of Colours appears, by 
the succeeding paper, to have been imagined above 
two thousand years ago. The History of Ancient 
Philosophy is pregnant with similar instances of 
discriminatiori. It is hoped that this may justiiy 
the present attempt to familiarize the reader with 
the knowledge of the Ancients in various branches 
of Natural Philosophy, and the Elements of the 
Human Mind. Succeeding papers will be found 
to relate to their acquaintance with the Motion of 
the Earth—the Antipodes—Planetary Revolutions 
—Comets—the Moon—Air—Air-guns—Thunder— 
Earthquakes—the Magnet—the Tides—the Circu¬ 
lation of the Blood—Chirurgery—Chemistry— 
Malleability of Glass—Painting on Glass—Gun¬ 
powder—the Sexes of Plants—the Pendulum- 
Light—Perspective—the Quadrature of the Circle 
— Burning Glasses—the Precession of the Equi¬ 
noxes—Mechanics — Architecture — Sculpture — 
Painting—Music, &c. 


Sir Isaac Nf.wton’s Theory or Colours 

INDICATED BY PYTHAGORAS AND PLATO. 

That wonderful theory, whereby is in¬ 
vestigated and distinguished from one ano¬ 
ther the variety of cokmrs that constitute 
the uniform appearance, called light, esta¬ 
blishes the glory of sir Isaac Newton, and 
is an eternal monument of his extraordinary 
sagacity. Its discovery was reserved foi 
an age when philosophy had arrived at its 
fullest maturity; and yet it is to be found 
in the writings of some of the most eminent 
men of ancient times. 

Pythagoras, and his disciples after him, 
entertained sufficiently just conceptions ot 
the formation of Colours. They taught that 
“ they resulted solely from the different 
modification of reflected light;” or, as a 
modern author, in explaining the sent* 
ments of the Pythagoreans, expresses if 


617 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


• 

*•' light reflecting itself with more or less 
vivacity, forms by that means our different 
sensations of colour.” The same philoso¬ 
phers, “ in assigning the reason of the dif¬ 
ference of colours, ascribe it to a mixture 
of the elements of light; and divesting the 
atoms, or small particles of light, of all 
manner of colour, impute every sensation 
of that kind to the motions excited in our 
organs of sight.” 

The disciples of Plato contributed not a 
little to the advancement of optics, by the 
important discovery they made, that light 
emits itself in straight lines, and that the 
angle of incidence is always equal to the 
angle of reflection. 

Plato terms colours “ the effect of light 
transmitted from bodies, the small particles 
of which were adapted to the organ of sight.” 
This seems precisely what sir Isaac Newton 
teaches in his u Optics,” viz. that “ the 
different sensations of each particular colour 
are excited in us by the difference of size 
in those small particles of light which form 
the several rays; those small particles occa¬ 
sioning different images of colour, as the 
vibration is more or less lively, with which 
they strike our sense.” But the ancient 
philosopher went further. He entered 
into a detail of the composition of colours; 
and inquired into “ the visible effects that 
must arise from a mixture of the different 
rays of which light itself is composed.” He 
advances, however, that “ it is not in the 
power of man exactly to determine what 
the proportion of this mixture should be in 
certain colours.” This sufficiently shows, 
that he had an idea of this theory, though 
he judged it almost impossible to unfold it. 
He says, that “ should any one arrive at 
the knowledge of this proportion, he ought 
not to hazard the discovery of it, since it 
would be impossible to demonstrate it by 
clear and convincing proofsand yet he 
thought “ certain rules might be laid down 
respecting this subject, if in following and 
imitating nature we could arrive at the art 
of forming a diversity of colours, by the 
combined intermixture of others.” 

It is to be remarked, that Plato adds 
what may be regarded as constituting the 
noblest tribute that can be offered in praise 
of sir Isaac Newton; “ Yea, should ever 
any one,” exclaims that fine genius of an¬ 
tiquity, “ attempt by curious research to 
account for this admirable mechanism, he 
will, in doing so, but manifest how entirely 
ignorant he is of the difference between 
divine and human power. It is true, that 
God can intermingle those things one with 
| another, and then sever them at his plea¬ 

-■■•■i:..-.-. . 


sure, because he is, at the same time, all¬ 
knowing and all-powerful; but there is no 
man now exists, nor ever will perhaps, who 
shall ever be able to accomplish things so 
very difficult.” 

What an eulogiutn is this from the pen of 
Plato ! How glorious is he who has suc¬ 
cessfully accomplished what appeared im¬ 
practicable to the prince of ancient philoso¬ 
phers ! Yet what elevation of genius, what 
piercing penetration into the most intimate 
secrets of nature, displays itself in these 
passages concerning the nature and theorj 
of colours, at a time when Greek philosophy 
was in its infancy ! 


Light —Aristotle and Descartes. 

Although the system of Descartes, re¬ 
specting the propagation of light in an 
instant, has been discarded since Cassini 
discovered that its motion is progressive; 
yet it may not be amiss to show from 
whence he obtained the idea. His opinion 
was, that light is the mere action of a subtile 
matter upon the organs of sight. This 
subtile matter he supposes to fill all that 
space which lies between the sun and us ; 
and that the particle of it, which is next to 
the sun, receiving thence an impulse, in¬ 
stantaneously communicates it to all the 
rest, between the sun and the organ of 
sight. To evidence this, Descartes intro¬ 
duces the comparison of a stick; which, 
by reason of the continuity of its parts, 
cannot in any degree be moved lengthways 
at one end, without instantaneously being 
put into the same degree of motion at the 
other end. Whoever will be at the pains 
to read, attentively, what Aristotle hath 
written concerning light, will perceive that 
he defines it to be the action of a subtile, 
pure, and homogeneous matter. Philopo- 
nus, explaining the manner in which this 
action was performed, makes use of the 
instance of a long string, which being pulled 
at one end, will instantaneously be moved 
at the other : he resembles the sun, to the 
man who quills the string; the subtile mat¬ 
ter, to the string itself; and the instanta¬ 
neous action of the one, to the movement 
of the other. Simplicius, in his commen¬ 
tary upon this passage of Aristotle, ex¬ 
pressly employs the motion of a stick, to 
intimate how light, acted upon by the sun, 
may instantaneously impress the organs of 
sight. This comparison of a stick seems 
to have been made use of first, by Chrysip- 
pus—lastly, by Descartes. 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Bur&atm'ana. 

For the Table Book. 

WILLEY WALKER AND JOHN 
BOLTON. 

Willey Walker, a well-known Durham 
character, who has discovered a new solar 
system different from all others, is a beads¬ 
man of the cathedral; or, as the impudent 
boys call a person of his rank, from the 
dress he wears, “ a blue mouse.” It is 
Willey’s business to toll the curfew : but 
to our story. In Durham there are two 
clocks, which, if I may so express myself, 
are both ojjicial ones ; viz. the cathedral 
clock, and the gaol or county clock. The 
admirers of each are about equal: some of 
the inhabitants regulating their movements 
by one, and some by the other. Three or 
four years ago it happened, during the 
middle of the winter, that the two clocks 
varied considerably; there was only three 
quarteis of an hour’s difference between 
them. The citizens cared very little 
about this slight discrepancy, but it was 
not at all relished by the guard of the 
London and Edinburgh mail, who spoke 
on the subject to the late John Bolton, 
the regulator of the county clock. John 
immediately posted off to the cathedral, 
where he met Willey VValker, and the fol¬ 
lowing dialogue is said to have passed be¬ 
tween them. 

Bolton. Willey, why doa’nt ye keep t’ 
abba clock reet—there’s a bit difference 
between it and mine? 

Willey. Why doa’nt ye keep yours so— 
it never gans reet ? 

Bolton. Mine’s set by the sun, Willey 1 
(Bolton was an astronomer.) 

Willey. By the sun ! Whew! whew ! 
whew ! Why, are ye turned fide? Nebody 
would think ye out else! and ye pretend 
to be an astronomer, and set clocks by’t 
sun in this windy weather!—thei's ne de¬ 
pending on it: the winds, man, blaw sa, 
they whisk the sun about like a whirligig! 

Bolton, petrified by the outpouring of 
Willey’s astronomical knowledge, made no 
answer. 

Bolton was a very eccentric character, 
and a great natural genius: from a very 
obscure origin he rose to considerable pro¬ 
vincial celebrity. Such was his contempt 
of London artists, that he described himself 
on his sign as being “ from Chester-le- 
Street, not London.” He was an indefati¬ 
gable collector of curiosities; and had a 


valuable museum, which most strangers 
visited. His advertisements were curious i 
compositions, often in doggerel verse. He 
was a good astronomer and a believer in 
astrology. He is interred in Elvet church¬ 
yard : a plain stone marks the place, with 
the following elegant inscription from the 
classic pen of veterinary doctor Marshall. 

I give it as pointed. 

Ingenious artist! few thy skill surpast 
In works of art. Yet death has beat at last. 

Tho’ conquerd. Yet thy deeds will ever shine, 

1 ime cant destroy a genius large as thine ! 

Bolton built some excellent organs and 
turret clocks. For one of the latter, which he 
made for North Shields, he used to say, he 
was not paid : and the following notice in 
his shop, in large characters, informed his 
customers of the fact — “ North Shields 
clock never paid for!” 

R. I. P. Preb. Butt. 


A SENSUALIST AND HIS CON¬ 
SCIENCE. 

7’he following lines, written in the yeat 
lf>09, are said, in the “ Notes of a Book¬ 
worm,” to have induced Butler to pursue 
their manner in his “ Iludibras.” 

Dialogue. 

Glutton, My belly I do deify. 

Echo. Fie 1 

Gl. Who cnrbs his appetite’s a fool. 

Echo. Ah ! fool! 

Gl. I do not like this abstinence. 

Echo. Hence ! 

Gl. My joy’s a feast, my wish is wine. 

Echo. Swine. 

Gl. We epicures are happy truly. 

Echo. You lie. 

GL May I not, Echo, eat my fill ? 

Echo. Ill. 

Gl. Will it hurt me if I drink too much ? 

Echo. Much. 

Gl. Thou uiock’st me, nymph, I’ll not believe it 
Echo. Believe it. 

Gl. Do’st thou condemn, then, what I do ? 

Echo. I do. 

Gl. Is it that which brings infirmities ? 

Echo. It is. 

Gl. Then, sweetest Temperance, I’ll 1c t e Jive?. 
Echo. I love thee. 

Gl. If all be true which thou dost tell. 

To gluttony I bid farewell. 

Echo. Farewell I 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


PLAYWRIGHT-ING. 

To the Editor . 

Sir,—The following short matter-of-fact 
narrative, if inserted in your widely circu¬ 
lated miscellany, may in some degree tend 
to lessen the number of dramatic aspir¬ 
ants, and afford a little amusement to your 
readers. 

I was, at the age of sixteen, apprenticed 
to a surgeon, and had served but two years 
of my apprenticeship, when I began to 
conceive that I had talents for something 
superior to the profession I had embraced. 
1 imagined that literature was my forte; 
and accordingly I tried my skill in the 
composition of a tale, wherein I was so far 
successful, as to obtain its insertion in a 
“ periodical” of the day. This was suc¬ 
ceeded by others; some of which were 
rejected, and some inserted. In a short 
time, however, I perceived that I had 
gained but little fame, and certainly no 
profit. I therefore determined to attempt 
dramatic writing, by which I imagined 
that I should acquire both fame and for¬ 
tune. Accordingly, after much trouble, I 
concocted a plot, and in three months com¬ 
pleted a farce ! I submitted it to my friends, 
all of whom declared it to be “ an excellent 
thingand that if merit met with its due 
reward, my piece would certainly be 
brought out. Flattered and encouraged by 
their good opinion, I offered it, with con¬ 
fidence of success, to the proprietors of 
Drury-lane theatre. In the space of a 
week, however, my piece was returned, 
with a polite note, informing me, that it 
was u not in any way calculated for repre¬ 
sentation at that theatre.” I concluded 
that it could not have been read; and hav¬ 
ing consoled rqyself with that idea, I trans¬ 
mitted it to the rival theatre. One morn¬ 
ing, after the lapse of a few days, my hopes 
were clouded by a neat parcel, which I 
found to contain my manuscript, with the 
same polite but cutting refusal, added to 
which was an assurance, “ that it had been 
read most attentively.” I inwardly exe¬ 
crated the Covent Garden “ reader” for a 
fool, and determined to persevere. At the 
suggestion of my friends I made numerous 
alterations, and submitted my farce to the 
manager of the Hay market theatre, relying 
upon his liberality; but, after the usual 
delay of a week, it was again returned. 
At the Lyceum it also met with a similar 
( fate. I was much hurt by these rejections, 
yet determined to persevere. The minor 
theatres remained for me, and I applied to 


the manager of one of these establishments, 
who, in the course of time, assured me, 
that my piece should certainly be produced 
I was delighted at the brilliant prospects 
which seemed to open to me, and I fancied 
that I was fast approaching the summit of 
my ambition. Three tedious months en¬ 
sued before I was summoned to attend 
the rehearsal; but I was then much 
pleased at the pains the actors appeared to 
have taken in acquiring their parts. The 
wished-for night arrived. I never dreamed 
of failure; and I invited a few of my select 
friends to witness its first representation— 
it was the last: for, notwithstanding the 
exertions of the performers, and the ap¬ 
plause of my worthy friends, so unanimous 
was the hostility of the audience, that my j 
piece was damned!—damned, too, at a i 
minor theatre ! I attributed its failure en¬ 
tirely to the depraved taste of the audience. 

I was disgusted; and resolved, from that 
time, never more to waste my talents in 
endeavouring to amuse an unappreciating 
and ungrateful public. I have been firm 
to that resolution. I relinquished the 
making up of plays for the more profitable 
occupation of making up prescriptions, and 
ain now living in comfort upon the pro¬ 
duce of my profession. 

Auptor. 


EPIGRAM. 

A few years ago a sign of one of the 
Durham inns was removed, and sent to 
Chester-le-Street, by way of a frolic. It 
was generally supposed that the feat was 
achieved by some of the legal students then 
in that city; and a respectable attorney 
there was so fully persuaded of it, that he 
immediately began to make inquiries cor¬ 
roborative of his suspicions. The circum¬ 
stances drew forth the following epigram 
from our friend T. Q. M., which has never 
appeared in print. 

From one of our inns was a sign taken down, 

And sent by some wags to a neighbouring town. 

To a limb of the law the freak caus’d much vexation, 
And he went through the streets making wild lament¬ 
ation ; 

And breathing revenge on the frolicsome sparks, 

Whc, he had not a doubt, were the “ gentlemer 
clerks.” * 

From the prophets methinks we may inference draw 
To prove ho w perverse was this man of the law. 

For we find it inscrib’d in the pages divine— 

“ A perverse generation looks after a sign /” 

* A favourite expression of the legal gentleman a! 
luded to. 


620 











THE TABLE BOOK 


THE ROMANS. 

The whole early part of the Roman his¬ 
tory is very problematical. It is hardly 
possible to suppose the Romans could have 
made so conspicuous a figure in Italy, and 
not be noticed by Herodotus, who finished 
his history in Magna Grcecia. Neither is 
Rome mentioned by Aristotle, though he 
particularly describes the government of 
Carthage. Livy, a writer by no means 
void of national prejudice, expressly says, 
they had never heard of Alexander; and 
here we surely may say in the words of the 
poet, 

“ Not to know him, argues themselves unknown.” 

Pliny, it is true, quotes a passage of Theo¬ 
phrastus, to show that a certain Greek 
writer, named Clitarchus, mentions an em¬ 
bassy from the Romans to Alexander ; but 
this can never be set against the authority 
of Livy, especially as Quintilian gives no 
very favourable opinion of the veracity of 
the Greek historian in these words,— 
“ Clitarchi, probatur ingenium, fides infa- 
matur.” * 


A LITERARY BLUNDER. 

When the Utopia of sir Thomas More 
was first published, it occasioned a pleasant 
mistake. This political romance represents 
a perfect, but visionary republic, in an 
island supposed to have been newly dis¬ 
covered in America. As this was the age 
of discovery, (says Granger,) the learned 
Budseus, and others, took it for a genuine 
history ; and considered it as highly expe¬ 
dient, that missionaries should be sent 
thither, in order to convert so wise a nation 
to Christianity. 


TREASURE DIGGING. 

A patent passed the great seal m the 
fifteenth year of James I., which is to be 
found in Rymer, “ to allow to Mary Mid- 
dlemore, one of the maydes of honor to 
our deerest consort queen Anne, (of Den- 
nark,) and her deputies, power and autho- 
•ity, to enter into the abbies of Saint Al- 
bans, Glassenbury, Saint Edmundsbury, 
md Ramsay, and into all lands, houses, 
md places, within a mile, belonging to said 
ibbies;” there to dig, and search after 
treasure, supposed to be hidden in such 
olaces. 

* H. J. Pye. 


PERSONAL CHARMS DISCLAIMED 

By a Lady. 

If any human being was free from per¬ 
sonal vanity it must have been the second 
duchess d’Orleans, Charlotte Elizabeth of 
Bavaria. In one of her letters, (dated 9th 
August, 1718,) she says, “ I must certainly 
be monstrously ugly. I never had a good 
feature. My eyes are small, my nose short 
and thick, my lips broad and thin. These 
are not materials to form a beautiful face. 
Then I have flabby, lank cheeks, and long 
features, which suit ill with my low stature. 
My waist and my legs are equally clumsy. 
Undoubtedly I must appear to be an odious 
little wretch; and had I not a tolerably 
good character, no creature could enduer 
me. I am sure a person must be a con¬ 
juror to judge by my eyes that I have a 
grain of wit.’' 


FORCIBLE ABDUCTION. 

The following singular circumstance is 
related by Dr. Whitaker in his History oi 
Craven:— 

Gilbert Plumpton, in the 21 of Henry II., 
committed something like an Irish marriage 
with the heiress of Richard Warelwas, and 
thereby incurred the displeasure of Ranulph 
de Gladville, great justiciary, who meant to 
have married her to a dependant of his 
own. Plumpton was in consequence in¬ 
dicted and convicted of a rape at Worces¬ 
ter; but at the very moment when the rope 
was fixed, and the executioner was drawing 
the culprit up to the gallows, Baldwin, 
bishop of Worcester, running to the place, 
forbade the officer of justice, in the name 
of the Almighty, to proceed: and thus 
saved the criminal’s life. 


POLITENESS. 

A polite behaviour can never be long 
maintained without a real wish to please; 
and such a wish is a proof of good-nature. 
No ill-natured man can be long well-bred. 
No good-natured man, however unpolished 
in his manners, can ever be essentially ill- 
bred. From an absurd prejudice with re¬ 
gard to good-nature, some people affect to 
substitute good temper for it; but no quali¬ 
ties can be more distinct: many good- 
tempered people as well as many fools, 
are very ill-natured; and many men or 
first-rate genius—with which perhaps entire 
good temper is incompatible—are perfectly 
good-natured. 


621 














THE TABLE BOOK!. 


A FRENCH TRIBUTE TO ENGLISH 
INTEGRITY. 

The Viscount de Chateaubriand grate¬ 
fully memorializes his respect for the virtue 
of a distressed family in London by the 
following touching narrative prefixed to 
his Indian tale, entitled “ The Natchez — 

When I quitted England in 1800 to 
return to France, under a fictitious name, 
I durst not encumber myself with too 
much baggage. I left, therefore, most of 
my manuscripts in London. Among these 
manuscripts was that of The Natchez , no 
other part of which I brought to Paris but 
HerJ, Atala, and some passages descriptive 
of America. 

Fourteen years elapsed before the com¬ 
munication with Great Britain was re¬ 
newed. At the first moment of the Re¬ 
storation 1 scarcely thought of my papers; 
and if I had, how was l to find them again f 
They had been left locked up in a trunk 
with an Englishwoman, in whose house 
jl had lodged in London. I had forgot¬ 
ten the name of this woman ; the name of 
the street and the number of the house 
had likewise escaped my memory. 

In consequence of some vague and even 
contradictory information which I trans¬ 
mitted to London, Messrs, de Thuisy took 
the trouble to make inquiries, which they 
prosecuted with a zeal and perseverance 
rarely equalled. With infinite pains they 
at length discovered the house where I 
resided at the west end of the town; but 
my landlady had been dead several years, 
and no one knew what had become of her 
children. Pursuing, however, the clue 
which they had obtained, Messrs, de Thuisy* 
after many fruitless excursions, at last 
found out her family in a village several 
miles from London. 

Had they kept all this time the trunk of 
an emigrant, a trunk full of old papers, 
which could scarcely be deciphered? Might 
they not have consigned to the flames such 
a useless heap of French manuscripts ? On 
the other hand, if my name, bursting from 
its obscurity, had attracted, in the London 
iournals, the notice of the children of my 
former landlady, might they not have been 
disposed to make what profit they could of 
those papers, which would then acquire a 
certain value? 

Nothing of the kind had happened. The 
manuscripts had been preserved, the trunk 
had not even been opened. A religious 
fidelity had been shown by an unfortunate 
.family towards a child of misfortune. I 
j had committed with simplicity the result 


of the labours ot part of my life to the 
honesty of a foreign trustee, and my trea¬ 
sure was restored to me with the same 
simplicity. I know not that I ever met 
with any thing in my life which touched 
me more than the honesty and integrity ot 
this poor English family. 


DEVONSHIRE WRESTLING. 

For the Table Book. 

Abraham Cann, the Devonshire cham 
pion, and his brother wrestlers of that 
county, are objected to for their play with 
the foot, called “ showing a toe” in Devon¬ 
shire; or, to speak plainly, “kicking/’ 
Perhaps neither the objectors, nor Abraham 
and his fellow-countrymen, are aware, that 
the Devonshire custom was also the custom 
of the Greeks, in the same sport, three 
thousand years ago. The English reader 
may derive proof of this from Pope’s trans¬ 
lation of Homer’s account of the wrestling 
match at the funeral of Patroclus, between 
Ulysses and Ajax, for prizes offered by 
Achilles :— 

Scarce did the chief the vigorous strife propose, 

When tower-like Ajax and Ulysses rose. 

Amid the ring each nervous rival stands. 

Embracing rigid, with implicit hands: 

Close lock’d above, their heads and arms are mixt; 
Below, their planted feet, at distance fixt. 

Now to the grasp each manly body bends; 

The humid sweat from every pore descends; 

Their bones resound with blows; sides, shoulders 
thighs 

Swell to each gripe, and bloody tumours rise. 

Nor could Ulysses, for his art renown’d, 

O’erturn the strength of Ajax on the ground; 

Nor could the strength of Ajax overthrow 
The watchful caution of his artful foe. 

While the long strife e’en tir’d the lookers on, 

Thus to Ulysses spoke great Telamon : 

Or let me lift thee, chief, or lift thou me ; 

Prove we our force, and Jove the rest decree : 

He said, and stra’ining, heav’d him off the ground 
With matchless strength ; that time Ulysses found 
The strength t’ evade, and, where the nerves combine , 
His ancle struck the giant fell supine ; 

Ulysses following, on his bosom lies; 

Shouts of applause run rattling through the skies. 
Ajax to lift, Ulysses next essays ; 

He barely stirr’d him but he could not raise : 

His knee lock'd fast, the foe’s attempt deny’d. 

And grappling close, they tumble side by side. 

Here we find not only “ the lock,” bn* 
that Ulysses, who is described as renowned 
for his art, attains to the power of throwing 
his antagonist by the device of Abrahan 
Cann’s favourite kick near the ancle. 

I. V 


622 













the table bouil 



peitn anli tije 3»lnaits. 


Yet thus could, in a savage-styled land, 

A few—reviled, scorn’d, hated of the whole — 

Stretch forth for Peace the unceremonious hind, - . ' j 

And stamp Truth, even on a sealed scroll. 

They call’d not God, or men, in proof to stand : 

They pray’d no vengeance on the perjured soul: 

But Heaven look’d down, and, moved with wonder. s«.w 
A compact fram’d, where Time might bring no daw. 

William Penn, and his heirs, in perpetuity 
a great tract of land on the river Delaware 
in America; with full power to erect a ! 
new colony there, to sell lands, to make ! 
lav/s, to create magistrates, and to pardon 
crimes. In August, 1682, Penn, after hav. 
ing written to his wife and children a letter 
eminently remarkable for its simplicity and 
patriarchal spirit, took an affectionate leave 
of them; amd, accompanied by severa 
friends, embarked at Deal, on board the 
Welcome, a ship of three hundred tons 
burthen. The passengers, including him- | 
self, were not nv'r* ♦ban a hundred. They 
were chiefly quakers, and most of their , 
from Sussex, in which county his house at j 


This stanza is in a delightful little volume, 
i entitled “ The Desolation of Eyam; the 
Emigrant, a tale of the American Woods; 
and other poems: By William and Mary 
Ilowitt, authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.” 
The feeling and beauty of one of the poems, 
“ Penn and the Indians,” suggested the 
present engraving, after a celebrated print 
I from a picture by the late Benjamin West. 
The following particulars are chiefly related 
oy Mr. Clarkson, respecting the scene it 
represents. 

King Charles II., in consideration of a 
pnsiderable sum due from the crown for 
be services of admiral sir William Penn, 
granted to his son, the ever-memorable 

























































































THE TABLE BOOK* 


Warminghurst was seated. They sailed 
about the first of September, but had not 
proceeded far to sea, when the small-pox 
broke out so virulently, that thirty of their 
number died: In about six weeks from 
the time of their leaving the Downs they 
came in sight of the American coast, and 
shortly afterwards landed at Newcastle, in 
the Delaware river. 

William Penn’s first business was to ex¬ 
plain to the settlers of Dutch and Swedish 
extraction the object of his coming, and 
the nature of the government he designed 
to establish. His next gieat movement was 
to Upland, where he called the first general 
assembly, consisting of an equal number, 
for the province and for the territories, of 
all such freemen as chose to attend. In 
this assembly the frame of government, and 
many important regulations, were settled; 
and subsequently he endeavoured to settle 
the boundaries of his territory with Charles 
lord Baltimore, a catholic nobleman, who 
was governor and proprietor of the adjoin¬ 
ing piovince of Maryland, which had been 
settled with persons of his own persuasion. 

Penn’s religious principles, which led 
him to the practice of the most scrupulous 
morality, did not permit him to look upon 
the king’s patent, or legal possession ac¬ 
cording to the laws of England, as sufficient 
toestablish his right to the country, without 
purchasing it by fair and open bargain of 
ihe natives, to whom, only, it properly be r 
ienged. He had therefore instructed com¬ 
missioners, who had arrived in America 
'•efore him, to buy it of the latter, and to 
make with them at the same time a treaty 
"f eternal friendship. This the commis- 
''oners had done ; and this was the time 
when, by mutual agreement between him 
nd the Indian chiefs, it was to be publicly 
atified. He proceeded, theiefore, accovi- 
i anied by his friends, consisting of men, 
'omen, and young persons of both sexes, 
o Couqmu.noc, the Indian name for the 
dace where Philadelphia now stands. On 
is arrival there he found the Sachems and 
heir tribes assembling. They were seen 
n the woods as far as the eye could carry, 
nd looked frightful both on account of 
heir number and their aims. The quakers 
ire reported to have been but a handful in 
comparison, and these w ithout any weapon ; 
so that dismay and terror had come upon 
hem, had they not confided in the rigi.te- 
uisness of their cause. 

It is much to be regretted, when we have 
recounts of minor treaties between William 
Penn and the Indians, that there is not. in 
iny historian an account of this, though so 


many mention it, and though all concur ir 
considering it as the most glorious of any 
in the annals of the world. There are 
however, relations in Indian speeches, and 
traditions in quaker families, descended 
from those who were present on the occa¬ 
sion, from which we may learn something 
concerning it. It appears that, though the 
parties were to assemble at Coaquannoc, 
the treaty was made a littbe higher up, at 
Shackamaxon. Upon this Kensington now 
stands; the houses of which may be con¬ 
sidered as the suburbs of Philadelphia. 
There was at Shackamaxon an elm tree of 
a prodigious size. To this the leaders on 
both sides repaired, approaching each other 
under its widely-spreading branches. Wil¬ 
liam Penn appeared in iris usual clothes. 
He had no crown, sceptre, mace, sword, 
halberd, or any insignia of eminence. He 
was distinguished only by wealing a sky- 
blue sash* round his waist, which was 
made of silk net-work, and winch was of 
no larger apparent dimensions than an 
officer’s military sash, and much like it 
except in colour. On his right hand 
was colonel Markham, his relation and 
secretary, and on his left his fiiend 
Pearson; after whom followed a train 
of quakers. Before him were carried 
various articles of merchandise; which, 
when they came near the Sachems, were 
spread upon the ground. He held a roll 
pf parchment, containing the confirmation 
of the treaty of purchase and amity, in his 
hand. One of the Sachems, wlio was the 
chief of them, then put upon his ow n head 
a kind of chaplet, in which appeared a 
small horn. This, as among the primitive 
eastern nations, and according to Scripture 
language, was an emblem of kingly power; 
and whenever the chief, who Had a right to 
wear it, put it on, it was understood that 
the place was made «acred, and the persons 
of all present inviolable. Upon putting on 
this horn the Indians threw down their 
bows and arrows, and seated themselves 
round their chiefs in the form of a half¬ 
moon upon the ground. The chief Sachem 
then announced to William Penn, by means I 
of an interpreter, that the nations were 
ready to hear him. 

Having been thus called upon, he began. 
The Great Spirit, he said, who made him 
and them, who ruled the heaven and the 
earth, and who knew the innermost thoughts 
of man, knew that he and his friends had a 
hearty desire to live in peace and friendship 

* This sash is now in the possession of Thomas Kett 
Esq. of Seething-hall,near Norwich. 


624 








J 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


with them, and to serve them to the utmost 
of their power. It was not their custom to 
use hostile weapons against their fellow-crea¬ 
tures, for which reason they had come un¬ 
armed. Their object was not to do injury, 
and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to 
do good. They were then met on the broad 
pathway of good faith and good will, so 
that no advantage was to be taken on either 
side, but all was to be openness, brother¬ 
hood, and love. After these and other words, 
he unrolled the parchment, and by means 
of the same interpreter, conveyed to 
them, article by article, the conditions of the 
purchase, and the words of the compact 
then made for their eternal union. Among 
other things, they were not to be molested 
in their lawful pursuits even in the territory 
they had alienated, for it was to be common 
to them and the English. They were to 
have the «ame liberty to do all things 
therein relating to the improvement of their 
grounds, and providing sustenance for their 
families, which the English had. If any 
disputes should arise between the two, they 
should be settled by twelve persons, hatf of 
whom should be English and half Indians. 
He then paid them for the land, and made 
them many presents besides, from the mer¬ 
chandise which had been spread before 
them. Having done this, he laid the roll 
of parchment on the ground ; observing 
again, that the ground should be common 
to both people. He then added, that he 
would not do as the Marylanders did ; that 

is, call them children or brothers only ; for 
often parents were apt to whip their chil¬ 
dren too severely, and brothers sometimes 
would differ : neither would he compare 
the friendship between him and them to a 
chain; for the rain might sometimes rust 

it, or a tree might fall and break it; but he 
should consider them as the same flesh and 
blood with the Christians, and the same as 
if one man’s body were to be divided into 
two parts. He then took up the parchment, 
and presented it to the Sachem who wore 
the horn in the chaplet, and desired him 
and the other Sachems to preserve it care¬ 
fully for three generations ; that their chil¬ 
dren might know what had passed between 
them, just as if he had remained himself 
with them to repeat it. 

That William Penn must have done and 
said a great deal more on this interesting 
occasion than has now been represented, 
there can be no doubt. What has been 
related may be depended upon. It is 
to be regretted, that the speeches of the 
Indians on this memorable day have not 
come down to us. It is only known, that 


they solemnly pledged themselves, accord 
ing to their country manner, to live in love 
with William Penn and his children as 
long as the sun and moon should endure. 

Thus ended this famous treatv, of which 

V ' 

more has been said in the way of praise 
than of any other ever transmitted to pos¬ 
terity. “ This,” said Voltaire, “ was the 
only treaty between those people and the 
Christians that was not ratified by an oath 
and that was never broken.” “ William 
Penn thought it right,” says the abbe Ray- 
nal, “ to obtain an additional right by a 
fair and open purchase from the abori¬ 
gines ; and thus he signalized his arrival 
by an act of equity, which made his person 
and principles equally beloved. Here it is 
the mind rests with pleasure upon modern 
history, and feels some kind of compensa¬ 
tion for the disgust, melancholy, and hor¬ 
ror, which the whole of it, but particularly 
that of the European settlements in Ame¬ 
rica, inspires.” Noble, in his Continuation 
of Gianger, says, “ lie occupied his domains 
by actual bargain and sale with the Indians. 
This fact does him infinite honour, as no 
blood was shed, and the Christian and the 
barbarian met as biothers. Penn has thus 
taught us to respect the lives and properties 
of the most unenlightened nations.”— 
“ Being now returned,” says Robert Proud, 
in his History of Pennsylvania, “ from 
Maryland to Coaquannoc, he purchased 
lands of the Indians, whom he treated with 
great justice and sincere kindness. It was 
at this time when he first entered person¬ 
ally into that friendship with them, which 
ever afterwards continued between them, 
and which for the space of more than 
seventy years was never interrupted, or so 
long as the quakers retained power in the 
government. 11 is conduct in general to 
these people was so engaging, his justice in 
particular so conspicuous, and the counsel 
and advice which he gave them were so 
evidently for their advantage, that he be¬ 
came thereby very much endeared to them ; 
and the sense thereof made such deep im¬ 
pressions on their understandings, that his 
name and memory will scarcely ever be 
effaced while they continue a people.” 

The great elm-tree, under which this 
treaty was made, became celebrated fiom 
that day. When in the American war the 
British general Simcoe was quartered at 
Kensington, he so respected it, that when 
his soldiers were cutting down every tree 
for fire-w r ood,he placed a sentinel under it, 
that not a branch of it might be touched. 
In 1812 it was blown down, when its trunk 
was split into wood, and cuds and othei 


625 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


articles were made of it, to be kept as me¬ 
morials of it. 

LINES 

On receiving from Dr. Rush , of Philadel¬ 
phia, a piece of the Tree under which 
William Penn made his Treaty with the 
Indians , and which teas bloivn down in 
1812, converted to the purpose of an 
Inkstand 


BY WILLIAM ROSCOE, ESQ. 

From clime to clime, from shore to shore. 
The war-fiend raised his hateful yell, 
And midst the storm that realms deplore, 
Penn’s honour’d tree of concord fell. 

And of that tree, that ne’er again 
Shall Spring’s reviving influence know, 
A relic, o’er th’ Atlantic main. 

Was sent—the gift of foe to foe 1 

But though no more its ample shade 
Wave green beneath Columbia’s sky. 
Though every branch be now decay’d. 
And all its scatter’d leaves be dry ; 

Yet, midst this relic’s sainted space, 

* A health-restoring flood shall spring. 

In which the angel-form of Peace 
May stoop to dip her dove-like wing. 

So once the staff the prophet bore. 

By wondering eyes again was seen 
To swell with life through every pore, 
And bud afresh with foliage green. 

The wither’d branch again shall grow. 
Till o’er the earth its shade extend— 
And this—the gift of foe to foe— 

Become the gift of friend to friend. 


I 

i 


In the “Conditions” between William 
Penn, as Proprietary and Governor of 
Pennsylvania, and the Adventurers and 
Purchasers in the same province, “ in be¬ 
half of the Indians it was stipulated, that, 
as it had been usual with planters to over¬ 
reach them in various ways, whatever was 
sold to them in consideration of their furs 
should be sold in the public market-place, 
and there suffer the test, whether good or 
bad: if good, to pass; if not good, not to 
be sold lor good ; that the said native In¬ 
dians might neither be abused nor pro¬ 
voked. That no man should by any ways 
or means, in word or deed, affront or wrong 
any Indian, but he should incur the same 
penalty of the law as if he had committed 
it against his fellow-planter; and if any 
Indian should abuse, in word or deed, any 
planter of the province, that the said planter 
diould not be his own judge upon the said 


Indian, but that he should make his com- 
plaint to the governor ot the province, or 
his deputy, or some inferior magistrate neai 
him, who should to the utmost of his powei 
take care with the king of the said Indian, 
that all reasonable satisfaction should be 
made to the said injured planter. And that 
all differences between planters and Indians 
should be ended by’twelve men, that is, by 
six planters and six Indians, that so they 
might live friendly together, as much as in 
them lay, preventing all occasions of heart¬ 
burnings and mischief. These stipulations 
in favour of the poor natives will for ever 
immortalize the name of William Penn 
for, soaring above the prejudices and cus¬ 
toms of his time, by which navigators and 
adventurers thought it right to consider the 
inhabitants of the lands they discovered as 
their lawful prey, or as mere animals of the 
brute-creation, whom they might treat, use, 
and take advantage of at their pleasure, he 
regarded them as creatures endued with 
reason, as men of the like feelings and 
passions with himself, as brethren both by 
nature and grace, and as persons, there¬ 
fore, to whom the great duties of humanity 
and justice were to be extended, and who, 
in proportion to their ignorance, were the 
more entitled to his fatherly protection and 
care.”* 


The identical roll of parchment given by 
William Penn to the Indians was shown by 
their descendants to some English officers 
some years ago. This information, with 
the following passages, will be found in 
the “ Notes” to “ Penn and the Indians,” the 
poem, by “ Wiliiam and Mary Ilowitt,” 
from whence the motto is taken :— 

“ What shows the scrupulous adherence 
of the Indians to their engagements in the 
most surprising light is, that long after the 
descendants of Penn ceased to possess poli¬ 
tical influence in the state, in compara¬ 
tively recent times, when the Indian cha¬ 
racter was confessedly lowered by their 
intercourse with the whites, and they were 
instigated both by their own injuries and 
the arts of the French to make incursions 
into Pennsylvania, the 1 Friends f were 
still to them a sacred and inviolable people. 
While the tomahawk and the scalping 
knife were nightly doing their dreadfu 
work in every surrounding dwelling— 
theirs were untouched; while the rest ot 
the inhabitants abandoned their houses and 
fled to forts for security,—they found 


* Mr. Clarkson’s Life of W. Penn. 








— 









THE TABLE BOOH. 


I more perfect security in that friendship 
which the wisdom and virtue of Penn had 
tonciliated, and which their own disinter¬ 
ested principles made permanent.” 

In endeavouring to conclude with a spe¬ 
cimen of the elegant poem of “ William 
and Mary Howitt,” an unexpected difficulty 
of selection occurs—it is a piece of con- 
! tinuous beauty that can scarcely be extracted 
from, without injury to the stanzas selected ; 
and therefore, presuming on the kind in¬ 
dulgence of the amiable authors, it is here 
presented entire:— 

PENN AND TIIE INDIANS. 


“ I will not compare our friendship to a chain; for 
the rain might sometimes rust it, or a tree might fall 
and break it; but I shall consider you as the same 
flesh and blood as the Christians; and the same as if 
one man’s body were to be divided into two parts.” 

W. Penn’s Speech to the Indians. 


There was a stir in Pennsylvanian woods. 

A gathering as the war-cry forth had gone; 
tnd, like the sudden gush of Autumn floods. 

Stream’d from all points the warrior-tribes to one. 
Ev’n in the farthest forest solitudes. 

The hunter stopped the battle-plume to don. 

And turn’d with knife, with hatchet, and with bow. 
Back, as to bear them on a sudden foe. 

Swiftly, but silently, each dusky chief 

Sped ’neath the shadow of continuous frees ; 

And tiles whose feet scarce stirr’d the trodden leaf; 

And infant-laden mothers, scorning ease ; 

And childhood, whose small footsteps, light and brief. 
Glanced through the forest, like a fluttering breeze. 
Followed—a numerous, yet a silent band,— 

As to some deed, high, fateful, and at hand. 

But where the foe? By the broad Delaware, 

Where flung a shadowy elm its branches wide.— 

In peaceful garments, and with hands that bare 
No sign of war,—a little band they spied. 

Could these be whom they sought? And did they fare 
Forth from their deserts, in their martial pride. 

Thus at their call ? They did. No trumpet’s tongue 
Had pierced their wild-woods with a voice so strong. 

Who were they ? Simple pilgrims it may be, 
Scarce less *han outcasts from their native isles,— 
From Britain,—birth-place of the great and free. 
Where heavenly loie threw round its brightest smiles. 
Then why depart ? Oh seeming mockery ! 

Were they not here, on this far shore, exiles. 

Simply because, unawed by power or ban, 

1'hev worshipped God but would not bow to man ? 

•>b ! Truth ! Immortal Truth ! on what wild ground 
Still hast fhou trod through this unspiritual sphere! 


l'he strong, the brutish, and the vile surround 
Thy presence, lest thy streaming glory cheer 
The poor, the many, without price or bound. 

Drowning thy voice, they fill the popuiar ear. 

In thy high name, with canons, creeds, and laws, 
Feigning to serve, that they may mar thy cause. 

And the great multitude doth crouch, and bear 
The burden of the selfish. That emprize, 

That lofty spirit of virtue which can dare 
To rend the bands of Error from all eyes; 

And from the freed soul pluck each sensual care. 

To them is but a fable. Therefore lies 
Darkness upon the mental desert still; 

And wolves devour, and robbers walk at will. 

Yet, ever and anon, from thy bright quiver. 

The flaming arrows of thy might are strown ; 

And, rushing forth, thy dauntless children shiver 
The strength of foes who press too near thy throne 
Then, like the sun, or thy Almighty Giver, 

Thy light is through the startled nations shown : 
And generous indignation tramples down 
The sophist’s web, and the oppressor's crown. 

Oh might it bum for ever! But in vain— 

For vengeance rallies the alarmed host. 

Who from men’s souls draw their dishonest gam. 

For thee they smite, audaciously they boast. 

Even while thy sons are in thy bosom slain. 

Yet this is thy sure solace,—that, not lost. 

Each drop of blood, each tear,—Cadmean seed, 

Bhall send up armed champions in thy need. 

And these were of that origin. Thy stamp 

Was on their brows, calm, fearless, and sublime. 
And they had held aloft thy heavenly lamp; 

And borne its odium as a fearful crime. 

And therefore, through their quiet homes the tramp 
Of Rain passed,—laying waste all that Time 
Gives us of good ; and, where Guilt fitly dwells. 

Had made them homes in execrable cells. 

We dwell in peace :—they purchased it with blood. 

We dwell at large ;—’twas they who wore the ehaia, 
And broke it. Like the living rocks tLey stood. 

Till their invincible patience did restrain 
The billows of men’s fury. Then the rude 
Shock of the past diffused a mild disdain 
Through their pure hearts, and an intense desire 
For some calm land where freedom might respire. 

Some land where they might render God his due. 

Nor stir the gall of the blind zealot’s hate. 

Some land where came Thought’s soul-refreshing dev. 

And Faith’s sublimer visions. Where elate. 

Their simple-hearted children they might view. 
Springing in joy,— heirs of ft blest estate : 

And where each worn and weary mind might come 
From every realm, and find a tranquil home. 

And they sought this. Yet, as they now descried 
From the near forest, pouring, horde on horde. 
Armed, painted, plumed in all their martial pride. 
The dwellers of the woods—the men abhorred 


627 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


^s fierce, perfidious, and with blood bedyed, 

Kelt they no dread ? Nofor their breasts were 
stored 

With confidence which pure designs impart. 

And faith in Him who framed the human heart. 

And they—the children of the wild—v.ny came 
They at this summons ? Swiftly it had flown 
Far through their woods, like wind, or wind-sent flame, 
Followed by rumours of a stirring tone, 

Which told that, all unlike, except in name, 

To those who yet had on their shores been known, 
These white men—--wearers of the peaceful vest,— 
Graved, in their vales, a brother’s home and rest. 

i>n the red children of the desert, fell 
The tidings, like spring’s first delicious breath ; 

For they had loved the strangers all too well; 

And still—though reaping ruin, scorn, and death 
For a frank welcome, and broad room to dwell. 

Given to the faithless boasters of pure faith,— 

I'heir wild, warm feelings kindled at the sight 
Of Virtue arm'd but with tier native might. 

What term we savage ? The untutored heart 
Of Nature’s child is but a slumbering fire ; 

Prompt at each breath, or passing touch, to start 
Into quick flame, as quickly to retire : 

Ready alike, its pleasance to impart, 

Orjscorch the hand which rudely wakes its ire • 
Demon or child, as impulse may impel; 
vVarir. in its love, but in its vengeance fell. 

Ard these Columbian warriors to their strand 
Had welcomed Europe's sons,—and rued it sore, 

M an with smooth tongues, but rudely armed hand ; 

Fabling of peace when meditating gore; 

Who, their foul deeds to veil, ceased not to brand 
The Indian name on every Christian shore. 

What wonder, on such heads, their fury’s flame 
Burst, till its terrors gloomed their fairer fame. 

For they were not a brutish race, unknowing 
Evil from good ; their fervent souls embraced 
With virtue’s proudest homage to overflowing 
The mind’s inviolate majesty. The past 
To them was not a darkness; but was glowing 
With splendour which all time had not o’ercast ; 
Streaming unbroken from creation’s birth. 

When God communed and walked with men on earth. 

Stupid idolatry had never dimmed 
The Almighty image in their lucid thought, 
i'o him alone their jealous praise was hymned; 

And hoar Tradition, from her treasury, brought 
Glimpses of far-otf times, in which were limned 
His awful glory : and their prophets taught 
Precepts sublime,—a solemn ritual given. 

In clouds and thunder, to their sires from heaven. 

and, in the boundless solitude which fills, 

Even as a mighty heart, their wild domains; 

In caves, and glens of the unpeopled hills ; 

And the deep shadow thai f or ever reigns 


Spirit like in their woods ; where, roaring, spills 
The giant cataract to the astounded plains, 

Nature^ in her sublimest moods, had given. 

Not man’s weak lore,—bat a quick flash from 1 heaves. 

Roaming, in their free lives, by lake and stream ; 

Beneath the splendour of their gorgeous sky ; 
Encamping, while shot down night’s starry gleam, 

In jiiny glades, where their forefathers lie ; 

Voices would come, and breathing whispers seem 
To rouse within the life which may not die; 

Begetting valorous deeds, and thoughts intense. 

And a wild gush of burning eloquence. 

Such were the men who round the pilgrims came. 

Oh ! righteous heaven! and thon, heaven-dwelling 
sun! 

How from my heart spring tears of grief and shame, 

To think how runs—and quickly shall have run 
O’er earth, for twice a thousand years, your flame, 

Since, for man’s weal, Christ’s victories were won; 
Since dying, to his sons, love’s gift divine 
He gave, fhe bond of brotherhood and the sign.— 

Where shines the symbol? Europe’s mighty states, 

The brethren of the cross—from age to age, 

Have striven to quench in blood their quenchless 
hates; 

Or—cease their armed hosts awhile their rage, 

’Tis but that Peace may half unclose her gates 
In mockery; that each diplomatic sage 
Way treat and sign, while War recruits his power 
And grinds the sword fresh millions to devour. 

Yet thus could, in a savage-styled land, 

A few,—reviled, scorn’d, hated of the whole. 

Stretch forth for peace the unceremonious hand, 

And stamp Truth, even upon a sealed scroll. 

They called not God, or men, in proof to stand : 

They prayed no vengeance on the perjured soul: 

But heaven look d down, and moved with wonder saw i 
A compact framed, where time might bring no flaw. j I 

Yet, through the land no clamorous triumph spread. ' 
home bursts of natural eloquence were there ; 
Somewhat of his past wrongs the Indian said ; 

Of deeds design’d which now were given to air. 

Some tears the mother o’er her infant shed, 

As through her soul pass’d Hope’s depictions fair ; 

And they were gone—the guileless scene was o’er; 

And the wild woods absorb’d their tribes once more. 

Ay, years have rolled on years, and long has Penn 
Pass’d, with his justice, from the soil he bought ; 

And the world’s spirit, and the world’s true men 
Its native sons with different views have sought. 
Crushing them down till they have risen again 
With bloodiest retribution; yet have taught. 

Even while their hot revenge spread fire ami seath. 

Their ancient, firm, inviolable faith. 

When burst the war-whoop at the dead of night, 

And the blood curdled at the dreadful sound; 

And morning brought not its accustomed light 
To thousands slumbering in their gore around ; 


628 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Then, like oases in the desert’s blight. 

The Homes of Penn’s peculiar tribe were found : 
t And still the scroll he gave, in love and pride, 
j 1 heir hands preserve,—earth has not such beside. 

1 Yes ; prize it, waning race, for never more 
| Shall your wild glades another Penn behold: 

Pure, dauntless legislator, who did soar 
Higher than dared sublimest thought of old. 

That antique lie which bent the great of yore, 

And ruleth still—Expedience stern and cold, 

' He pluck’d with scorn from its usurped car 
j And showed Truth strong, and glorious as a sthr. 

The vast, the ebbless, the engulphing tide 
Of the white population still rolls on 1 
And quail’d has your romantic heart of pride,— 

The kingly spirit of the woods is gone. 

Farther, and farther do ye wend to hide 

Your wasting strength ; to mourn your glory flown, 
And sigh to think how soon shall crowds pursue 
Down the lone stream where glides the still canoe. 

And ye, a beautiful nonentity, ere long, 

Shall live but with past marvels, to adorn 
Some fabling theme, some unavailing song. 

But ye have piled a monument of scorn 
For trite oppression’s sophistry of wrong. 

Proving, by all your tameless hearts have borrie, 
What now ye might have been, had ye but met 
With love like yours, and faith unwavering yet. 

The authors of “ Penn and the Indians” 
justly observe in the last note upon their 
exalted poem, that “ it is William Penn’s 
peculiar honour to stand alone as a states¬ 
man, in opposing principle to expedience, 
in public as well as in private life. Even 
Aristides, the very beau-ideal of virtuous 
integrity, failed in this point. The success 
of the experiment lias been as splendid as 
the most philosophic worshipper of abstract 
morals could have hoped fur or imagined. 
These sentences exemplify an expression 
elsewhere—“ Politics are Morals.” 


QUAKERS. 

Origin of the Term. 

On the 30th of October, 1650, the cele¬ 
brated George Fox being at a lecture de¬ 
livered in Derby by a colonel of the par¬ 
liament’s army, after the service was ovei 
addressed the congregation, till theie came 
an officer who took him by the hand, and 
said, that he, and the other two that were 
with him, must go before the magistrates. 
They were examined for a long time, and 
then George Fox, and one John Fretwell 
of Staniesby, a husbandman, were com¬ 
mitted to the house of correction for six 
months upon pretence of blasphemous ex¬ 
pressions. Gervas Bennet, one o’, the two 
justices who signed their mittimus, hearing 
that Fox bade him, and those about him. 


“ tremble at the word of the Lord,” regarded 
this admonition so lightmindedly, that from 
that time, lie called Fox and his friends 
Qmtker s. This new and unusual denomi¬ 
nation was taken up so eagerly, that it soon 
ran over all England, and from thence to 
foreign countries.* It has since remained 
their distinctive name, insomuch, that to the 
present time they are so termed in acts ol 
parliament; and in their own declarations 
on certain public occasions, and in ad 
dresses to the king, they designate them¬ 
selves “ the people called Quakers • The 
community, in Us rules and minutes, for 
government and discipline, denominates 
itself “ The Society of Friends .” * 


ci n aswi 

OF JOHN KEATS, THE POET. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Underneath I send you a copy of 
a document which “ poor Keats ” sent to 

Mr.-, in August, 1820, just before 

his departure for Italy. 

This paper was intended by him to 
operate as his last will and testament, but 
the sages of Doctors’ Commons refused to 
receive it as such, for reasons which to a 
biwver would be perfectly satisfactory, 
however the rest of the world might deem 
them deheient in cogency :— 

Copy. 

“ My share of books divide amongst my 
friends. In case of my death this 
scrap of paper may be serviceable in 
your possession. j 

“All my estate, real and personal, con¬ 
sists in the hopes of the sale of books, 
published or unpublished. Now I 

wish-and you to be the first ( 

paid creditors—the rest is in nubibus — . 

but, in case it should shower, pay- 

the few pounds I owe him.” 

Although too late to afford him any 
satisfaction or comfort, it did “ shower” at 
last; and that, too, from a source which, 
in its general aspect, bear’s all the gloomi¬ 
ness of a cloud, without any of its refresh¬ 
ing or fertilizing anticipations—I mean the 
Court of Chancery. This unexpected 
“ shower" was sufficiently copious to enable 
the fulfilment of all the wishes expressed in 
the above note. His friends have therefore 
the gratification of knowing that no pecu¬ 
niary loss has been (or need have beenj 
sustained, by any one of those with whom 
he was connected, either by friendship or 
otherwise. I arn, Sir, &c. O. Z. 

* Sewul. 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


II 




Fine Writing; fnk ! 


Ruv ar. Iron Fork, or a Shovel? 


lontion Crtess. 


These engravings pretty well describe 
the occupations of the figures they repre¬ 
sent. The cry of “ Fine writing-ink” has 
ceased long ago; and the demand for such 
Ja fork as the woman carries is disconti¬ 
nued. They are copied from a set of etch¬ 
ings formerly mentioned—the ** Cries of 
London,” by Lauron. The following of 
that series are worth describing, because 
they convey some notion of cries which we 
hear no longer in the streets of the metro¬ 
polis. 

Buy a new Almanack ? 

A woman bears book-almanacks before 
her, displayed in a round basket. 

London's Gazette here 

A woman holds one in her hand, and 
seems to have others in her lapped-up 
j apron. 

Buy any Wax or Wafers ? 

4 woman carries these requisites for 


correspondence in a small hand-basket, or 
frail, with papers open in the other hand. 

My Name , and your Name , your Father s 
Name , and Mother's Name. 

A man bears before him a square box, 
slung from his shoulders, containing type¬ 
founders’ letters, in small cases, each on a 
stick; he holds one in his hand. I well 
remember to have heard this very cry when 
a boy. The type-seller composed my own 
name for me, which I was thereby enabled 
to imprint on paper with common writing 
ink. I think it has become wholly extinct 
within the last ten years. 

Old Shoes for some Brooms 

A man with birch-brooms suspended be¬ 
hind him on a stick. His cry intimates, 
that he is willing to exchange them for old 
shoes; for which a wallet at his bacx, de¬ 
pending from his waist, seems a receptoCie. 


630 
















































r-----—--- 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


Remember the poor Prisoners! 

A man, with a capacious covered basket 
suspended at his back by leather handles, 
through which his arms pass ; he holds in 
nis tight hand a small, round, deep box with 
a slit in the top, through which money may 
be put: in his left hand is a short walkins- 
stafi for his support. In former times the 
prisoners in different gaols, without allow¬ 
ance, deputed persons to walk the streets an i 
solicit alms for their support, of passengers 
and at dwelling-houses. The basket was 
for broken-victuals. 

Fritters, piping hot Fritters. 

A woman seated, frying the fritters on 
an iron with four legs, over an open fire 
lighted on bricks ; a pan of batter by her 
side: two urchins, with a small piece of 
| money between them, evidently desire to 
fritter it. 

Buy my Dutch Biskets ? 

A woman carries them open in a large, 
round, shallow arm-basket on her right 
arm; a smaller and deeper one, covered 
with a cloth, is on her left. 

IVho's for a Mutton Pie , or a Christmas 
Pie? 

A woman carries them in a basket hang¬ 
ing on her left arm, under her cloak; she 
rings a bell with her right hand. 

Lilly white Vinegar. Threepence a Quart. 

The vinegar is in two barrels, slung 
across the back of a donkey ; pewter mea¬ 
sures are on the saddle in the space between 
: them. The proprietor walks behind—he is 
1 a jaunty youth, and wears flowers on the left 
| side of his hat, and a lilly white apron ; he 
cracks a whip with his left hand; and 
his right fingers play with his apron strings. 

Old Satin , old Taffeiy , or Velvet. 

A smart, prett}-looking lass, in a high- 
peaked crowned-hat, a black hood care¬ 
lessly tied under her chin, handsomely 
stomachered and ruffled, trips along in 
high-heeled shoes, with bows of ribbons on 
the insteps; a light basket is on her right 
arm, and her hands are crossed with a 
quality air. 

Scotch or Russia Cloth. 

A comfortably clothed, stout, substantial- 
looking, middle-aged man, in a cocked hat. 
Me fashion of those days,) supporting with 
his left hand a pack as large as his body. 


slung at his back ; his right hand holds his 
yard measure, and is tucked into the open 
bosom of his buttoned coat; a specimen 
of his cloth hangs across his arm. Irish 
and Holland linen have superseded Scotch 
and Russia. 

Four pair for a Shilling , Holland Socks. 

A woman cries them, with a shilling’s- 
worth in her hand ; the bulk of her ware is 
in an open box before her. Our ancestors 
took great precautions against wet from 
without—they took much within. They 
were soakers and sockers. 

Long Thread Laces , long and strong. 

A miserably tattered-clothed girl and 
boy carry long sticks with laces depending 
from the ends, like cals-o’-nine tails. This 
cry was extinct in London for a few years, j 
while the females dressed naturally—now, 
when some are resuming the old fashion of 
stiff stays and tight-lacing, and pinching 
their bowels to inversion, looking unmo- 
therly and bodiless, the cry has been par¬ 
tially revived. 

Pretty Maids , pretty Pins, pretty IVomcn. 

A man, with a square box sideways 
under his left arm, holds in his right hand 
a paper of pins opened. He retails 
ha’p’orths and penn’orths, which he cuts off 
from his paper. I remember when pins 
were disposed of in this manner in the 
streets by women—their cry was a musical 
distich— 

Three-rows-a-penny, pins, 

Short whites, and mid—di—injs! 

Fine Tie, or a fine Bob , sir ! 

A wig-seller stands with one on his hand, 
combing it, and talks to a customer at his 
door, which is denoted by an inscription to 
be in “ Middle-row, Holbourn.” Wigs on 
blocks stand on a bracketed board outside 
his window. This was when every body, 
old and young, wore wigs—when the price 
for a common one was a guinea, and a 
journeyman had a new one every year— 
when it was an article in every apprentice's 
indenture that his master should find him 
in “one good and sufficient wig, yearly, and 
every year, for, and during, and unto the ex¬ 
piration, of the full end, and term, of his 
apprenticeship.” 

Buy my fine Singing Glasses! 

They w’ere trumpet-formed glass tubes, 
of various lengths. The crier blows one 


631 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


of half his own height. He holds others 
• n his left hand, and has a little box, and 
two or three baskets, slung about his waist. 

Japan your Shoes , your honour ! 

A shoeblack. A boy, with a small 
basket beside him, brushes a shoe on a 
stone, and addresses himself to a wigged 
beau, who carries his cocked-hat under his 
left arm, with a crooked-headed walking- 
stick in his left hand, as was the fashion 
among the dandies of old times. I recol¬ 
lect shoeblacks formerly at the corner of 
almost every street, especially in great 
thoroughfares. There were several every 
morning on the steps of St. Andrew’s church 
Ilolborn, till late in the forenoon. But the 
| greatest exhibition of these artists was on 
the site of Finsbuiy-square, when it was 
an open field, and a depository for the 
stones used in paving and street-masonry. 
There, a whole army of shoeblacks inter¬ 
cepted the citizens and their clerks, on their 
way from Islington and Hoxton to the 
counting houses and shops in the city, with 
“ Shoeblack, your honouri” “ Black your 
shoes, sir!” 

Each of them had a large, old tin-kettle, 
containing his apparatus, viz. a capacious 
lpkin, or other large earthen-pot, contain¬ 
ing the blacking, which was made of ivory 
black, the coarsest moist sugar, and puie 
water with a little vinegar—a knife—two or 
three brushes—and an old wig. The old 
wig was an- indispensable requisite to a 
shoeblack ; it whisked away the dust, or 
thoroughly wiped off the wet dirt, which 
his knife and brushes could not entirely 
detach; a rag tied to the end of a stick 
'meared his viscid blacking on the shoe, 
ind if the blacking was “ real japan,” it 
•«hone. The old experienced shoe-wearers 
preferred an oleaginous, lustreless blacking. 
A more liquid blacking, which took a 
polish from the brush, was of later use and 
invention. Nobody, at that time, wore 
hoots, except on horseback; and every 
body wore bieeches and stockings: panta¬ 
loons or trousers were unheard of. The 
>ld shoeblacks operated on the shoes while 
they were on the feet, and so dexterously 
us not to soil the fine white cotton stocking, 
which was at one time the extreme of 
fashion, or to smear the buckles, which were 
universally worn. Latterly, you were ac¬ 
commodated with an old pair of shoes to 
stand in, and the yesterday’s paper to read, 
while your shoes were cleaning and polish¬ 
ing, and your buckles were whitened and 
brushed. When shoestrings first came 


into vogue, the prince of Wales (now the 
king) appeared with them in his shoes, and 
a deputed body of the buckle-makers o( 
Birmingham presented a petition to his 
royal highness to resume the wearing ot 
buckles, which was good-naturedly com¬ 
plied with. Yet in a short time shoestrings 
entirely superseded buckles. The first in¬ 
cursion on the shoeblacks was by the 
makers of “ patent cake-blacking,” on 
sticks formed with a handle, like a small 
battledoor; they suffered a more fearful 
invasion from the makers of liquid blacking 
in bottles. Soon afterwards, when “ Day 
and Martin ” manufactured the ne plus 
ultra of blacking, private shoeblacking 
became general, public shoeblacks rapidly 
disappeared, and now they are extinct. 
The last shoeblack that I remember in 
London, sat under the covered entrance of 
Red Lion-court, Fleet-street, within the 
last six years. 


ANTIQUARIAN MEMORANDUM. 

For the Table Book. 

Chair at Page’s Lock. 

At a little alehouse on the Lea, neai 
Hoddesdon, called “ Page’s Lock,” there is 
a curious antique chair of oak, richly carved. 
It has a high, narrow back inlaid with cane, 
and had a seat of the same, which last is 
replaced by the more durable substitute of 
cak. The framework is beautifully carved 
in foliage, and the top rail of the back, as 
also the front rail between the legs, have 
the imperial crown in the centre. The 
supports of the back are twisted pillars, 
surmounted with crowns, by way of knobs, 
and the fore-legs are shaped like beasts’ 
paws. 

The date is generally supposed to be that 
of Klizabeth ; and this is confirmed by the 
circumstance of the chairs in the long gal¬ 
lery of Hatfield-house, in Hertfordshire, 
being of similar construction, but without 
the crowns. The date of these latter chairs 
is unquestionably that of Elizabeth, who 
visited her treasurer, Burleigh, who°e seat 
it was. The circumstance of the crowns 
being carved on the chair above-named, 
and their omission in those at Hatfield 
would seem to imply a regal distinction 
and we may fairly infer, that it once formed 
part of the furniture of queen Elizabeth’s 
hunting-lodge situate on Epping forest, 
not many miles from Hoddesdon. 

Gaston. 


i 


























tre table book. 


MINISTER OF KIRK BY LONSDALE, 
KIRK BY KENDAL.—LUNE BRIDGE. 


To the Editor. 


i 


i 


i 


I 

I 


| 

i 


SR,—The Tenth Fart of your interesting 
publication, the Table Book , has been lent 
to me by one of your constant readers ; 
who, aware of the interest which I take in 
every thing connected with Westmoreland, 
pointed out the Notes of T. Q. M. on a 
Pedestrian Tour from Skipton to Keswick.* 

It is not my intention to review those 
notes, or to point out the whole of his in¬ 
accuracies ; but I shall select one, which, 
in my humble judgment, is quite inexcus¬ 
able. After stating that the Rev. Mr. 
Hunt was once the curate of KirAby (not 
Kirby, as your correspondent spells it) 
Lonsdale, he adds, “ I believe the well- 
known Carus Wilson is the officiating 
minister at present.” What your narrator 
means by the appellation “ well known, ” 
he alone can determine—and to which of 
the family he would affix the term, 1 can¬ 
not possibly imagine. The eldest son is 
rector of Whittington, an adjoining parish; 
the second son of the same family is vicar 
of Preston, in Lancashire ; the third is the 
curate of Tunstal, in the same county. 
These are all the gentlemen of that family 
who are, or ever were, “ officiating mini¬ 
sters and I can safely assure your cor¬ 
respondent, that not one of them ever teas 
the officiating minister of Kirkby Lonsdale. 
The vicar is the Rev. Mr. Sharp ; who the 
curate is I forget, but an inquirer could 
have easily ascertained it; and an inquiry 
would have furnished him with some very 
curious details respecting the actual incum¬ 
bent. 

By the way, let me mention the curious 
fact of this town retaining its ancient name, 
while Kendal, a neighbouring town, has 
lost, in common parlance, a moiety of its 
name. In all legal documents Kendal is 
described as Kirkby Kendal, as the former 
is Kirkby Lons-dale; and t!r— orthography 
is important, as it shows at once tne deri¬ 
vation of these names. Kirk-by-Lon's-dale, 
and Kirk-by-Ken or Kent-dale , evidently 
show, that the prominent object, the 
churches of those towns on the banks of 
their respective river, the Lune , Lo.yne, 
or Lon , as it is variously written, and the 
Kent or Ken y and their dales, or vallies, 
furnished the cognomen. 


* Col. 271. *\ 


I should be much obliged to T. Q. M. it 
he would point out the house where my 
friend Barriabee 

--viewed 

An hall, which like a taverne shewed 
Neate gates, white walls, nought was sparing, 

Pots brimful, no thought of caring. 

If a very curious tradition respecting the ! 
very line and remarkable bridge over the 
river Lune, together with a painting of it 
done lor me by a cobbler at Lancaster, 
would be at ali interesting to you, I shall 
be happy to send them to your publishers. 
The picture is very creditable to the artist; 
and after seeing it, I am sure you will say, 
that however (if ever) just, in former days, 
the moderns furnish exceptions to the well- 
known maxim— 

Ne sutor ultra crepidam. 

I am, sir, 

your obedient servant, 
London , Sept. 25, 1827. Bob Short. 


DtSrobmrs! 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. X. 

The Copernican System that of the 
Ancients. 

Copernicus places the sun in the centre 
of our system, the fixed stars at the circum¬ 
ference, and the earth and other planets 
in the intervening space ; and he ascribes 
to the earth not only a diurnal motion 
around its axis, but an annual motion round 
the sun. This simple system, which ex¬ 
plains all the appearances of the planets 
and their situations, whether processional, 
stationary, or retrograde, was so fully and 
distinctly inculcated by the ancients, that 
it is matter of surprise it should derive it? 
name from a modern philosopher. 

Pythagoras thought that the earth was a 
movable body, and, so far .from being the 
centre of the world, performed its revolu¬ 
tions around the region of fire, that is the 
sun, and thereby formed day and night. 
He is said to have obtained this knowledge 
among the Egyptians, who represented the 
sun emblematically by a beetle, because 
Chat insect keeps itself six months undi i 


033 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


ground, and six above; or, rather, because 
having formed its dung into a ball, it after¬ 
wards lays itself on its back, and by means 
of its feet whirls that ball round in a circle. 

1 Philolaiis, the disciple of Pythagoras, 
[was the first publisher of that and several 
other opinions belonging to the Pythago¬ 
rean school. He added, that the earth 
moved in an oblique circle, by which, no 
doubt, he meant the zodiac. 

Plutarch intimates, that Timatus Locren- 
sis, another disciple of Pythagoras, held 
the same opinion; and lhat when he said 
the planets were animated, and called them 
the different measures of time, he meant no 
other than that they served by their revolu¬ 
tions to render time commensurable; and 
that the earth was not fixed to a spot, but 
was carried about by a circular motion, as 
Aristarchus of Samos, and Seleucus after¬ 
wards taught. 

This Aristarchus of Samos, who lived 
about three centuries before Jesus Christ, 
.was one of the principal defenders of the 
doctrine of the earth's motion. Archimedes 
informs us, “ That Aristarchus, writing on 
this subject against some of the philoso¬ 
phers of his own age, placed the sun im¬ 
movable in the centre of an orbit, described 
by the earth in its circuit.” Sextus Empi¬ 
ricus cites him, as one of the principal 
supporters of this opinion. 

From a passage in Plutarch it appears, 
that Cleanthes accused Aristarchus of im¬ 
piety and irreligion, by troubling the repose 
.of Vesta and the Larian gods; when, in 
[giving an account of the phenomena of the 
' planets in their courses, he taught that 
I heaven, or the firmament of the fixed stars, 

I was immovable, and that the earth moved 
in an oblique circle, revolving at the same 
time around its own axis. 

Theophrastus, as quoted by Plutarch, 
says in his History of Astronomy, which 
I has not reached our times, that Plato, when 
[advanced in years, gave up the error he 
j had been in, of making the sun turn round 
I the earth; and lamented that he had not 
[placed it in the centre, as it deserved, in- 
jstead of the earth, which he had put there 
contrary to the order of nature. Nor is it 
at all strange that Plato should reassume an 
opinion which he had early imbibed in the 
chools of the two celebrated Pythagoreans, 
Archytas of Tarentum, and Timacus the 
Locrian, as we see in St. Jerome's Christian 
apology against Rufinus. In Cicero we 
find, that Heraclides of Pontus, who was a 
Pythagorean, taught the same doctrine. It 
day be added, that Tycho Brache’s system 
^as known to Vitruvius, as well as were 


the motions of Venus and Mercury about 
the sun. 

That the earth is round, and inhabited on 
all sides, and of course that there are Anti¬ 
podes, or those whose feet are directly op¬ 
posite to ours, is one of the most ancient 
doctrines inculcated by philosophy. Dio¬ 
genes Laertius, in one part of his history, 
says, that Plato was the first who called the 
inhabitants of the earth opposite to us 
“ Antipodes.” He does not mean that Plato 
was the first who taught this opinion, but 
only the first who made use of the term 
“Antipodes;” for, in another place, he 
mentions Pythagoras as the first who taught 
of When Plutarch wrote, it was a point 
in. controversy ; and Luctetius and Pliny, 
were oppose this notion, as well as St. Au¬ 
gustine, serve as witnesses that it must have 
prevailed in their time. 

The proofs which the ancients brought 
of the sphericalness of the earth, were the 
same that the moderns use. Pliny on this 
subject observes, that the land which retires 
out of sight to persons on the deck of a 
ship, appears still in view to those who are 
upon the mast. He thence concludes, that 
the earth is round. Aristotle drew this 
consequence not only from the circular 
shadow of the earth on the disk of the 
moon in eclipse, but also from this, that, 
in travelling south, we discover other stars, 
and that those which we saw before, whether 
in the zenith or elsewhere, change their 
situation with respect to us. 

On whatever arguments the ancients 
founded their theory, it is certain they 
clearly apprehended that the planets re¬ 
volved upon their own axis. Heraclides of 
Pontus, and Ecphantus, two celebrated 
Pythagoreans, said, that the earth turned 
from west to east, just as a wheel does upon 
its axis or centre. According to Atticus, 
the platonist, Plato extended this observa¬ 
tion from the earth to the sun and other 
planets. “ To that general motion which 
makes the planets describe a circular course, 
he added another, resulting from their 
spherical shape, which made each of them 
move about its own centre, whilst they per¬ 
formed the general revolution of their 
course.” Plotinus also ascribes this senti¬ 
ment to Plato; for speaking of him he 
says, that besides the grand circular course 
observed by all the stars in general, Plato 
thought “ they each performed another 
about their own centre.” 

The same notion is ascribed to Nicetas 
of Syracuse by Cicero, who quotes Theo¬ 
phrastus to warrant what he advances 
This Nicetas is he whom Diogenes Laertius 


634 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


names Hycetas, whose opinion, he says, 
was, that “ the celerity of the earth’s mo¬ 
tion about its own axis, and otherwise, was 
the only cause and reason of the apparent 
revolutions of the heavenly bodies.” 

How useful the invention of telescopes 
has been to the astronomical observations 
; of the moderns is particularly evident from 
their discovery, that the planets revolve on 
their axis, a discovery founded on the 
! periodical revolution of the spots observed 
on their disks; so that every planet per¬ 
forms two revolutions,'by one of which it 
is carried with others about a common cen¬ 
tre ; and, by the other, moves upon its axis 
round its own. Yet all that the moderns 
; have advanced in this respect, serves only 
to confirm to the ancients the glory of being 
the first discoverers, by the aid of reason 
alone. The moderns in this are to the an¬ 
cients, as the French philosophers to sir 
Isaac Newton ; all whose labours and tra¬ 
vail, in visiting the poles and equator to 
determine the figure of the earth, served 
i only to confirm what sir Isaac had thought 
of it, without so much as stirring from his 
closet. 


GRAVESEND. 

A Mother and her Children. 

To the Editor. 

Rochester, Sept. 29, 1827. 

Sir,—On the beach at G ravesend yesterday 
morning, I saw a gaily dressed young female 
walking and fondling an infant in her arms, 
whom she called Henry ; with a fine, lively, 
bluff boy of about three years old running 
before, who suddenly venturing to interrupt 
the gravity of a goat, by tickling his beard 
with a switch, became in immediate 
danger of over-punishment from the pro¬ 
voked animal. I ran to “ the rescue,” and 
received warm thanks for its achievement. 
After the manner of mothers she kissed and 
scolded her “ dear Lobski,” as she called 
the little rogue; and I involuntarily and 
inquisitively repeated the appellation. “Sir,” 
said she,—and sire smiled—“ it is perfectly 
ridiculous; but his father and I so frequently 
give him that name in joke, that we some¬ 
times let it fall when in earnest—his 
real Christian name is Robert.” I laughed 
at the whim, shook hands with young 
“ Lobski,” wished his mother good morning, 
set off by the first conveyance to London, 
and whoily forgot my little adventure. 

-It was brought to my recollec¬ 


tion this afternoon through an incident on the 
roof of a stage-coach, by which I was tia- 
velling to Rochester with seveial passen¬ 
gers ; all of whom, except myself, alighted 
at Gravesend. One of them, a Londoner, 
a young man of facetious remark, let an 
expression or two fall, from whence 1 
strongly suspected he was the husband of 
Lobski* s mother. He had sat next to me I 
at the back of the coach, and had been 
particularly anxious respecting the safety 
of a goose—w hereon, as I learned, he an¬ 
ticipated to regale with his wife in honour 
of Michaelmas. Being left to pursue the 
short remainder of my journey alone, I was 
proceeding to change my place in the rear, 
for the box-seat, when 1 perceived a letter, 
with the direction so obliterated by friction, 
as to be undecipherable. There could not 
be a doubt that it had escaped from rny 
late fellow-traveller’s pocket; and as it 
seemed to have been left to me as an air- 
loom, I took the liberty to examine the 
contents. It was from his wife; and in 
connection with my surmise, and with my 
beach-story, it furnished the strongest pre¬ 
sumptive evidence that I had rightly con¬ 
jectured his identity. He was an entire 
stranger to the driver; and I am scarcely 
sorry that the absence of all clue to his ad¬ 
dress at Gravesend, or in London, allows 
me a fair opportunity of laying before the 
readers of the Table Book a sprightly epis¬ 
tle, from a mother who leaves her home in 
the metropolis to visit Gravesend, as a 
watering place, with a couple of young 
children whom she loves, and with the 
pleasure of expecting and receiving an 
occasional pop-visit from her good man. 

Cory of the Letter. 

Gravesend, Thursday aft. 

Dear Henry, — We arrived here after 
a very pleasant voyage in one of the 
Calais steamers. Lobski, as usual, was, 
and is, quite at home. He really appears 
to be the flower of Gravesend. He spars 
with all the sailors who notice him, which 
are not a few—nods to the old women— 
halloes at the boys, and runs off with their 
hoops—knocks at the windows with his 
stick—hunts the fowls and pigs, because 
they run away from him—and admires the 
goats, because they are something new 
As we walk on the beach he looks out fa 
“ anoner great ship”—kisses the little girls 
—thumps Mary—and torments me. The 
young ones in the road call him “Cock 
Robin.” He is, indeed , what E. D. calls 
“ a tainted >ne.” 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Up^n first coming down I immediately 
commenced inquiries about the bathing, 
ind found some who talked of mud-rubbing. 
l\o one gave it such a character as Mrs. E. 
—I met with a lady on the beach, who 
told me she had brought a little boy of hers 
down last year to be mud-rubbed; but after 
a month’s stay his legs were no way im¬ 
proved—she then bathed him for a month, 
and the boy is a fine little fellow. I con¬ 
sidered, as Lob,ski’s legs reglly brought us 
here, it was best to bathe him at once ; and 
accordingly paid 5s. 3 d. for a month, other¬ 
wise it is Is. each time. Since going in, 
which he took pretty well, considering the 
instantaneous plunge, he calls to me when 
he looks at the sea, “ There is my tub, Ma.” 
; lie was rather frightened, and thought he 
fell into the water, but not near so much, 
the guide says, a s most children are. 
Harry is getting fatter every day, and very 
jealous of Bob when with me—but, out of 
doors, the little fellow glories in seeing 
L bski run on before. They grow very 
fond of each other. 

Monday will be a grand day here in 
choosing the mayor, and at night a mock 
election takes place, with fireworks, &c.— 
and this day month Greenwich-fair is held 
in the fields. The people here are any 
thing but sociable, and “ keep themselves 
to themselves.” The sailors are the most 
obliging, and very communicative—they 
usually carry Bob over any dirty place or so 
for me—and, to tell the truth, 1 have almost 
changed my mind from a parson to asailoi. 

If you can , do come down on Sunday ; 
but, by no means, empty-handed, or rather, 
empty-pocketed—my cash is now very low, 
though I have been as saving as possible. 
1 find no alteration in the price of provi¬ 
sions except potatoes and milk—every thing 
lse I think is as in London. I should like 
ome pens, paper, and a book or two—for 
one, the Duchess D’Orleans’ Court of Louis 
Jthe XIV., I think it is—and any thing, as 

poor Mrs.- says, tcery amusing; for 

the evenings are “ cursedly ” dull—stop— 
it’s your own word—and as I have said it, 
it may relieve a little of this evening's 
ennui. Whatever you bring you can put 
into the little portmanteau, which I shall 
find very useful when we return. Bob 
and Harry send you a kiss apiece, and 
mine “ I will twist up in a piece of paper, 
and bring with me when 1 come to town.” 

I This is a scribble—but Bob is asleep on 
my lap. 

I am, my dear Harry, 

Youis, very affectionately, 

* * * * * * * * * 


N.B. Please to send me word the day of 
the month, and what’s o'clock. 

Can you, Mr. Editor, imagine any thing 
more expressive of loneliness, and desire for 
intelligence, than this young wife’s capital 
N.B., with the execratory citation from her 
husband’s vocabulary—or more sportively 
affectionate than the “ twist up ” of hei 
kiss, with “ Bob” Lobski asleep on her lap. 
I like a letter, and a letter writer of this 
sort mightily: one with a fearless and 
strong expression of feeling — as in the 
epithet about the dull evenings, which 
a female can scarcely extenuate, except 
by such a confession and assignment to 
its right owner, implying its impropriety, 
as this female makes. How oddly, and 
yet how well, her fondness for reading 
and her domestic management collocate— 
the Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. 
and the price of provisions. How natural 
is her momentary hesitation between mud¬ 
rubbing and bathing. Then the instant 
determination, so essential when there is 
no time to spare, marks such “decision 
of character i — even the author of the 
excellent essay on that noble quality would 
admire it. I presume that “ Lobski” may 
be rickety ; and I take this opportunity of 
observing, on the authority of a medical 
friend, that town-bred children, who eat 
profusely of sugar, and are pampered with 
sweets, usually are. Sugar has the etiect 
of softening the bones, and causes the rick¬ 
ets : it should form no part of the food of 
rickety children, or only in a small degree ; 
and such children should be allowed and 
encouraged to eat common salt freely. 

To return however to the letter. — I 
should really like to know the secret of the 
allusion respecting the “ parson” and the 
“ sailor,” so naturally called forth by the 
playful .services of the tars; which, I have 
observed, aie ever exerted on such occa¬ 
sions, and remind one of the labours of 
Hercules with the distaff. Her account of 
Lobski’s “ animated nature” is so pretty 
and true a sketch of boyish infancy, that 
you may perceive the hand of the mo¬ 
ther in evety line. In the anticipation 
of the mayoralty show and the fair, and 
the unsociableness of Gravesend society, I 
think I can trace something of the woman. 
I hope she may live to see her boys “ good 
men and true,” gladdening her heart by 
fearless well-doing. She must look well to 
Lobski:—he’s a “Pickle.’’ It is in the 
power of a mother to effect more in the 
formation of a child’s early disposition 
than the father. 


036 


















TIIE TABLE BOOK. 


Lastly, that you may he assured of the 
genuineness of the letter 1 found, and 
have copied, the original accompanies this 
communication to your publishers ; with 
authority, if its ownership he claimed, to 
deliver it to the claimant, on the production 
of a line in the handwriting of the epistle 
itself. 

I am, Sir, &c. 

CURIjO So. 


“ POOR BILLY w -.” 

For the Table Book. 

Some years ago my pen was employed to 
attempt the sketch of a Character, but ap¬ 
prehending that the identity might be too 
strong and catch his eye,—lie was my 
fi iend, and a great reader of “ periodicals”— 

I desisted. I meant to say nothing ill- 
natured, yet I feared to offend a harmless 
and inoffensive man, and I destroyed what 
had given me an hour’s amusement. The 
reason no longer exists—death has re¬ 
moved him. Disease and a broken spirit, 
occasioned by commercial misfortunes and 
imprudences, weighed him down, and t..e 
little sphere in which he used to shine has 
lost its chief attraction. 

-\\ h a t a man he was !—of the pure, 

real London cut. Saint Paul s was stamped 
on his forehead. He was the great oracle 
of a certain coffee-house, net a hundred 
'niles from Gray’s Inn; where he never 
-lined but in one box, nor placed himself 
hut in one situation. His tavern dignities 
were astounding—the waiters trembled at 
his apploach—his ordeis were obeyed with 
the nicest precision. For some years he 
was the king of the room—he was never 
deposed, nor did he ever abdicate, llis 
mode of calling for his pint of wine, and 
die bankrupt part of the Gazette, had a 
peculiar character past describing. I have 
now and then seen a “ rural, in the same 
coffee-room, attempt the thing —but my 
friend was “ Hyperion to a satyr. 

-I have him in my eye now—tra¬ 
versing to the city and back—regulating 
his watch by the lloyal Exchange clock 
daily ; and daily boasting he had the best 

goer ” in England. Like his watch, he 
was a curious piece of mechanism. lie 
seldom quitted London, for he was per¬ 
suaded every thing w'ould “ stand stil. 
in his absence. It seemed, as though he 
imagined that St. Paul s clock would not 
strike—that the letters by the general post 
would not be delivered. — Was he not 


right ? To me, the city was a “ void * 
without him.- 

-What a referee he was! lie would 

tell you the price of stocks on any past 
day; and dilate for hours on the interesting 
details in the charters of the twelve city 
companies. lie had a peculiar mode of 
silencing an antagonist who ventured to 
obtrude an opinion—by adducing a scriptu¬ 
ral maxim, “ Study to be quiet," and “ mind 
your own business and now and then a 
few Latin mottos, obtained from the Tablet 
of Memory, would be used with great feli¬ 
city. His observations were made in an 
elevated tone, thev commanded attention— 
he used to declare that “ money was mo¬ 
ney ;” that “ many people were great 
foolsand that “ bankrupts could not be 
expected to pay much.” After a remark of 
this kind he would take a pinch of snuff, 
with grave self-complacency, and throw his 
snuffbox on the table with inimitable im¬ 
portance—a species of dignilied ingenuity 
that lived and died with him. llis medical 
panacea was a certain “ vegetable sirup,” 
whereoti he would descant, by the hour 
together, as a specific for all human mala¬ 
dies, and affirm “ your physicians and 
apothecaries—mere humbugs !”- 

Then, he would astound the coffee-room 
by declaring he once bid the king of Spain 
i. 700,000 for the island of Porto Rico— 
this was his grandest effort, and if his ear 
ever caught the question “Who is he?” 
uttered by a country listener, his thrown- 
back shoulders and expansion of chest be- 
trayed the delight he felt, that his bounce 
had been overheard. 

Now and then, on a Saturday, he would 
break his city chains, and travel to “ The 
Spaniard ” at Ilamj stead for a dinner, but 
no argument or persuasion could get him 
to Richmond. His reply was always the 
same—“ the hotels at Richmond employ 
too much capital.” He was an economist. 

In his pleasantest humours, and he had 
few unpleasant ones, after dining with him 
I have sometimes importuned him to pay 
the ichole bill; his answer was peculiar arid 
conclusive; “ My good friend,” said he, ! 
“ if I had adopted the plan of paying for 
others, I might have kept company with all 
tne princes and nobles in the land, instead 
of plebeians like you.” 

llis Sunday, tilt one o'clock, was passed 
in “spelling the newspapers;” after that 
he walked on the north side of Lincoln’s 
Inn Fields, with Ins hands behind him, till 
three—he then entered Lincoln’s Inn cha¬ 
pel, and returned to boiled beef and suet 
pudding at five, which were always brought 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


to him first.—If an old friend or two drop¬ 
ped in. his happiness was complete. 

He was a philosopher too, at least he in¬ 
dulged in a sort of philosophy, and I am 
not sure that it was not a good sort, although 
not a very elevated or poetical one. He 
evinced a disregard for life. The sooner 
“ we are all dead the better ” was one of 
his favourite phrases. And now he is dead. 
—Peace to his ashes! 

This is the only tablet raised to his me¬ 
mory; the inscription is feeble, but it has 
the novelty of truth, and may occasion 
some of his many acquaintances to remem¬ 
ber the quaintness and eccentricities of 
“ Poou Billy W-.” 

W. H. 


ABORIGINES. 

This word is explained in every diction¬ 
ary, English, Latin, or French, as a general 
name for the indigenous inhabitants of a 
country; when in reality it is the proper 
I name of a peculiar people of Italy, who 
I were not indigenous, but supposed to have 
been a colony of Arcadians. The error 
has been founded chiefly on the supposed 
derivation of the word from ab origine. 
Never (except in Swift’s ludicrous work) 
was a more eccentric etymology—a prepo¬ 
sition, with its governed case, made plural 
by the modern final s l The university of 
Oxford, some years ago, added to this sole¬ 
cism by a public prize poem on the Abo¬ 
riginal Britons. 

The most rational etymology of the word 
seems to be a compound of the Greek 
words %r«, fyof, and yives, a race of moun¬ 
taineers. So Virgil calls them, 

“— Genus indocile ac dispersura montibus altis.” 

It seems more probable, that the name of 
the oldest settlers in Italy should have a 
Greek than a Latin derivation. 

The preceding remarks are by a late 
poet-laureate, Mr. Pye, who concludes by 
inquiring, what should we say of the ety¬ 
mologist who were to deduce the name of 
an ancient British tribe from the modern 
English ? 

! _ 


TASTING DAYS. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Few men enjoy, or deserve better 
iving than the citizens of London. When 


they are far on the journey of life, and have 
acquired a useful fame in their respective 
companies, their elevation is delightful 
and complacent. Not a subject is pro¬ 
posed, nor a matter of reference considered, 
but, as a living author has observed, “ it 
must begin or finish with a dinner.” Thu* 
originated a most exquisite anticipation to ' 
the select few, the “ Tasting Day,”—a 
day which precedes all good general eating 
and drinking days. Mr. Abernethy (who, by 
the by, is not afraid of dish or glass) may 
lecture profitably on abstinence, and the 
“ Lancet” may breathe a satirical vein, yet, 
in compliance with social fellowship and 
humane gourmanderie, London citizens 
proudly patronise the preceding and suc¬ 
ceeding engagements of “ Tasting Days.” 

I am, sir, 

Your brother cit, 

An Old Taster. 

CURIOUS SIGN. I 

For the Table Book. 

“ A little learning is a dangerous thing.” 

So said Pope, and so say I. At Halton 
East, near Skipton-in Craven, the following 
inscription arrests the attention of every 
passer-by :— 

Watkinson’s 

Acadami 

Whatever man bus done man may do 
Also 

Dealer in Groceries, 

See. 

Tim. T-. 


ORDERS TO MARCH. 

The following parody, on a stanza of the 
“ Blue Bonnets over the Border,” is put j 
forth, as an advertisement, by a hatter, at 
Brighton, named March. 

March ! March ! has the best hats to sell. 

Try him, you’ll find him no wily deceiver; 

March !—march! go and he’ll use you well. 

His is the warehouse for buying a beaver. 

Come then, my masters, 

Doff your old castors, 

Ragged and torn, or howe’er in disorder: 

For a new topper, a 
Round hat or opera, 

March is the man, so give him an order. 

March ! Marrn ! has the best hats to sell. && 













































€i)e £room-makfi"6 at JMjule}) Common, &urrtp. 

A homely picture of a homely place. 

Where rustic labour plies its honest toil, 

Anil gains a competence. 


On a fine summei : day I alighted, with 
my friend W-, from the roof of a stage¬ 

coach at Croydon, for a by-way walk, in 
a part unknown to both. We struck to 
the eastward through Addiscombe — it 
is scarcely a village, and only remarkable 
for the East India Company having seated 
it with a military establishment; which, as 
peaceable persons, we had no desire to 
see, though we could not help observing 
some cannon in a meadow, as smooth- 
shaven, and with as little of nature-like 
aspect, as a drill-sergeant’s face. Further 
onward we met a well-mounted horseman, 
whom some of my old readers may easily 
! imagine 1 could not fail to remember— 


♦ 

“ mine host ” of the “ Swan ” at West 
Wickham—the recognition was mutual 
and being in search of an adventure, I 
asked him for a direction to any little pub¬ 
lic-house within a mile or two, that was 
worth looking at on account of its antiquity 
and rustic appearance. lie despaired ol 
any thing “ absolutely *' of the kind in the 
neighbourhood ; but, from his description 
of what he thought might be “ something " 
Sear it, we took a lane to the left, and soon 
came to the house. Like too many of oui 
ancient churches it had been “ repaired 
and beautified ”—deprived of every thing 
venerable—and was as unpicturesqu© as 
the overseers of the reparations could 


THE TABLE BOOiL 




















































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


it We found better entertainment within 
than without—a cheerful invitation to the 
bar, where we had a cool glass of good ale 
j with a biscuit, and the sight of a fine healthy 
family as they successively entered for 
something or other that was wanted. Having 
refreshed and exchanged “ good-morning ” 
with the good-natured proveditors of “ good 
entertainment for man and horse,” wt 
turned to the left, and at a stone's throw 
crossed into a lane, having a few labourers’ 
cottages a little way along on the right, and 
soon came to the Broom-maker’s, represented 
in the engraving. 

We had a constant view all the way up 
the lane, from beyond the man climbing 
the ladder, of the flickering linen at the 
point of the rod waving on the broom- 
stack. The flag was erected by the labourers 
on the carrying of the last shoulder-load 
of the rustic pile—an achievement quite as 
important to the interests of the Broom- 
maker, as the carrying of Seringapatam to 
the interests of the te Honourable Com¬ 
pany.” 

Having passed the Broom-maker’s, which 
stands at the corner of the lane we had 
come up, and being then in the road across 
Shirley Common towards Addington, we 
interchanged expressions of regret that we 
had not fallen in with any thing worth no¬ 
tice. A look-back induced a. halt; we 
leturned a few steps, and taking seats at 
the angle on the bank, I thought I perceived 
“capabilities,” in the home-view before our 
eyes, for a Table Book notice. The loaded 
man, near the pile of poling, is represented 
proceeding towards a spot at some thirty 
yards distance, where a teamed waggon- 
frame was standing. It belonged to *he 
master of the place—a tall, square-snom- 
dered, middle-aged, active man, who looked 
as one having authority—who laboured, 
and was a master of labourers. He, and 
another man, and a lad, were employed, 
“ all w'thout hurry or care,” in loading 
the wain with poling. As I stood observ¬ 
ing their progress he gave me a frank 
“ Good-day, sir!” and I obtained some in¬ 
formation from him respecting his business. 
His name is on his carts “ John Bennett, 
Shirley Common.” He calls himself a 
“ Broom-maker and Wood-dealer,” and he 
has more the character of a Wood-cutter 
than the figure of the Wood-man in the 
popular print. He and his men cut the 
materials for broom-making chiefly from 
the neighbouring common, and the wood 
he deals in from adjacent woods and copses. 
He sells the greater part of his brooms to 
hopkeepers and oth^r oonsuroars in Streat- 


ham and Camberwell. Much of Lis poling 
is sent farther off. A good deal, he told 
me, had gone to the duke of Devonshire 
for fencing; the load then preparing was 
for like use on a farm at Streatham, belong¬ 
ing to Mr. Hoare, of the Golden Cross, 

Charing Cross. He eyed W-seated 

on the bank, sketching the spot, and said, 
that as soon as he had finished loading the 
wain, he would show us what was “ going 
on in-doors.” Accordingly when he had 

concluded he walked with me to W-, 

who, by that time, had nearly finished. 
Seeing what had been effected in that way, 
he had “ a sort of notion that the gentleman 
might like, perhaps, to take off an old 
broom-maker, then at work, inside — as 
curious an old chap as a man might walk 
a summer’s day without seeing—one that 
nobody could make either head or tail of— 
what you call an original .” 

W-and I were as desirous of some¬ 

thing new as were the ancient inhabitants 
of Athens ; and in search of it we entered 
the broom-manufactory — a small, warm, 
comfortable barn, with a grateful odour in 
it from the heath and birch-wood. Four or 
five persons were busy at work. Foremost 
within the door was the unmistakeable old 
original.” Like his fellow-workmen he 
wore a leathern apron, and a heavy leathern 
sleeve on the left arm ; and with that hand 
and arm he firmly held and compressed the* 
hi.uth into round bundles, of proper con¬ 
sistency and size, and strongly bound them I 
with the other. He was apparently between ! 
sixty and seventy years of age, and his 
labour, which to a young man seemed light, 
was to him heavy, for it required muscular 
strength. There was some difficulty in 
getting him to converse. He was evidently 
suspicious; and, as he worked, his appre- | 
hensions quickened him to restlessness and 
over-exertion. To “ take him off” while 
thus excited, and almost constantly in a 
bending posture, was out of the question. 

I therefore handed him a jug of his master’s 
home-brewed, and told him our wish. His 
countenance lighted up, and I begged him 
to converse with me for a few minutes, i 
and to look me full in the face; I also 
assured him of the “ wherewithal ” for a 
jug of ale at night. He willingly entered 
into the compact, but the inquietude naturaj 
to his features was baffling to the hand that 
held the pencil. By this time the rumour 
that “ Old Davy ” was having his head 
“ taken off” brought his master’s wife, and 
her daughters and sons, from the cottage, 
and several workmen from another out¬ 
house, to witness the execution. Oppo- 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


site to him was W-with his sketch¬ 

book ; his desire for a “ three-quarter ” 

1 view of the “ original ” occasioned me to 
seat myself on a heap of birch sideways, 
that the old man's face might be diiected 
to me in the required position. The group 
around us was numerous and differently 
interested : some kept their eyes upon “ Old 
Davy ;” others upon me, while I talked to 
him; as many as could command a view of 
the sketch-book were intent upon the pro¬ 
gress of the portrait; and a few, who were 
excluded, endeavoured on tiptoe, and with 
outstretched necks, to obtain peeps at what 
was going on. W. steadily employed on 
the likeness—the old man “ sitting,” cun¬ 
ningly smiling, looking unutterably wise at 
me, while W-was steadily endeavour¬ 

ing for the likeness—the surrounding spec¬ 
tators, and the varied expressions of their 
various faces—the gleams of broken light 
from the only opening that admitted it, 
the door-way—the broad masses of shadow, 
and the rich browns of the shining birch 
and spreading heath, rudely and unequally 
piled, formed a picture which I regretted 

that W- was a prominent figure in, 

because, engaged as he was, he could nei¬ 
ther see nor sketch it. 

This old labourer’s eccentricity was ex¬ 
ceedingly amusing. He said his name was 
David Boxall; he knew not, or would not 
know, either where he was born, or where 
he had worked, or any thing more of him¬ 
self, than that there he was; “ and now,” 
said he, “ make of me what you can.” 
“ Ah!” said his master, in a whisper, “ if 
you can make anything of him, sir, it’s more 
than we have been able to do.” The old 
fellow had a dissenting “ humph ” for every 
thing advanced towards him—except the 
ale-jug. The burthen of his talk was—he 
thought about nothing, cared about nothing 
—not he—why should he? Yet he was a 
perpetual inquirer. Craftily leering his 
quick-glancing eye while he asked a ques¬ 
tion, he waited, with a sarcastic smile, for an 
answer; and when given, out came his 
usual gruff' “ humph,” and “ how do you 
knoio ?" He affected to listen to explana¬ 
tions, while he assumed a knowing grin, to 
persuade his hearers that he knew better. 
His knowledge, however, was incommuni- 
I cable, and past all finding out. He conti¬ 
nually indulged in “ hum !’ and “ ha! and 
a sly look ; and these, to his rustic auditors, 
were signs of wisdom. He was what they 
called a “knowing old chap.” He had 
been the best broom-maker in the manu¬ 
factory, and had earned excellent w'ages. 
When I saw him he was infirm, and did 


not get more than fourteen or sixteen shil¬ 
lings a week. Mr. Bennett’s men are paid 
piece-work, and can easily earn a guinea 
week. After the sketching was over, and 
his people had retired to their labour, we 
walked with him through his little garden 
of fruit-trees and vegetables to another shed, 
where they fashioned broom-handles, and 
some common husbandry implements of 
wood. On recrossing the garden he ga¬ 
thered us cherries from the trees, and dis¬ 
coursed on his hives of bees by the hedge- 
side. Having given something to his men 
to spend in drink, and to “ Old Davy" some¬ 
thing especially, we brought off’ his head, 
which would cost more to exhibit than a 
better subject, and therefore it has since 
rested without disturbance. 

From the Broom-maker’s at Shirley 
Common, we had a pleasant walk into Ad¬ 
dington, where there is a modern-built 
palace of the archbishop of Canterbury, 
with extensive old gardens and large hot¬ 
houses, and several good houses. We had 
passed Mr. Maberly’s seat and grounds on 
our way. A turn in the road gave us a 
view of Addington church in a retired 
spot, beyond a row of town-built dwellings, 
with little gardens in front, and a shop or 
two. The parish clerk lives in one of 
them. Upon request he accompanied us, 
with the keys, to the church, of ancient struc¬ 
ture, lately trimmed up, and enclosed by a 
high wall and gates. There was nothing 
within worth seeing, except a tomb with 
disfigured effigies, and a mutilaled ill-kept 
register-book, which, as it belonged to the 
immediate parish of the archbishop, seem¬ 
ed very discreditable. The “ Cricketers,” 
nearly opposite to the church, accommo¬ 
dated us with as good refreshment as the 
village afforded, in a capacious parlour. The 
house is old, with a thatched roof. \\ e 
found it an excellent resting-place ; every 
way better, as an inn, than we could have 
expected in a spot so secluded. We had 
rambled and loitered towards it, and felt 
ourselves more wearied when about to de¬ 
part than we wished ; and, as a farmer’s 
family cart stood at the door, with the farmer 
himself in it, I proposed to W. to attempt 
gaining a lift. The farmer’s son, who drove 
it, said, that it was going our way, and that 
a ride was at our service. The driver got 
up in front, W. followed, and when I had 
achieved the climbing, I found him in con¬ 
flict with a young calf, which persisted in 
licking his clothes. He was soon relieved 
from the inconvenience, by its attentions, in 
like manner, being shifted to me. The ola 
farmer was a little more th^n il fresh,” ana 


641 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


his son a little less. We had a laughable jolt 
upstanding, along a little frequented road ; 
and during our progress I managed to bind 
the calf to good behaviour. Leaving West 
Wickham on our left, and its pleasant 
church and manor-house on the right, we 
ascended Keston Common, and passed over 
it, as we had nearly all the way, in merry 
conversation with the old farmer, who 
dwelt with great glee on his youthful fame, 
as one of the best cricket-players in Kent. 
We alighted before we came to the “ Fox ” 
public-house, where our companions ac¬ 
cepted of a magnum of stiff grog in recom¬ 
pense for their civility. From thence we 
skirted llolwood, till we arrived at my old 
“ head-quarters, the “ Cross ” at Keston ; 
and there we were welcomed by “ mine 
host,” Mr. Young, and took tea. A walk to 
Bromley, and a stage from thence, brought 
us to “ the Elephant”—and so home. * 


THE WOOD FEAST. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—In the autumn it is customary at 
Templecoomb, a small village in Somerset¬ 
shire, and its neighbourhood, for the stew¬ 
ard of the manor to give a feast, called the 
“ Wood feast,” to farmers and other con¬ 
sumers that buy their wood for hurdles, 
rick-fasts in thatching, poles, spikes, and 
sundry other uses. 

When the lots are drawn in the copses, 
and each person has paid down his money, 
the feast is provided “ of the best,” and 
few attend it but go home with the hilarity 
which good cheer inspires. This annual 
treat has its uses; for the very recollection 
of the meeting of old friends and keeping 
of old customs gives an impetus to industry 
which generally secures for his lordship his 
tenants’ Wood money —most excellent fuel 
for the consumption of the nobility. 

I am, Sir, your constant leader, 

Sept. 1827. *, *, *. 


CHOOSING COMMON CONSTABLES. 

For the Table Book. 

It is annually the custom to hold a meet¬ 
ing, duly summoned, on Hartley Common, 
Wilts, for the choice of new constables for 
the hundreds of the county. Lots are cast 
for those who are to serve for the ensuing 
year; and afterwards the parties present 
adjourn to a house for refreshment, which 
costs each individual about seventeen shil¬ 
lings. This may almost be regarded as an 
equivalent for serving the office—the lots 
mostly fall on the absentees. 


(fiarrirfe Pap$. 

No. XXXVI. 

[From “ Love’s Dominion,” a Dramatic 
Pastoral,” by Richard Flecknoe, 1634.] j 

Invocation to Silence. 

Still-born Silence, thou that art 
Floodgate of the deeper heart; 

Offspring of a heavenly kind ; 

Frost o’ th’ mouth and thaw o’ th’ mind ; 
Secresy’s Confident, and he 
That makes religion Mystery ; 

Admiration’s speaking’st tongue,— 

Leave thy desart shades, among 
Reverend Hermits’ hallow’d cells. 

Where retir’d’st Devotion dwells : 

With thy Enthusiasms come ; 

Seize this Maid, and strike her dumb. 

Fable. 

Love and Death o’ th’ way once meeting. 

Having past a friendly greeting. 

Sleep their weary eye-lids closing. 

Lay them down, themselves reposing ; 

When this fortune did befall ’em, 

Which after did so much appal ’em ; 

Love, whom divers cares molested. 

Could not sleep ; but, whilst Death rested. 

All away in haste he posts him. 

But his haste full dearly costs him ; 

For it chanced, that, going to sleeping. 

Both had giv’n their darts in keeping 
Unto Night; who (Error’s Mother) 

Blindly knowing not th’ one from th’ other. 

Gave Love Death’s, and ne’er perceiv’d it. 

Whilst as blindly Love receiv’d it: 

Since which time, their darts confounding. 

Love now kills, instead of wounding; 

Death, our hearts with sweetness filling, 

Gently wounds, instead of killing. 


[From “ Andronicus,” a Tragedy, by Phi- 
lonax Lovekin, 1661.] 

Effect of Religious Structures on dif¬ 
ferent minds. 

Cratu. I grieve the Chapel was defaced; 'twa 
stately. 

Cleobulus. I love no such triumphant Churches— 
They scatter my devotion ; whilst my sight 
Is courted to observe their sumptuous cost, 

I find my heart lost in my eyes; 

Whilst that a holy horror seems to dwell 
Within a dark obscure and humble cell. 

Crato. But I love Churches, mount up to the skier 
For my devotion rises with their roof: 

Therein mv soul doth keav’n anticipate 


642 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


Song for Sleep. 

Come, Somnus, with thy potent charms. 
And seize this Captive in thy arms; 

And sweetly drop on every sense 
Thy soul-refreshing influence. 

His sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. 
Unto the peace do thou bind fast.— 

On working brains, at school all day. 

At night thou dost bestow a play. 

And troubled minds thou dost set free ; 
Thou mak’st both friends and foes agree: 
All are alike, who live by breath. 

In thee, and in thy brother Death. 


From “ Don Quixote,” a Comedy, in three 
parts, by Thomas D’Urfey, 1694.] 

Dirge, at the hearse of Chrysostom. 

Sleep, poor Youth, sleep in peace. 

Relieved from love and mortal care ; 

Whilst we, that pine in life’s disease, 
Uncertain-bless’d, less happy are. 

Couch’d in the dark and silent grave. 

No ills of fate thou now can’st fear ; 

In vain would tyrant Power enslave. 

Or scornful Beauty be severe. 

Wars, that do fatal storms disperse. 

Far from thy happy mansion keep ; 

Earthquakes, that shake the universe. 

Can’t rock thee into sounder sleep. 

With all the charms of peace possest. 

Secure from life’s torment or pain. 

Sleep, and indnlge thyself with rest; 

Nor dream thou e’er shalt rise again.* 

C. L. 


ALSOP IN RUSSIA. 

Peter the Great’s Summer Garden. 

Schraeder, a celebrated Swedish gardener, 
was employed by the czar to execute a plan 
he had approved of, for the gardens of his 
summer palace. The work was already 
far advanced, and among the different parts 
that were finished, were two large divi¬ 
sions adjoining to the principal avenue, 
opposite to each other, enclosed with a 
hedge, and covered with turf. The czar, 
who came often to see the progress of his 
undertaking, on observing the two grass- 
plots, conceived a design of converting this 
place of mere amusement into a kind of 


* i. c. “ may thy sleep be so profound, as not even 
by dreams of a resurrection to be disturbed:” the 
Anguage of passion, not of sincere profaneness. 


school. “ I am very well satisfied,” sa:a 
the czar to the gardener, “ with your per¬ 
formance, as well as with the variety and 
beauty of the several divisions that are 
finished : however, you must not be angry 
if I change the form of these two spots of 
ground. I should wish that the persons 
who walk in the garden might find the 
means of cultivating their minds; but in 
what way can we contrive this V* 

“ Sire,” said the gardener, “ I know no 
other than to put books on the seats, pro¬ 
tected from the rain, that those who walk 
in the garden may read when they sit 
down.” 

“ This is not far from my meaning,” 
said the czar, laughing, “ but, books in a 
public garden ! that will never do. Ano¬ 
ther idea has struck me. I should like to 
erect statues here, representing the different 
subjects of iEsop’s fables. For this pur¬ 
pose the ground must be differently laid 
out, that the division of the several parts 
may correspond with the fables I am 
speaking of.” 

Schraeder executed his orders with all 
possible intelligence and despatch, and 
much to the satisfaction of the emperor. 

The garden consisted of four squares, 
with walks in the form of labyrinths lead¬ 
ing to them. The angles were ornamented 
with figures, representing different subjects 
from iEsop’s fables, with a jet d'eau con¬ 
cealed in a little basin, under moss or 
ruins, and surrounded with shells brought 
from lake Ilmen, or that of Novogorod. 
Most of the animals were as large as life, 
and of lead, gilt. They ejected water from 
their mouths, according to their various 
attitudes. In this way the walks were 
ornamented with sixty fables, forming as 
many jets d'eau. At the entrance was a 
staiue of iEsop, likewise of lead, and gilt. 

The czar very naturally supposed that 
few people would be able to discover the 
meaning of these figures, and that fewer 
would comprehend the instruction they 
were designed to convey. His majesty 
therefore ordered a post to be placed near 
each of them, and to these posts sheets of 
tin were fastened, on which the fables and 
their morals were written in the Russian 
language. 

This place was the czar’s favourite walk; 
in its shades he often passed whole hours, 
recreating himself among these creatures oi 
his creation. 

This garden was afterwards nearly de¬ 
stroyed by a terrible tempest and inunda¬ 
tion. The trees it contained were torn up 
by the roots, and the green hedges and 


643 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


figures of animals damaged, either by the 
fall of the timber or by the elements. The 
trees were raised, put into their places 
again, and propped up; but as it was not 
possible to repair the injuries done to the 
figures, the czar’s “ summer garden ” ceased 
u> be a “ garden of instruction.” 

LOVE OF GARDENS 
In distinguished Men. 

Juvenal represents Lucan reposing in 
a garden.* Tasso pictures Rinaldo sitting 
beneath the shade in a flagrant meadow : 
Virgil describes Anchises seated beneath 
sweet-scented bay-trees ; and Eneas, as 
reclining, remote from all society, in a 
deep and winding valley.f Gassendi, 
who ingrafted the doctrine of Galileo on 
the theory of Epicurus, took not greater 
pleasure in feasting his youthful imagina¬ 
tion by gazing on the moon, than Cyrus, 
in the cultivation of flowers.—“ I have 
measured, dug, and planted the large 
garden, which I have at the gate of Baby¬ 
lon/’ said that prince; “ and never, when 
my health permit, do I dine until I have 
laboured two hours in my garden : if there 
is nothing to be done, 1 labour in my 
orchard.” Cyrus is also said to have 
i planted all the Lesser Asia. Ahasuerus 
was accustomed to quit the charms of the 
| banquet to indulge the luxury of his 
| bower : \ and the conqueror of Mithridates 
enjoyed the society of- his friends, and the 
" ine of Falernium, in the splendid gar¬ 
dens, which were an honour to his name. 
Dion gave a pleasure-garden to Speucip- 
pus as a mark of peculiar regard.§ Lin¬ 
naeus studied in a bower: Buffon in iiis 
summer-house; and when Demetrius Po- 
liorcetes took the island of Rhodes, he 
found Protogenes at his palette, painting 
in his arbour. Petrarch was never hap¬ 
pier than when indulging the innocent 
pleasures of his garden.—“ I have made 
myself two,” says he, in one of his epis- 


* The epithet he applies to hortis is sufficiently 
curious. The scholiast cites Pliny, 1. xxxvi. c. 1. 2. 
The style of the Roman gardens in Trajan’s time is 
expressively marked; 

Contentus fama jaceat Lucanus in hortis 
Marmureis. Juv. Sat. vii. 1. 79. 

It was very well said by one of the first women of ihe 
present age, (Mrs. Grant,) that Darwin’s Botanic Garden 
is an Hesperian garden,glittering all over; the fruit 
gold, the l#»Ves silver, and the stems brass, 
t Eneid, lib. vi. 1. 679. lib. viii. 6. 9. 

$ Esther, vii. 7- Tissaphemes had a garden, much 
rwterublii g an English park, which he called Aletbiades. 
t Plutarch in Vit. Dion. 


ties; “ I do not imagine they are to be 
equalled in all the world : I should feel 
myself inclined to be angry with fortune, 
if there were any so beautiful out of Italy.” 

Many of the wisest and the best of men 
have signalized their love of gardens and 
shrubberies, by causing themselves to be 
buried in them ; a custom once in frequent 
piactice among the ancient Jews.* Plato 
was buried in the groves of Academus; j 
and sir William Temple, though he ex¬ 
pected to be interred in Westminster abbey, 
gave orders for his heart to be enclosed in 
a silver casket, and placed under a sun¬ 
dial, in that part of his garden immediately 
opposite the window of his library, from 
which he was accustomed to contemplate 
the beauties and wonders of the cieation, j 
in the society of a beloved sister, j- 


DUTCH ROYAL GARDEN 

AND SCHEVELING SCENERY. 

Described by ihe Deputation of the 
Caledonian Horticultural Society. i 

August 26, 1817. Late in the afternoon, 
we took a walk to the northward of the 
Hague, on the Amsterdam road, and en¬ 
tered a forest of large and ancient trees, by 
much the finest which we have seen on 
the continent, and evidently several cen¬ 
turies old. Many oaks, elms, and beeches 
were magnificent. Some of the oaks, at 
two feet from the ground, measured twelve 
feet in circumference, and had free and > 
clean boles to the height of about forty I 
feet. This wood, in all probability, gave || 
rise to the name of the city ; for huag (the 
Dutch for Hague) signifies thicket or wood, j 
It was oiiginally a seat of the counts of 
Holland, and is often to this day called 
Graaf’s Haag, or Earl’s Wood.} 

Although we had no guide, we easily 1 
found the palace called the “ House in the 
Wood,” about two miles distant from the 
Hague; and having inquired for the gar¬ 
dener, Mr. Jacobus Munts, we readily 
procured access to the royal garden. It is 
kept in good order, and is now arranged 
in what is here reckoned the English style, 
the old formal hedges, and fantastically 
shaped trees, having been in a great mea- 


* la the middle of the Campo Santo, whieh is the 
most ancient burying-place at Pisa, is a garden form¬ 
ed of earth, brought from the neighbourhood of Jeru 
Salem. 

t Philosophy of Nature. 

t Haag , hag, haigh, &c. are explaiued in the Every 
Dag- Book. Art. Hagbush-lane.—E d. 










































THE TABLE BOOK. 


sure removed. The grounds are now tra¬ 
versed by serpentine walks, laid with sand : 
these wind among groves of forest-trees, 
i which have never been subjected to the 
'shears; but the flexures are much too 
i regular. Water, as usual, is the only de¬ 
fence, or line of separation, from the con¬ 
terminous 1 * fields, or from the high road. 
These ditches, though broad, brimful, and 
kept tolerably clean, have a dull aspect. 
Shrubs and flowers are planted in small 
compartments, cut out in the grassy cover¬ 
ing of the lawn. The figures of these com¬ 
partments are different, circles, ovals, and 
descents. A bed of dahlias was now in 
flower, but presented nothing uncommon. 
Indeed, we learned that the collection had 
been procured fiom Antwerp only the year 
before. The plants in the borders and 
shrubberies were in general of the more 
common kinds; but some rarities also 
appeared. Among these the passiflora 
ccerulea was here displaying its gorgeous 
flowers in the shrubbery'; but we observed 
that it was contained in a pot sunk in the 
earth, and not well concealed. Rosa Penn- 
sylvanica was very abundant, and seemed 
not only to be healthy, but to produce its 
flowers freely. 

Close by the palace is a small green¬ 
house, erected in 1815 for the princess of 
Orange. It contains a few pretty good 
plants; but there is nothing becoming 
royalty either in the size of the house or 
the choice nature of the collection. Datura 
arhorea was now in flower, and filled the 
place with its odour; and the white variety 
of vinca rosea was in bloom. There are 
here no hot-houses for the forcing of fruit ; 
nor did there appear to be any thing re¬ 
markable among the hardy fruits cultivated 
in the garden. 

This garden at the House in the Wood, 
is the only one worth visiting at the Hague, 
with the exception perhaps of Mr. Fagel’s. 

I The Portland gardens, belonging to the 
Bentincks, though celebrated in former 
times, are now in a neglected and even 
ruinous condition. 

SCHEVELING. 

Avenues of Trees. 

August 27, 1817. Early this morning 
we walked towards the fishing village of 
Scheveling, by a grand avenue lined with 
trees, of which all Dutchmen are justly 
p»oud. The length of this avenue is nearly 


• Conterminous ; bordering.— Johnson. Ed. 


a mile and a half; and it is so straight and 
so level, that the village church very soon 
appeared at the termination of the vista 
next the sea. The tallest and finest trees 
are Dutch elm, abele, oak, and beech. 
Many of these are of great size, and have 
probably seen more than two centuries.* 
Sycamore, hornbeam, birch, and different 
species of willow, are occasionally inter- • 
spersed. There are properly three roads 
in this noble avenue : a central one for 
carriages, one for horsemen, and another 
for foot-passengers. The breadth of the 
plantation, on each side, is on an average 
about seventy feet. In some places, the 
old trees appear to have been cut down; 
hut their places are now supplied by others. 
Almost all the new-planted trees are white 
poplars, which are of rapid growth. 

Fishery—Fishing Vessels, &c. 

We breakfasted in the Hoff van Holland 
inn, the window's of which look out upon 
the ocean. In addition to the usual repast 
of coffee and rolls, a countryman of our 
own, whom we chanced here to meet, had 
shrimps served to breakfast, which had 
been shown to him all alive a few minutes 
before : by our desire, we had tong-vischen , 
or soles, fresh from the sea. While at : 
breakfast, we observed, that more than two 
dozen of small sloops, which we easily 
recognised to be fishing-busses, were mak- 1 
ing directly for the low sandy beach, al- | 
though it was at present a lee-shore, with 
a considerable surf. The sails were of 
various hues ; Isabella yellow, chocolate 
brown, and milk white; and this intermix¬ 
ture of colours, set off by the brilliancy of 
a clear morning sun, increased the pictu- j 
resque effect. Not a little to our surprise, | 
the crews did not shorten sail, till their i 
baiks were just involved among the w’aves 
and breakers; and in this odd situation, 
generally after taking the ground, we saw 
them deliberately cast anchor. The pro¬ 
priety of the shape given to the hulls of 
these busses, was now manifest to us; a 
small British-built sloop would have been 
in danger of breaking up, while they shoved 
along among the breakers in perfect secu¬ 
rity. Indeed, that Dutch vessels in gene¬ 
ral should, of design, be built strong or 
clumsy, and have their hulks well rounded 
below, can only appear surprising to those 
who have not witnessed the nature of the 


* I.e Long, indeed, puts this beyond doubt; for, 
writing in 1630, he describes this avenue as being then 
“ adorned with fine trees.” Kabinct van Outhaden, 
&c. published in 1732. 


■S45 














TTTE TABLE BOOK. 


11 


?eas which they have to navigate at home, 
where they must often take the ground, 
and where they not unfrequentlv sail right 
against the shore. As soon as the anchors 
were cast, the boatmen, wading up to the 
middle in the waves, brought out the fish 
on their shoulders ; the sands were covered 
with persons of both sexes and of all ages, 
who began to carry off the cargoes, in broad 
| baskets, on their heads. The principal 
kinds of fish were plaice, turbot, sole, 
skate, and thornback; a very few cod and 
smelts made up the list. The Dutch gave 
the name sc/tol to our plaice: and our S ok- 
they call tong. Their name for the smelt 
is spiering ; which nearly approaches that 
by which this little fish is distinguished in 
the Edinburgh market, viz. spirling. 

Coast—Fishwomen—Cart Dogs. 

A continuous broad and high bank of 
sand lines the coast as far as we could sec, 
and forms the powerful protection of this 
part of Holland against the inroads of th 
ocean. Without this provision of nature 
the country would be inundated by ever 
extraordinary tide and gale; for it may Dt 
truly said, “ the broad ocean leans against 
the Jand.” On the sand-hills, tha same 
kind of plants prevail as in similar situa¬ 
tions in England ; sea-holly and buckthorn, 
usparago and Galium verum , with sea-mar- 
ran, arnndo armaria, which last is encou¬ 
raged here, being found very useful in 
binding the sand. In some places wheat- 
straw had been dibbled in, as at Ostend, 
in order to promote the same object. Con¬ 
sidering Scheveling as a fishing-village, we 
were greatly pleased with it: it was ex¬ 
tremely neat and clean, and formed a per¬ 
fect contrast with our Newhaven and Fish- 
errow,* the lanes of which are generally 
encumbered with all sorts of filth. We 
must confess, too, that in tidiness of dress 
and urbanity of manners, the fishwomen of 
Scheveling are equally superior to those of 
the Scottish villages just mentioned. 

rv* we returned to the Hague, numbers 
of the inhabitants were also on their way to 
the fish-market, some carrying baskets of 
fish on their heads, and others employing 
three or four dogs to convey the fish in 
small light carts/ We had read in books, 
of these draught dogs being well used, and 
fat and sleek; but we regret to say, that 
those which we saw were generally poor 
half-starved looking animals, bearing no 

• Two small towns on the shore of the Frith of 
Forth, near Edinburgh, chiefly inhabited by fishermen 
ud their families. 


equivocal marks of ill usage. The diligence 
with which they sped their way to town, 
with their cargoes, in a sultry day, with 
tongues lolling to the ground, seemed to 
entitle them to better treatment. 

FISH-MARKET—STORKS 

We traced the steps of some of out 
Scheveling companions to the fish-market. 
As might be expected, the market proved 
commodious and clean, and well supplied 
vith water. Salmon was pretty common ; 
carp was plentiful; and a single John Dory 
and a single sturgeon appeared on a stall. 
At some seasons, we believe, sturgeons are 
abundant, being taken in numbers at the 
mouths of the Rhine, when about to ascend 
that river. Four tame storks were stalking 
up and down in the market. They were 
k 7t full plumage; and did not appear to 
.uave been pinioned, so as to disable them 
jTom dying. Their food consists wholly of 
the garbage which they pick up about the 
fish-stalls. A small house, like a dog’s 
kennel, is appropriated to their use; for 
the s*ork seems to be held as sacred by the 
Dutch as by the Mahomedans.* 


ittttbaelma#. 

CRABBING FOR HUSBANDS 
To the Editor. 

Sir,—At this season “ village maidens ** 
in the west of England go up and down 
the hedges gathering Crab-apples y which 
they carry home, putting them into a loft, 
and form with them the initials of their 
supposed suitors’ names. The initials , 
which are found on examination to be most 
perfect on old “ Michaelmas Day,’' are 
considered to represent the strongest at¬ 
tachments, and the best for the choice of 
husbands. This custom is very old, and 
much reliance is placed on the appearances 
and decomposition of the Crabs. Should 
this trifle be worthy of being added toyoui 
extensive notices of manners and localities, 
I shall be encouraged to forward you other 
little remembrances of like tendency. In 
the interim, give me leave to assure you 
Sir, that I am your gratified reader, 

PlrCEP.ON 


• Caledonian Horticultural Toot. 


646 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


a ©oung Stef) Cm, 

SHIRLEY HEATH, WARWICKSHIRE, 

1 ©Stir for Cftarnte, 

Mr. Brand mentions, as a popular super¬ 
stition, that if a tree of any kind is split— 
and weak, rickety, or ruptured children 
drawn through it, and afterwards the tree 
is bound, so as to make it unite, as the tree 
heals and grows together, so will the child 
acquire strength. 

Sir John Cullum, who saw this operation 
twice performed, thus describes it:—“ For 
this pu’ pose a young ash was each time 


selected, and split longitudinally, about five 
feet: the fissure was kept wide open by my 
gardener; whilst the friend of the child, 
having first stripped him naked, passed 
him thrice through it, almost head fore¬ 
most. As soon as the operation was per¬ 
formed, the wounded tree was bound up 
with a packthread ; and, as the bark heal¬ 
ed, the child was to recover. The first ot 
the young patients was to be cured of the 
rickets, the second of a rupture." This is 
a very ancient and extensive piece of super¬ 
stition. | 

In the Gentleman’s Magazine, for Octo¬ 
ber, 1804, is an engraving of an ash tree, 
then growing by the side of Shirley-street, 
(the road leading from Hockley House to 
Birmingham,) at the edge of Shirley-heath, 
in the parish of Solihull, Warwickshire. 
It is stated that this tree is “ close to the 
cottage of Henry Rowe, whose infant son, 
Thomas Rowe, was drawn through the 
trunk or body of it in the year 1791, to 
cure him of a rupture, the tree being then 
split open for the purpose of passing the 
child through it." The writer proceeds to 
say, “The boy is now thirteen years and 
six months old : I have this day, June 10, 

1804, seen the ash tree and Thomas Rowe, 
as well as his father, Henry Rowe, from 
whom I have received the above account; 
and he superstitiously believes that his son 
Thomas was cured of the rupture, by being 
drawn through the cleft in the said ash tree, 
and by nothing else." | 

Another writer concerning the same tree 
says, “ The upper part of a gap formed by 
the chisel has closed, but the lower remains 
open. [As represented in the plate, from 
whence the engraving at the head of this 
article is taken ] The tree is healthy and 
flourishing. Thomas Chillingworth, son 
of the owner of an adjoining farm, now 
about 34, was, when an infant of a year 
old, passed through a similar tree, now 
perfectly sound, which he preserves with 
so much care that he will not suffer a single 
branch to be touched, for it is believed the 
life of the patient depends on the life of the, 
tree; and that the moment it is cut down,' 
be the patient ever so distant, the rupture 
returns, and a mortification ensues, and J 
teiminates in death. Rowe’s son was 
passed through the present tree in 1792, at 
the age of one or two. It is not, however,' 
uncommon for persons to survive for a time[ 
the felling of the tree. In one case the 
rupture returned suddenly, and mortifica¬ 
tion followed. These trees are left to close 
of themselves, or are closed with nails. 
The wood-cutters very frequently meet with 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


the latter. One felled on Bunnan’s farm 
was found full of nails. This belief is so 
prevalent in this part of the country, that 
instances of trees that have been employed 
in the cure are very common. The like 
notions obtain credit in some parts of 
Essex.” 

The same writer proceeds to observe a 
superstition “ concerning the power of ash 
trees to repel other maladies or evils, such 
as Shrew-mice; the stopping one of which 
animals alive into a hole bored in an ash is 
imagined an infallible preventive of their 
ravages in lands.” 

On this there are some particulars in 
point related by the Rev. Gilbert White, in 
his “ Natural History and Antiquities of 
; Selborne,” a parish near Alton, in Hamp¬ 
shire. “ In a farm-yard near the middle 
, of this village stands, at this day, a row of 
pollard-as/ies, which, by the seams and long 
cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show 
that in former times they have been cleft 
asunder. These trees, when young and 
flexible, were severed and held open by 
wedges, while ruptured children, stripped 
naked, were pushed through the apertures, 
under a persuasion that, by such a process, 
the poor babes would be cured of their in¬ 
firmity. As soon as the operation was 
over, the tree, in the suffering part, was 
plastered with loam, and carefully swathed 
up. If the parts coalesced and soldered 
together, as usually fell out, where the feat 
was performed with any adroitness at all, 
the party was cured ; but where the cleft 
continued to gape, the operation, it was 
supposed, would prove ineffectual. Having 
occasion to enlarge my garden not long 
since, I cut down two or three such trees, 
one of which did not grow together. We 
have several persons now living in the vil¬ 
lage, who, in their childhood, were sup¬ 
posed to be healed by this superstitious 
ceremony, derived down perhaps from our 
Saxon ancestors, who practised it before 
their conversion to Christianity.” 

Again, as respects shreiv-mice , Mr. White 
says, “ At the south coiner of the plestor, 
or area, near the church, there stood, about 
twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow' 
pollard-</.vA, which for ages had been looked 
on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. 
Now a shrew -ash is an ash, whose twigs or 
branches, when gently applied to the limbs 
of cattle, are immediately to relieve the pains 
which a beast suffers from the running of 
a shrew-mouse over the part affected : for 
it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so 
baneful and deleterious a nature, that 
wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, 


cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is af¬ 
flicted with cruel anguish, and threatened | 
with the loss of the use of the limb. Against 
this accident, to which they were conti I 
nually liable, our provident forefathers 
always kept a j/rrew-ash at hand ; which, 
when once medicated, would maintain its 
virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made 
thus:—Into the body of the tree a deep 
hole was bored with an auger, and a poor 
devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, 
and plugged in, no doubt, with several 
quaint incantations long since forgotten. 
As the ceremonies necessary for such a 
consecration are no longer understood, all 
succession is at an end, and no such tree is 
known to subsist in the manor or hundred. 
As to that on the plestor, the late vicar 
stubbed and burnt it, when he was way- 
warden, regardless of the remonstrances of 
the by.-standers, who interceded in vain for 
its preservation, urging its power and effi- j 
cacy, and alleging that it had been 

4 Religioue patrum multos servata per annos.* " 

Mr. Ellis, in a note on this practice of 
enclosing field-mice, cites a letter to Mr. 
Biand, dated May 9, 1806, from Ro¬ 
bert Studley Vidal, Esq. of Cornborough, 
near Biddeford, a gentleman to whom Mr. 
Brand was much indebted for informa¬ 
tion on the local customs of Devonshire. 
Mr. Vidal says :—“ An usage of the super¬ 
stitious kind has just come under my notice, 
and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will 
shortly describe, though I rather think it is 
not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour ! 
of mine, on examining his sheep the other 
day, found that one of them had entirely 
lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing 
it, I expressed an opinion that the animal 
must have received a blow across the back, 
or some other sort of violence which had 
injured the spinal marrow, and thus ren 
dered it paralytic: but I was soon given 
to understand, that my remarks only served 
to prove how little I knew of country affairs, 
for that the affection of the sheep was no¬ 
thing uncommon, and that the cause of it 
was well known ; namely, a mouse having 
crept over its back. I could not but smile 
at the idea; which my instructor consider¬ 
ing as a mark of incredulity, he proceeded 
very gravely to inform me, that I should be 
convinced of the truth of what he said by 
the means which he would use to restore 
the animal; and which were never knowp 
to fail. He accordingly despatched his 
people here and there in quest of a field, 
mouse; and having ptocuied one, he told 
me that he should carry it to a particular 


848 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


tree at same distance, and, enclosing it 
within a hollow in the trunk, leave it there 
to perish. He further informed me, that 
lie should bring back some of the branches 
of the tree with him, for the purpose of 
their being drawn now and then across the 
sheep s back ; and concluded by assuring 
me, with a very scientific look, that 1 should 
soon be convinced of the efficacy of this 
| process; for that, as soon as the poor de- 
i voted mouse had yielded up his life a prey 
to famine, the sheep would be restored to 
1 its former strength and vigour. I can, 
however, state, with certainty, that the 
sheep was not at all benefited by this mys¬ 
terious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I 
find, is of the sort called witch-elm, or 
witch-hazel.” 


TREES 

Poetically and Nationally regarded. 

A gentleman, who, on a tour in 1790, 
visited the burial-place of Edmond Waller, 
in the church-yard of Beaconsfield, de¬ 
scribes the poet’s splendid tomb as en¬ 
closed, or cradled, with spiked iron pali- 
sadoes, inserted into a great old ash tree, 
under which his head reposes. “ This 
umbrageous tree overshadows the whole 
mausoleum. As the pagan deities had 
each their favourite tree—Jupiter, the oak ; 
Apollo, the laurel; Venus, the myrtle; 
Minerva, the olive; &c.—so poets and 
literary men have imitated them herein; 
and all lovers of solitude are, like the Lady 
Grace of Sir John Vanbrugh, fond of a cool 
i retreat from the noon-day’s sultiy heat 
under a great tree 

A modern author, whose works are ex¬ 
pressive of beauty and feeling, and from 
whom an elegant extract on “ Gardens” in 
a former page has been derived, adverts to 
the important use which the poets have 
made of trees by way of illustration. lie 
says— 

Homer frequently embellishes his sub¬ 
jects with references to them; and no pas¬ 
sage in the Iliad is more beautiful, than the 
one where, in imitation of Musseus, he 
compares the falling of leaves and shrubs 
to the fall and renovation of great and 
ancient families.—Illustrations of this sort 
are frequent in the sacred writings.—“ I 
am exalted like a cedar in Libanus,” says 
tne author of Ecclesiastes, “ and as a cy- 
p'ess tree upon the mountain of Hermon. 

• Mr. T. Gosling, in the Gent. Mag. Sept. 1790. 


I was exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi, 
and as a rose plant in Jericho; as a fair 
olive in a pleasant field, and grew up as a 
plane tree by the water; as a turpentine 
tree I stretched out my branches, and my 
branches are the branches of honour and 
grace; as a vine brought I forth pleasant 
savour, and my flowers are the fruits ol 
honour and victory.”—In the Psalms, in a 
fine vein of allegory, the vine tree is made 
to represent the people of Israel: “ Thou 
hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou ; 
hast cut out the heathen, and planted it. j 
Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and 
it filled the land. The hills were covered 
with its shadow, and the boughs thereof 
were like the goodly cedars.” 

In Ossian, how beautiful is the follow¬ 
ing passage of Malvina’s lamentation for 
Oscar:—“ I was a lovely tree in thy pre¬ 
sence, Oscar, with all my branches round 
me; but thy death came like a blast from 
the desert, and laid my green head low ; 
the spring returned with its showers, but 
no green leaf of mine arose.” Again, where 
old and weary, blind and almost destitute 
of friends, he compares himself to a tree 
that is withered and decayed : — “ But 
Ossian is a tree that is withered; its 
branches are blasted and bare; no green 
leaf covers its boughs:—from its trunk no 
young shoot is seen to spring; the breeze 
whistles in its grey moss; the blast shakes 
its head of age; the storm will soon over¬ 
turn it, and strew all its dry branches with 
thee, Oh Dermid, and with all the rest of 
the mighty dead, in the green winding vale 
of Cona.” 

That traveller esteemed himself happy, 
who first carried into Palestine the rose of 
Jericho from the plains of Arabia; and 
many of the Roman nobility were gratified, 
in a high degree, with having transplanted 
exotic plants and trees into the orchards of 
Italy. Pompey introduced the ebony on 
the day of his triumph over MithricJates; 
Vespasian transplanted the balm of Syria, 
and Lucullus the Pontian cherry. Auger 
de Busbeck brought the lilac from Con¬ 
stantinople ; Hercules introduced the 
orange into Spain ; Verton the mulberry 
into England :—and so great is the love of 
nations for particular trees, that a traveller 
never fails to celebrate those by which his 
native province is distinguished. Thus, the 
native of Hampshire prides himself upon 
his oaks; the Burgundian boasts of his 
vines, and the Herefordshire farmer of his 
apples. Normandy is proud of her pears ; 
Provence of her olives ; and Dauphine ol 
her mullrcrries; while the Maltese are ir. 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


»ove with their own orange trees. Norway 
and Sweden celebrate their pines; Syria 
her palms ; and since they have few other 
trees of which they can boast, Lincoln cele¬ 
brates her alders, and Cambridge her wil¬ 
lows! The Paphians were proud of their 
myrtles, the Lesbians of their vines; Rhodes 
loudly proclaimed the superior charms of 
her rose trees; Idumea of her balsams; 
Media of her citrons, and India of her 
ebony. The Druses boast of their mul¬ 
berries ; Gaza of her date* and pomegra¬ 
nates; Switzerland of her lime trees; 
Bairout of her figs and banar ks ; Damascus 
of her plums; Incht.nnaugat of its birch, 
and Inchnolaig of its yews. The inhabit¬ 
ants of Jamaica never cease to praise the 
beauty of their manonenillas; while those 
of Tobasco are as vain of their cocoas.— 
The natives of Madeira, whose spring and 
autumn reign together, take pride in their 
cedars and citrons; those of Antigua of 
their tamarinds, while they esteem their 
mammee sappota to be equal to any oak in 
Europe, and their mangos to be superior 
to any tree in America. Equally partial 
arelhe inhabitants of the Plains of Tahta 
to their peculiar species of fan palm; and 
those of Kous to their odoriferous orchards. 
The Hispaniolans, with the highest degree 
of pride, challenge any one of the trees of 
Europe or Asia to equal the height of their 
cabbage trees—towering to an altitude of 
two hundred and seventy feet:—Even the 
people of the Bay of Honduras have ima¬ 
gination sufficient to conceive their logwood 
to be superior to any trees in the world; 
while the Huron savages inquire of Euro¬ 
peans, whether they have any thing to com¬ 
pare with their immense cedar trees. * 

THE PEARL. 

A Persian Fable. 

i Imitated, from the Latin of Sir IV. Jones. 

Whoe’er his merit underrates, 

The worth which he disclaims creates. 

It chanc’d a single drop of rain 
Fell from a cloud into the r^in: 

Abash’d, dispirited, amaz’d, 

At last her modest voice she rais’d: 

“ Where, and what am I ? Woe is me ! 

What a mere drop in s-ach a sea I”— 

An oyster yawning, where she fell, 

Entrapp’d the vagrant in his shell; 

In that alembic wrought—for he 
Was deeply vers’d in alchemy— 

This drop became a pearl; and now 
Adorns the crown on Georoe's brow. 

• The Philosophy of Nature. 

I .. 


Dtsrobmes 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS 
No. XL 
Comets. 

Cassini, and after him sir Isaac Newton, 
by their close observations and accurate 
calculations respecting the nature and 
courses of comets, have given certainty to 
the opinions of the old philosophers; ot¬ 
to speak with more propriety, they have 
recalled and fixed our attention upon what 
had before been advanced by the ancients 
on these subjects. For, in treating of the 
nature of these stars, their definitions of 
them, the reasons they assign for the rarity 
of their appearance, and the apologies they 
make for not haring yet formed a more 
exact theory, are all in the very terms that 
Seneca had already used. In the time of 
that philosopher, the observations previ¬ 
ously made of the returns of comets, were 
not sufficiently collected to establish the 
theory of these phenomena. Their appear¬ 
ances were so very rare, that they had not 
afforded an opportunity to determine, whe¬ 
ther their course was regular or not. The 
Greeks, however, before Seneca’s time, had 
remarked to the same effect, and were 
applying themselves to researches of this 
kind. 

Seueca says, that the Chaldeans looked 
upon comets as planetary bodies; and 
Diodorus Siculus, in giving an account of 
the extent of knowledge among the Egyp¬ 
tians, praises them for the application with 
which they studied the stars and their 
courses ; and remarks, that they had col¬ 
lected observations very ancient and very 
exact, fully informing them of the several 
motions, orbits, stations, &c. of the planets. 
He adds, that they could foretell earth¬ 
quakes, inundations, and “ the return of 
comets.” 

Aristotle says, that Anaxagoras appre¬ 
hended comets to be an assemblage of many 
wandering stars; which, by their approxi¬ 
mation, and the mutual blending of their 
rays, rendered themselves visible to us. 
This notion, though far from being philo¬ 
sophical, was yet far preferable to that 
of some great moderns, such as Kepler and 
Iievelius, who supposed that comets were 
formed out of air, as fishes are out of water. 

Pythagoras, however, who approached 
very near to the times of Anaxag oras< j )e | d 


650 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 


an opinion worthy of the most enlightened 
age. He looked upon “ comets as stars, 
which circulated regularly, though elliptic- 
I ally, about the sun, and which appeared 
to us only in particular parts of their orbit, 
and at considerable distances of time.” 

Seneca, more than any other, has dis¬ 
cussed this subject like a true philosopher. 
He relates all the different opinions respect¬ 
ing comets, and seems to prefer that of 
Artemidorus, who imagined, “ that there 
was an immense number of them, but that 
their orbits were so situated, that, so far 
from being always within view, they could 
! only be seen at one of the extremities.” He 
| reasons upon this with equal elegance and 
, solidity. “ Why should we be astonished,” 

, says he, “ that comets, which are so rare a 
: spectacle in the world, have not yet come 
under certain rules; or that we have not 
hitherto been able to determine, where 
begins or ends the course of planets, as an¬ 
cient as the universe, and whose returns are 
ut such distant intervals ? The time will 
come,”he exclaims, with enthusiasm, “when 
posterity will be amazed at our ignorance 
1 in things so very evident; for what now 
| appears to us obscure, will one day or 
other, in the course of ages, and through 
the industry of our descendants, become 
manifestly clear; but, a small number of 
years, passed between study and the indul¬ 
gence of passion, are not of avail for re¬ 
searches so important, as those which pro¬ 
pose to themselves the comprehension of 
natures so remote.” 

The moderns have said nothing satisfac¬ 
tory respecting comets, but what is to be 
found in the writings of the ancients; ex¬ 
cept what later observations have furnished 
them with, which Seneca judged to be so 
necessary, and which only could be col¬ 
lected through a long succession of ages. 

The Moon. 

The ancients discovered very early, that 
“ the moon had no light of its own, but 
shone with that which it reflected from the 
sun.” This, after Thales, was the sentiment 
of Anaxagoras, and that of Empedocles, 
who thence accounted rot only for the 
mildness of its splendour, but the imper- 
ceptibility of its heat, which our modem 
experiments confirm: for with all the 
aid of burning glasses, we have never yet 
found it practicable to obtain the least 
warmth from any combination of its rays. 

With a telescope, we easily discern in 
the moon parts more elevated and more 
aright than others, which are judged to be 


mountains; and means have been found 
to measure their elevation. We discern ! 
also other parts, lower and less bright, which 
must be vallies, lying between those moun¬ 
tains. There are other parts, which re¬ 
flecting less light, and presenting one uni¬ 
form smooth surface, may therefore be 
supposed large pieces of water. As the 
moon, then, has its collections of water, its 
atmosphere, its mountains, and its vallies ; 
it is thence inferred, that there may also [ 
be rain there, and snow, and all the other 
aerial commotions which are natural to 
such a situation; and our idea of the wis¬ 
dom and power of God suggests to us, tha* 
he may have placed creatures there to in¬ 
habit it. 

The ancients, who had not the aid 
of the telescope, supplied the defect of 
that instrument by extraordinary penetra¬ 
tion. They deduced all those consequences 
that are admitted by the moderns; for they 
discovered long before, by the mental eye, 
whatever has since been presented to bodily 
sight through the medium of telescopes. 
We have seen in how sublime a manner 
they entered into the views of the Supreme 
Being in his destination of the planets, and 
the multitude of stars placed by him in the 
firmament. We have already seen, that 
they Looked upon them as so many suns, 
about which rolled planets of their own, 
such as those of our solar system ; main- i 
taining that those planets contained inha- | 
bitants, whose natures they presume not to 
describe, though they suppose them not to 
yield to those of ours, either in beauty or 
dignity. 

Orpheus is the earliest author whose 
opinion on this subject hath come down to 
us. Proclus presents us with three verses 
of that eminent ancient, wherein he posi¬ 
tively asserts, that “ the moon was another 
earth, having in it mountains, vallies,” &c. 

Pythagoras, who followed Orpheus in 
many of his opinions, taught likewise, that 
“ the moon was an earth like ours, replete 
with animals, whose nature he presumed 
not to describe,” though he was persuaded 
they were of a more noble and elegant kind 
than ours, and not liable to ihe same in¬ 
firmities. 

Cicero ascribes a similar sentiment to 
Democritus, when, in explaining his the¬ 
ory, he says, that, according to it, Quin¬ 
tus Luctatius Catulus, for instance, might 
without end tie multiplied into an infinity 
of worlds. It were easy to multiply quo¬ 
tations, in proof that this opinion was 
common among the ancient philosophers. 
There is a very remarkable passage of Sto- 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


oaeus, wherein he gives us Democritus’s 
Opinion about the nature of the moon, and 
he cause of those spots which we see upon 
its disk. That great philosopner imagined, 
that “ those spots were no other than 
shades, formed by the excessive height of 
the lunar mountains," which inteicepted 
the light from the lower parts of that 
planet, where the vallies formed themselves 
into what appeared to us as shades or 
spots. 

| Plutarch went still farther, alleging, that 
there were embosomed in the moon, vast 
seas and profound caverns. These, his 
conjectures, are built upon the same foun¬ 
dation with those of the moderns. He 
says, that those deep and extensive shades 
which appear upon the disk of that planet, 
must be occasioned by the “ vast seas" it 
contains, which are incapable of reflecting 
so vivid a light, as the more solid and 
opaque parts; or “ by caverns extremely 
wide and deep, wherein the rays of the sun 
are absorbed," whence those shades and 
that obscurity which we call the spots of 
the. moon. Xenophanes said, that those 
immense cavities were inhabited by another 
race of men, who lived there, as we do 
upon this earth. 


MEDICAL AND LEGAL DUALITY. 

Two Physicians. 

A gentleman calling on a friend, found 
two physicians with him: he wrote the 
following lines on the back of his card :— 

“ By one physician might your work be done. 

But two are like a double-barrell'd gun ; 

From one discharge sometimes a bird has down, 

A second barrel always brings it down.” 

Two Lawyers. 

An opulent farmer applied about a law¬ 
suit to an attorney, who told him he cord'd 
not undertake it, being already engaged on 
the other side; at the same time he said, 
that he would give him a letter of recom¬ 
mendation to a professional friend, which 
he did. The farmer, out of cuiiosity, opened 
.t, and read as follows: 

“ Here are two fat wethers fallen out together, 

If you’ll fleece one. I’ll fleece the other. 

And make ’em agree like brother and brother.” 

The farmer carried this epistle to the per- 
I son with whom he was at variance. Its 
perusal cured both parties, and terminated 
dwtf dispute. 


TIIE HAUNTED MILL. 

For the Table Book. 

—-Can such things be, 

And overcome us like a summer’s cloud. 

Without our special wonder ? 

At the basis of the Wolds, in the north 
riding of Yorkshire, creeps a sluggish 
stream, on whose bank may be seen the 
ruins of a mill, which our good forefathers j 
supposed to be haunted. I often gaze up¬ 
on those ruins with great interest; not so 
much for its picturesque beauty, which, like ; 
a flower in the wilderness, makes solitude 
less lonely, as for the many endearing 
claims it has upon my memory, by way oi 
association. It stands near the home of my 
childhood, it reminds me of the companions 
of my youth, and tells of pleasures long 
departed. 

It is now nearly ten years since l listened 
to a story, which haunts me like the recol¬ 
lection of a fearful dream ; perhaps, because 
of its locality, or rather, of its having been 
told me as a fact. Be it as it may, I have 
thought it worth the relating; and trust 
that the readers of the Table Book will at 
least be interested. 

The mill, at the time referred to, had 
been uninhabited for some ten or twelve 
years. It had found an occupier in the 1 
person of Joe Davis. The inhabitants of, 
the distant, though nearest village, endea- j 
voured to frighten Joe, the miller, by tell- ' 
ing him of its being haunted. He laughed 
at what he called their idle fears, bade them 1 
keep their superstitious nonsense for their 
children's ears ; and laughingly added, 
that if nought but ghosts visited the mill, 
he stood a good chance of getting what he 
most required after a hard day’s work—a 
quiet rest. 

When Joe took possession of the mb' 
he was as jolly a fellow as ever lived, and 
a fine buxom wife had he, and three rosy 
children. His cup of happiness was filled 
to the brim ; his song, merry as the lark’s 
and his loud, hearty laugh, were alternately 
to be heard above the rush of the dam, and 
the click-clacking of the wheel. When his 
work was done, it was a treat to see him 
playing with his children at blindman’s- 
buff, or hide and seek, or dandling them 
upon his knee. 

All went on well for some time; but in 
a few months Joe became an altered man. 
There was a visible difference in his face 
and mai ner. At first, a shade was seen ta 
overcast his hitherto unciouded brow—then 


652 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


i 


Jus cheek became robbed of its bloom, and 
his step lost its buoyancy. His laughter 
(when he did laugh, which was seldom) 
seemed laboured, and was followed by a 
sigh ; and the song —that favourite song, 
which he had so often sung to Mary in his 
courtship—faltered on his lips. Instead of 
clinging to his home and family as usual, 
he deserted them; and when the straying 
villager kindly questioned him as to the 
change, he would not answer, but shake 
his head, and hurry onwards. 

One day Mary found her husband un¬ 
usually depressed. “Come, come,” said 
she,“ I’m sure all is not right within.” She 
hung fondly upon his neck—kissed him, 
and besought him to make her the partner 
of his sorrow ; he raised his head, gazed 
at her affectionately, and endeavoured to 
smile away her apprehensions—but it would 
! not do. He dashed the tear from his eye, 
and rushed out of the room. 

Joe Davis had dreamed a dream; or, as 
my narrator informed me, had seen a vision. 
Sitting one evening in his little parlour, 
with his wife and children before him, he, 




i 

i 

i 


I 


on a sudden, leaned back in his chair—his 
eyes became glazed, and were rivetted on 
the picture of his wife holding three roses 
in her hand, which hung over the mantel¬ 
piece—he thought that he beheld a shadow 
of himself bend over the picture, that the 
roses began to fade, and, in fading, he dis¬ 
tinctly saw the faces of his children, while 
the portrait of his wife by degrees became 
colourless. Such was the dream which gave 
him so much concern—such was the pro¬ 
phecy which ere long was to be fulfilled. 

Joe left his house, telling Mary he would 
return before night. The darkness set in, 
but he did not make his appearance. Poor 
Mary, as the night advanced, became mis¬ 
trustful—she looked at the clock, and list¬ 
ened for his approaching step. It was 
nearly midnight; and, save the melancholy 
monotonous ticking of the clock, and the 
low breathing of her sweet children, who 
were sleeping near, all was silent as the 
grave—when, on a sudden, the eldest child 
cried out, “ Father, how cold you are!”— 
Mary started, and beheld the death-pale 
face of her husband kissing her children— 
she shrieked wildly, and fell senseless on 
the floor. 

When Mary came to herself the fire was 
out, and the clock had stopped. She en¬ 
deavoured to calm her agitated mind, and 
thought she heard the noise of the dam, and 
her husband singing the chorus— 


We’ll always be merry together, together, 
We’ll always be merry together. 


She listened, and thought of her children, 
whom (by the revealment of one of the 
secrets of her pri;-' n-house) she knew were 
dead. The rest o. that horrible night was 

a (-) I 

The morning came with its beautiful 
purple light—the lark hailed it with his 
matin-song—the flower bloomed at the 
very door-stone of the mill—the schoolboy 
whistled as he passed, as if in mockery of 1 
her woe. The light of reason had passed 
from Mary Davis. In the course of the 
day the body of her husband was found in 
the dam, but Mary knew it not.— 

Say, gentle reader, did not Heaven deal 
kindly to her in bidding her taste the waters 
of oblivion ? 

--I shall never forget the story. 

Q. T. M. 


COUNSELS AND SAYINGS, 

By Dr. A. Hunter. 

Accustom yourself to reflect. 

Seek wisdom, and you will be sure to 
find her; but if you do not look for her , 
she will not look for you. 

Do, AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY. 

Use yourself to kindness and compas¬ 
sion, and you may expect kindness and 
compassion in return. 

Have you a Friend? 

If you have a grievance on your mind 
you may tell it to your friend., but first be 
sure that he is your friend. 

Educate your Children properly. 

An university implies a seminary, where 
all the young men go the same way. What 
that way is, fathers and grandfathers best 
know. 

Obstinacy is Weakness. 

Obstinacy of temper proceeds from 
pride, and, in general, from ignorant pride, 
that refuses to be taught. 

Regulate your Temper, 

We can bear with a man who is only 
peevish when the wind is in the east; but 
it is intolerable to live with one who is 
peevish in every point of the compass. 

True Generosity is delicately minded. 

Blame no man for what he cannot help. 
We must not expeci »f the dial to tell ua 
the hour after the sv i is set. 


t 


653 










































i 


\ 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


GERMAN EPIGRAMS 

Honourable Service. 

If one have serv’d thee, tell the deed to many: 

Hast thou serv’d many—tell it not to any.— Oyits. 

A Mother’s Love. 

E’er yet her child has drawn its earliest breath 
A mother’s love begins—it glows tili death— 

Lives before life—with death not dies—but seems 
The very substance of immortal dreams.— JVcrniche. 

Epitaph. 

What thou art reading o’er my bones, 

I’ve often read on other stones ; 

And others soon shall read of thee. 

What thou art reading now of me.— Fleming. 

Adam’s Sleep. 

i 

He laid him down and slept;—and from his side, 

A woman in her magic beauty rose, 

Dazzled and charm’d he call’d that woman “ Bride' 
And his first sleep became his last repose.— Baser. 

Epitaph. 

* 

Here lies, thank God, a woman, who 
Quarrell’d and storm’d her whole life through : 
Tread gently o’er her mouldering form, 

Or else you’ll rouse another storm.— fFechhcrhn. 


PRUSSIAN COURT MOURNING. 

Frederick the first king of Prussia was 
an extremely vain man, and continually en¬ 
gaged in frivolous pursuits. His queen, So¬ 
phia Charlotte, the sister of our George I. was 
a woman of a very superior mind. In her 
last illness she viewed the approach of death 
with much calmness and serenity; and when 
one of her attendants observed how severely 
it would afflict the king, and that the mis¬ 
fortune of losing her would plunge his 
majesty into the deepest despair, the queen 
| said, with a smile, “ With respect to him, I 
am perfectly at ease. His mind will be 
completely occupied in arranging the ce¬ 
remonial of my funeral, and if nothing goes 
i wrong in the procession , he will be quite 
I consoled for his loss.” 


MI-EAU IN AMERICA. 

A New York paper says, that a lad in 
nat city, on delivering his milk, was asked 
why the milk was so warm. “ I don’t 
Know,” he replied, with much simplicity, 
“ un.ess they put in warm wat^r instead of 
t old 


A CAPITAL EXTEMPORE 

To the Author of some Bad Lines*, oa 
the River Dee. 

Had I been U, 

And in the Q, 

As easy I might B. 

!'d let U C, 

Whilst sipping'T, 

Far better lines on D. 


PETITION OF THE LETTER H 
TO ITS DECIDED ENEMIES. 

VVhereas, by you I have been dri ven 

From House, from Home, from Hope, and Heaven, 

And placed, by your most learn’d society, 

In Evil, Anguish, and Anxiety ; 

And used, without the least pretence. 

With Arrogance and Insolence. 

I hereby ask full restitution, 

And beg you’ll change your elocution. 

ANSWER. 

Whereas we’ve rescued you, ingrate. 

From Hell, from Horror, and from Hate— 

From Horseponds—Hanging in a halter. 

And consecrated you in— altar. 

We think you need no restitution, 

And sh ill not change our elocution. 

Hezekiah Hulk, Huntsman . 
Milford, June , 1827. 


THE GLORIOUS MEMORY. 

Sir Jonah Barrington lately met rather a 
noted corporator of Dublin in Paris, and in 
the course of conversation inquired why, 
after the king’s visit to the metropolis ot 
Ireland, and his conciliatory admonitions, 
the corporation still appeared to prefer the 
“Boyne Water” and “King William.’ 
The answer was characteristic. “ Lord 
bless you, sir Jonah,” replied the corpora¬ 
tor, “ as for the lFather we don’t care a 
farthing about that; but if we once gave 
up ould King William , we’d give up all 
our enjoyments! Only for the Glorious 
Memory we would not have a toast to get 
drunk with—eh ! sir Jonah?” 


ERRATA. 

Col. 397, line 18, for “ modern Europe,” read •• north 
cm Europe.” 

Col. 430. In the Will of John Keats, for “ losses 01 
the sale of books,” read “ hopes of tb* sale of tx»'Us 


654 

























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Catherine iHompessou’s Coinh at Cgam. 

Among the verdant mountains cf the Peak 
There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope 
Of pleasant uplands wards the north-winds bleak ; 

Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope ; 

Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope 
Of forest trees: flower, foliage, and clear rill 
Ware from the cliffs, or down ravines elope ; 

It seems a place charmed from the power of ill 
By sainted words of old:—so lovely, lone, and still. 

And many are the pilgrim feet which tread 
Its rocky steeps, which thither yearly go ; 

Yet. less by love of Nature’s wonders led. 

Than by the memory of a mighty woe. 

Which smote, like blasting thunder, long ago. 

The peopled hills. There stands a sacred tomb. 

Where tears have rained, nor yet shall cease to flow; 

Recording days of death’s sublimest gloom ; 

Mompesson’s power and pain,—nis beauteous Catherine’s doom. 

The Desolation of Eyam. 

Througn the seventeenth and half of the with little towns and hamlets, was swarm 
eighteenth century the village of Eyam, ing with inhabitants. Owing to the ex- 
tfirce miles east from Tideswell, in Derby- hausted state of the lead mines the scene is 
shire, was populous and flourishing j and altered, and Eyam is now thinly peopled 
all tiiat part of the country thickly sown Tt had before endured a dreadful affliction 
















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The vear after (( that awful and terrible 
period, when the destroying angel passed 
over this island, and in the cities of London 
and Westminster swept away three thou¬ 
sand victims in one night,” the visitation 
was revived in this distant village, and 
four-fifths of the inhabitants perished in 
the course of the summer. This calamity 
is the subject of the title-page to a poetical 
volume of eminent merit and beauty, 
‘ The Desolation of Eyam, &c. by William 
and Mary llowitt, Authors of the Forest 
Minstrel and other Poems.’’ 

Eyam was the birthplace of the late 
Anna Seward, and in the “ Gentleman’s 
Magazine” * there is a letter written in 
her youthful days, which naturally relates 
the devoted attachment of the village rector, 
during the plague, to his stiicken flock; 
and the affectionate adherence of his noble 
wife. Extracts from this letter, with others 
from the notes to “ The Desolation of 
Eyam,” and a few stanzas from the poem 
itself, as specimens of its worth, may here 
suffice to convey some notion of the story. 
The poets’ “ Introduction” is briefly de¬ 
scriptive of “ The Peak”—its romantic rocks 
and glens—the roar of its flying streams— 
the welling-up of its still waters — the 
silence of its beautiful dells— 

Such brightness fills the arched sky ; 

So quietly the hill-tops lie 
In sunshine, and the wild-bird’s glee 
Rings from the rock-nursed service tree 
Such a delicious air is thrown, 

Such a reposing calm is known 
On these delightful hills. 

That, as the dreaming poet lies 
Drinking the splendour of the skies, 

Tbe sweetness which distils 
From herbs and flowers—a thrilling sense 
Steals o’er his musing heart, intense. 

Passive, yet deep ; the joy which dwells 
Where nature frames her loneliest spells. 

And Fancy’s whispers would persuade 
That peace had here her sojourn made. 

And love and gladness pitched their tent. 

When from the world, in woe, they went. 

That each grey hill had reared its brow 
In peaceful majesty, as now. 

That thus these streams had traced their way 
Through scenes as bright and pure as they ; 

That here no sadder strain was heard 
Than the free note of wandering bird ; 

And man had here, in nature’s eye, 

Known not a pain, except, to die. 

Poets may dream—alas 1 that they 
Should dream so wildly, even by day— 


• Vol. lxxi. p. 300. 


Poets may dream of love and truth. 

Islands of bliss, and founts of youth : 

But, from creation’s earliest birth, 

The curse of blood has raged on earth. 

Since the first arm was raised to smite 
The sword has travelled like a blight, 

From age to age, from realm to realm, 

Guiding the seaman’s ready helm. 

Go 1 question well—search far and near. 

Bring me of earth a portion here. 

Look ! is not that exuberant soil 
Fraught with the battle’s bloody spoil ? 

Turn where thou may’st, go where thou ' 

Thy foot is on a spot of guilt. 

The curse, the blight have not passed by 
These dales now smiling in thine eye. 

Of human ills an ample share, 

Ravage, and dearth, domestic care. 

They have not ’scaped. This region blest 
Knew not of old its pleasant rest. 

Grandeur there was, but all that cheers, 

Is the fair work of recent years. 

The Druid-stones are standing still 
On the green top of many a hill; 

The fruitful plough, with mining share. 

At times lays some old relic bare; 

The Danish mell; the bolt of stone. 

To a yet ruder people known : 

And oft, as on some point which lies 
In the deep hush of earth and skies. 

In twilight, silence, and alone, 

I’ve sate upon the Druid-stone, 

The visions of those distant times. 

Their barbarous manners, creeds and crimes. 

Have come, joy’s brightest thrill to raise. 

For life’s blest boon in happier days. 

But not of them—rude race—I sing ; 

Nor yet of war, whose fiery wing. 

From age to age, with waste and wail, 

Drove from wide champaign, and low vale. 

Warrior and woman : child and flock. 

Here, to the fastness of the rock. 

The husbandman has ceased to hear 
Amidst his fields the cry of fear. 

Waves the green corn—green pastures rise 
Around,—the lark is in the skies. 

The song a later time must trace 
When faith here found a dwelling-place. 

The tale is tinged with grief and scath. 

But not in which man’s cruel wrath, 

Like fire of fiendish spirit shows, 

But where, through terrors, tears, and woes, 

He rises dauntless, pure, refined; 

Not chill’d by self, nor fired by hate. 

Love in his life,—and even his fate 
A blessing on his kind. 

These latter lines allude to the poem, 
and it immediately commences. 

“ Eyam,” says Miss Seward, “ is near a 
mile in length; it sweeps in a waving 
line amongst the mountains, on a kind oi 
natural terrace about 303 yards broad; 



G5G 
























THE TABLE BOOK, 


above which, yet higher mountains arise. 
From that dale of savage sublimity, which 
on the Buxton road from Matlock com¬ 
mences at the end of Middleton, we ascend 
a quarter of a mile up a narrow and 
steep lane on the right hand, which con¬ 
ducts us into Eyam. About the centre 
of the village the continuance of the houses 
is broken by a small field on the left. From 
its edge a deep and grassy dingle descends, 
not less picturesque, and much more beau¬ 
tiful from its softer features, than the c*aggy 
dale and its walls of barren rocks from 
which we had ascended to Eyam, and in 
which, by a winding course, this dingle ter¬ 
minates. Its ascent from the middle of 
Eyam is a steep, smooth, and verdant turf, 
with scattered nut-trees, aiders, and the 
mountain ash. The bottom is scarcely five 
yards wide, so immediately ascend the 
noble rocks on the opposite side, curtained 
with shrubs, and crowned with pines that 
•vave over their brows; only that a few 
bare parts appear in fantastic points and 
perforated arches. Always in winter and 
Summer, after recent showers, a small clear 
rill ripples along the bottom of this dell, 
6ut after long drought the channel is diy, 
and its pebbles are left to bleach in the sun. 
Cliffs and fields stretch along the tops of 
the rocks, and from their heights we de¬ 
scend gradually to the upper part of Eyam, 
which, though high, is less elevated 

“ Than are the summits of those hilly crofts. 

That brow the bottom glade.” 

At the time of the plague, the rector of 
Eyam, the Rev. William Mompesson, was 
in the vigour of youth; he had two chil¬ 
dren, a boy and girl of three and four years 
old, and his wife Catherine, a young and 
beautiful lady:— 

There dwelt they in the summer of their love. 

He, the young pastor of that mountain fold, 

For whom, not Fancy could foretell above. 

Bliss more than earth had at his feet unrolled. 

Yet, ceased he not on that high track to hold, 

Upon whose bright, eternal steep is shown 
Faith’s starry coronal. The sad, the cold 
Caught from his fervent spirit its warm tone, 

And woke to loftier aims, and feelings long unknown. 

And she,—his pride and passion,—she, all sun, 

All lore, and mirth and beautya rich form 
Of finished grace, where Nature had outdone 
Her wonted skill. Oh ! well might Fancy’s swarm 
Of more than earthly hopes and visions, warm 
His ardent mind ; for, joyous was her mood; 

There seemed a spirit of gladness to inform 
Her happy frame, by no light shock subdued, 

Which filled her home with light, and all she touched 
imbued. 


So lived, so loved they. Their life lay enshrined 
Within themselves and people. They reck’d not 
How the world sped around them, nor divined ; 
Heaven, and their home endearments fill’d their lot. 
Within the charmed boundary of their cot. 

Was treasured high and multifarious lore 
Of sage, divine, and minstrel ne’er forgot 
In wintry hours; and, carolled on their floor, 

Were childhood’s happy lays. Could Heaven award 
them more ? 

Eyam, as before mentioned, had escaped 
the contagion in the “Great Year of the 
Plague.” It was conveyed thither, how¬ 
ever, in the ensuing spring by infected 
cloths. Its appearance is vigorous! 
sketched:— 

-—— But, a9 in the calm 

Of a hot noon, a sudden gust will wake ; 

Anon clouds throng; then fiercer squalls alarm ; 

Then thunder, flashing gleams, and the wild bre* 

Of wind and deluge :—till the living quake. 

Towers rock, woods crash amid the tempest,—so 
In their reposing calm of gladness, spake 
A word of fear; first whispering—dubious—low. 

Then lost;—then firm and clear, a menacing of wo* 

’Till out it burst, a dreadful cry of death ; 

“ The Plague I the Plague I” The withering lan 
guage flew. 

And faintness followed on its rapid breath ; 

And all hearts sunk, as pierced with lightning 
through. 

** The Plague 1 the Plague !” No groundless panii 
grew; 

But there, sublime in awful darkness, trod 
The Pest; and lamentation, as he slew. 

Proclaimed his ravage in each sad abode, 

Mid frenzied shrieks for aid—and vain appeals to God 

On the commencement of the contagion, 
Mrs. Mompesson threw herself with hei 
babes at the feet of her husband, to suppli¬ 
cate his flight from that devoted place; but 
not even the entreaties and tears of a be¬ 
loved wife could induce him to desert his 
flock, in those hours of danger and dismay. 
Equally fruitless were his solicitations that 
she would retire with her infants. The 
result of this pathetic contest was a resolve 
to abide together the fury of the peslilence 
and to send their children away. 

They went—those lovely ones, to their retreat. 

They went—those glorious ones, to their employ ; 
To check the ominous speed of flying feet; 

To quell despair; to soothe the fierce annoy. 

Which, as a stormy ocean without buoy 
Tossing a ship distressed, twixt reef and rock. 

Hurried the crowd, from years of quiet joy 
Thus roused to fear by this terrific shock; 

And wild, distracted, mazed, the pastor met hi» flock. 







THE TABLE BOOK. 




= 


II was the immediate purpose of this 
wise and excellent man, to stay his parish¬ 
ioners from flight, lest they should bear the 
contagion beyond their own district, and 
desolate the country. 

They heard, and they obeyed,—for, simpieneaite *. 

He was to them their wisdom and their tower* 

To theirs, his brilliant spirit had imparted 
All that they knew of virtue’s loftier power; 

Their friend, their guide, their idolized endower 
With daily blessings, health of mind and frame ; 

They heard, and they obeyed;—but not the more 
Obeyed the plague; no skill its wrath could tame , 

It grew, it raged, it spread; like a devouring flame. 

Oh ! piteous was it then that place to tread ; 

Where children played and mothers had looked on, 
They lay, like flowers plucked to adorn the dead; 

The bright-eyed maid no adoration won; 

Youth in its greenness, trembling age was gone ; 

O’er each bright cottage hearth death’s darkness stole; 
Tears fell, pangs racked, where happiness had shone. 

From a rational belief, that assembling 
in the crowded church for public worship 
during the summer heats, must spread and 
increase the contagion, he agreed with his 
atfiicted parishioners, that he should read 
prayers twice a week, and deliver his two 
customary sermons on the sabbath, from 
one of the perforated arches in the rocks of 
the dingle. By his advice they ranged 
themselves on the grassy steep in a level 
direction to the rocky pulpit; and the dell 
being narrow, he was distinctly heard from 
that arch. 

The poem describes the spot, and the 
manner of the worship ;— 

There is a dell, the merry schoolboy’s sling 

Whirled in the village, might discharge a stone 
Into its centre ; yet, the shouts which ring 
Forth from the hamlet travel, over blown 
Nor to its sheltered quietude are known. 

So hushed, so shrouded its deep bosom lies. 

It brooks no sound, but the congenial tone 
Of stirring leaves, loud nil, the melodies 
Of summer’s breezy breath or autumn’s stormier skies. 

Northward, from shadowy rocks, a wild stream pours, 
Then wider spreads the hollow—lofty trees 
Cast summer shades; it is a place of flowers. 

Of sun and fragrance, birds and chiming bees. 

Then higher shoot the hills. Acclivities 
Splintered and stern, each like a castle grey. 

Where ivy climbs, and roses woo the breeze. 

Narrow the pass ; there, trees in close array 
Shut, from this woodland cove, all distant, rude survey. 

But its chief ornament, a miracle 
Of Nature’s mirth, a wondrous temple stands. 

Right in the centre of this charmed dell. 

Which every height and bosky slope commands 
Arch meeting arch, unwrought of human hands 
Form dome and portals. 


When hark I— a sound !—it issued from the dell; 

A solemn voice, as though one did declaim 
On some high theme; it ceased—and then the swell 
Of a slow osalm-like chant on his amazement fell. 

In that fantastic temple’s porch was seen 
The youthful pastor ; lofty was his mien 
But stamped with thoughts of such appalling scope 
As rarely gather on a brow serene ; 

And who are they, on the opposing slope. 

To whom his solemn tones told but one awful hope ? 

A pallid, ghost-like, melancholy crew, 

Seated on scattered crags, and far-off knolls. 

As fearing each the other. They were few. 

As men whom one brief hour will from the rolls 
Of life cut off, and toiling for their souls’ 

Welcome into eternity—they seemed 
Lost in the heart’s last conflict, which controls 
All outward life—they sate as men who dreamed ; 

No motion in their frames—no eye perception beamed 

The two following stanzas are fearfudj 
descriptive of the awful interruptions to the 
solemn service in this sequestered spot. 

But suddenly, a wild and piercing cry 

Arose amongst them ; and an ancient man. 

Furious in mood—red frenzy in his eye, 

Sprang forth, and shouting, towards the hollow ran. 
His white locks floated round his features wan ; 

He rushed impatient to the valley rill; 

To drink, to revel in the wave began, 

As one on fire with thirst; then, with a shrill 
Laugh, as of joy, he sank—he lay—and all was still. 

Then from their places solemnly two more 
Went forth, as if to lend the sufferer aid; 

But in their hands, in readiness, they bore 
The charnel tools, the mattock and the spade. 

They broke the turf—they dug—they calmly laid 
The old man in his grave; and o’er him threw 
The earth, by prayer, nor requiem delayed; 

Then turned, and with no lingering adieu. 

Swifter than they approached, from the strange scene 
withdrew. 

The church-yard soon ceased to afford 
room for the dead. They were afterwards 
buried in an heathy hill above the village.* 
Curious travellers take pleasure in visiting, 
to this day, the mountain tumulus, and in 
examining its yet distinct remains ; also, in 
ascending, from the upper part of Eyam, 
those cliffs and fields which brow the dingle, 
and from whence the descent into the con¬ 
secrated rock is easy. It is called Cucklet 
church by the villagers. 


# The great ana good Howard visited Eyam tne yeat 
before he last left England, to examine in that village 
the records of the pestilential calamity which it ha*5 
endured, and of those virtues which resembled his owv 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


And now hope gleamed abroad. The plague seemed 
staid; 

And the loud winds of autumn glad uproar 
Made in the welkin. Health their call obeyed. 

And Confidence her throne resumed once more. 

Nay, joy itself was in the pastor’s bower ; 

For him the plague had sought, its final prey ; 

And Catherine pale, and shuddering at its power, 
Had watched, had wept, had seen it pass away,— 

And joy shone through their home like a bright sum¬ 
mer’s day. 

The sudden fear woke memory in her ceil; 

And tracing back the brightness of their being; 
Their love, their bliss, the fatal shafts which fell 
Around them—smote them — yet, even now were 
fleeing; 

Death unto numbers, but to them decreeing 
Safety ;—rich omens for succeeding years, 

In that sweet gaiety of spirit seeing, 

Theirs was that triumph which distress endears ; 

And gladness which breaks forth in mingling 6miles 
and tears. 

So passed that evening : but, still midnight falls. 

And why gleams thence that lamp’s unwonted glare ? 
Oh ! there is speechless woe within those walls: 
Death's stern farewell is given in thunder there. 
Mompesson wrapt in dreams and fancies fair. 

Which took their fashion from that evening’s tone 
At once sprang up in terror and despair, 

Roused by that voice which never yet had known 
To wake aight in his heart, but pure delight alone. 

** My William 1” faint and plaintive was the cry. 

And chill the hand which fell upon his breast, 

“ My dearest William, wake thee 1 Oh! that I 
With such sad tidings should dispel thy rest. 

But death is here I” With agony possessed. 

He snatched a light—he saw—he reeled—he fell. 

There, in its deadliest form prevailed the pest. 

Too well he knew the fatal signs—too well: 

A moment—and to life—to happiness farewell! 

The good and beautiful woman, Cathe¬ 
rine Mompesson, expired in her husband’s 
arms, in the twenty-seventh year of her age. 
Her tomb is near an ancient cross in the 
church-yard of Eyam. It is represented in 
the vignette to the “ Desolation of Eyam 
and by means of that print the present en¬ 
graving is laid before the reader of this 
article. 

Mr. Mompesson was presented to the 
rectory of Ea'kring, near Ollerton, in Not¬ 
tinghamshire, and he quitted the fatal 
scene. On his going, however, to take 
possession of his living, the people, naturally 
impressed with the terrors of the plague, in 
the very cloud and whirlwind of which he 
had so lately walked, declined admitting 
him into the village. A hut therefore was 
erected for him in RufTord Park, where he 
abode till the fear subsided. 


To this gift were added prebends in York 
and Southwell, and the offer of the deanery 
of Lincoln. But the good man, with an 
admirable disinterestedness, declined this 
last substantial honour, and transferred his 
influence to his friend, the witty and 
learned Dr. Fuller, author of “ the Worthies 
of England,’’ &c. who accordingly obtained 
it. The wish, which he expressed in one 
of his letters, that “ his children might 
be good rather than great,” sprang from a 
living sentiment of his heart. He had 
tasted the felicity and the bitterness of this 
world. ; he had seen its sunshine swallowed 
up in the shadow of death; and earth had 
nothing to offer him like the blessedness of 
a retirement, in which he might prepare 
himself for a more permanent state of ex¬ 
istence. 

A brass plate, with a Latin inscription, 
records his death in this pleasant seclusion, 
March 7, 1708, in the seventieth year of 
his age. 

Bright shines the sun upon the white walls wreathed* 
With flowers and leafy branches, m that lone 
And sheltered quiet, where the mourner breathed 
His future anguish ; pleasant there the tone 
Of bees ; the shadows, o’er still waters thrown. 

From the broad plane-tree ; in the grey church nigh, 
And near that altar where his faith was known, 
Humble as his own spirit we descry 
The record which denotes where sacred ashes lie. 

And be it so for ever;—it is glory. 

Tombs, mausoleums, scrolls, whose weak intent 
Time laughs to scorn, as he blots out their story. 

Are not the mighty spirit’s monument. 

He builds with the world’s wonder—his cement 
Is the world's love;—he lamps his beamy shrine. 

With fires of the soul’s essence, which, unspent. 

Burn on for ever;—such bright tomb is thine. 

Great patriot, and so rests thy peerless Catherine. 

So ends the poem of “ The Desolation of 
Eyam.” Its authors, in one of the notes, 
relate as follows :— 

There are extant three letters written by 
W. Mompesson, from the nearly depopu¬ 
lated place, at a time when his wife had 
been snatched from him by the plague, and 
he considered his own fate inevitable. In 
the whole range of literature, we know of 
nothing more pathetic than these letters. 
Our limits do not allow us to give them 
entire, but we cannot forbear making a few 
extracts. In one, he says, 

“ The condition of this place has been 
so sad, that I persuade myself it did exceed 
all history and example. I may truly say 
that our town has become a Golgotha—the 
place of a skull; and, had there not been a 

r Eakrmg rectorv. 


659 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


small remnant of us left, we nad been as 
Sodom and Gomorrah. My ears never 
8 sard such doleful lamentations, and my 
eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. 
Here have been seventy-six families visited 
in my parish, out of which two hundred 
and fifty-nine persons died ! Now, blessed 
be God—all our fears are over : for none 
have died of the infection since the eleventh 
of October; and all the pest-houses have 
been long empty. I intend (God willing) 
to spend most of this week in seeing all 
the woollen clothes fumed and purified, as 
well for the satisfaction, as for the safety of 
the country.” 

Thus it is he announces to his children, 
the death of their mother. 

To my dear children , George and Eli¬ 
zabeth Mompesson, these present ivith 

my blessing. 

“ Eyam, August , 1666. 

“ Dear Hearts,—This brings you the 
doleful news of your dear mother’s death— 
the greatest loss which ever yet befell you! 

I am not only deprived of a kind and lov¬ 
ing consort, but you also are bereaved of 
the most indulgent mother that ever dear 
children had. We must comfort ourselves 
in God with this consideration, that the 
loss is only ours, and that what is our sor¬ 
row is her gain. The consideration of her 
joys, which I do assure myself are unutter¬ 
able, should refresh our drooping spirits. 

“ I do believe, my dear hearts, upon 
sufficient ground, that she was the kindest 
wife in the world; and I do think from 
my soul that she loved me ten times more 
than herself. Further, I can assure you, 
my sweet babes, that her love to you was 
little inferior to hers for me. For why 
should she be so desirous of my living in 
this world of sorrows, but that you might 
have the comfort of my life. You little 
imagine with what delight she was wont 
to talk of you both ; and the pains that she 
took when you sucked on her breasts is 
almost incredible. She gave a large testi¬ 
mony of her love to you on her death-bed. 
For, some hours before she died, I brought 
her some cordials, which she plainly told 
me she was not able to take. I desired 
her to take them for your dear sakes. 
Upon the mention of your dear names, she 
lifted up herself and took them; which was 
to let me understand, that whilst she had 
strength left, she would embrace any oppor¬ 
tunity she had of testifying her affection to 
you.” 

So wrote this most affectionate spirit to 
comfort his children : but, in a letter to a 


relative, the bitterness of nis grief burst 
forth in an inconsolable agony. “ I find 
this maxim verified by too sad experience ; 
Bonum magis carendo quam fruendo cerni- 
tur. Had I been so thankful as my con¬ 
dition did deserve, I might yet have had 
my dearest dear in my bosom. But now, 
farewell all happy days, and God grant I 
may repent my sad ingratitude.” 

The following letter was written to sir 
George Saville, afterwards lord Hallifax, 
his friend and patron, soon after this me¬ 
lancholy event, and while the plague was 
in his house, and he looked upon his own 
death as certain, and speedily approaching. 

“ To Sir George Saville, Baronet. 

“ Eyam , Sept. 1, 1666. 

“ Honoured and dear sir,—This is the 
saddest news that ever my pen could write ! 
The destroying angel having taken up his 
quarters within my habitation, my dearest 
dear is gone to her eternal rest; and is in¬ 
vested with a crown of righteousness, hav¬ 
ing made a happy end. 

“ Indeed had she loved herself as well as 
me, she had fled from the pit of destruction 
with her sweet babes, and might have pro¬ 
longed her days, but that she was resolved 
to die a martyr to my interest. My droop¬ 
ing spirits are much refreshed with her joys, 
which I think are unutterable. 

“ Sir, this paper is to bid you a hearty 
farewell for ever—and to bring my humble 
thanks for all your noble favours; and I 
hope that you will believe a dying man. I 
have as much love as honour for you ; and 
I will bend my feeble knees to tne God of 
Heaven that you, my dear lady and your 
children, and their children, may be blest 
with external and eternal happiness; and 
that the same blessing may fall upon my 
lady Sunderland and her relations. 

“ Dear sir, let your dying chaplain re¬ 
commend this truth to you and your family 
—that no happiness nor solid comfort may 
be found in this vale of tears like living a 
pious life;—and pray remember ever to 
retain this rule—never to do any thing 
upon which you dare not first ask the bless¬ 
ing of God for the success thereof. 

“ Sir, I have made bold in my will with 
your name as an executor, and I hope that 
you will not take it ill. I have joined two 
others with you that will take from you the 
trouble. Your favourable aspect will, I 
know, be a great comfort to my distressed 
orphans. I am not desirous that they ma» 
be great, but good ; and my next request is 
that they may be brought up in the fear 
and admonition of the Lord. 


660 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


“ I desire, sir, that you will be pleased to 
make choice of a*n humble, pious man to 
: succeed me in my parsonage; and, could I 
see your face before my departure from 
J hence, I would inform you which way I 
think he may live comfortably amongst his 
people, which would be some satisfaction 
I to me before I die. And with tears I beg, 
that, when you are praying- for fatherless 
i infants, you would then remember my two 
pretty babes. Sir, pardon the rude style of 
| this paper, and if my head be discomposed, 
you cannot wonder at me. However, be 
pleased to believe that I am 
Dear sir, 

Your most obliged, most affectionate, 
and grateful servant, 

“ William Momfesson.” 

When first the plague broke out in Eyam, 
Mr. Mompesson wrote to the then earl of 
Devonshire, residing at Chatworth, some 
five miles from Eyam; stating, that he 
thought he could prevail upon his parish¬ 
ioners to confine themselves within the 
limits of the village, if the surrounding 
country would supply them with neces¬ 
saries, leaving such provisions as should be 
requested in appointed places, and at ap¬ 
pointed hours, upon the encircling hills. 
The proposal was punctually complied 
with; and it is most remarkable, that when 
the pestilence became, beyond all concep¬ 
tion, terrible, not a single inhabitant at¬ 
tempted to pass the deathful boundaries of 
the village, though a regiment of soldiers 
could not, in that rocky and open country, 
have detained them against their will: much 
less could any watch, which might have 
been set by the neighbourhood, have ef¬ 
fected that infinitely important purpose. 

By the influence of this exemplary man, 
obtained by his pious and affectionate vir¬ 
tues, the rest of the county of Derby escaped 
the plague; not one of the very nearly 
neighbouring hamlets, or even a single 
house, being infected beyond the limits of 
Eyam village, though the distemper raged 
there near seven months. 

Further details will hardly be required 
respecting a story, which is as true as it is 
sad. The manner wherein it is poetic¬ 
ally related is sufficiently exemplified, and 
therefore, without comment; and for beau¬ 
ties, various as the scenery of nature, ex¬ 
pressed in charmed lines, the reader of 
feeling is referred to the exquisite little 
volume mentioned before, under the title of 
1 • The Desolation of Eyam , and other 
Poems; by William and Mary Ifowitt, 
authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.” 


A little piece, however, is ventured from 
the volume, as a seasonable conclusion at 
parting. 

SUMMER AND THE POET. 

POET. 

Oh t golden, golden summer. 

What is it thou hast done ? 

Thou hast chased each vernal roamer 
With thy fiercely burning sun. 

Glad was the cuckoo’s hail; 

Where may we hear it now ? 

Thou hast driven the nightingale 
From the waving hawthorn bough. 

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river; 

Thou hast made the small brook fiee; 

And the light gales faintly quiver 
In the dark and shadowy tree. 

Spring waked her tribes to bloom, 

And on the green sward dance. » 

Thou hast smitten them to ihe tomU 
With thy consuming glance. 

And now Autumn cometh on. 

Singing ’midst shocks of corn. 

Thou hastenest to be gone. 

As if joy might not be borne. 

SUMMER. 

And dost thou of me complain, 

Thou, who, with dreamy eves, 

In the forest’s moss hast lain. 

Praising my silvery skies ? 

Thou, who didst deem divine 
The shrill cicada’s tune. 

When the odours of the pine 

Gushed through the woods at noon t 

l have run my fervid race ; 

I have wrought my task once more ; 

I have filled each fruitful place 
With a plenty that runs o’er. 

There is treasure for the garner; 

There is honey with the bee ; 

And, oh! thou thankless scorner. 

There's a parting boon for thee. 

Soon as, in misty sadness. 

Sere Autumn yields his reign, 

Winter, vith stormy madness. 

Shall chase thee from the plain. 

Then shall these scenes Elysian 
Bright in thy spirit burn ; 

And each summer-thought and vision 
Be thine till I return. 

It may be remembered that from this 
volume the poem of “ Penn and the In- { 
dians,” in a former sheet, was extracts ! 


V 


661 







THE TABLE BOOK. 




iftomprseon'S pulpit tit tlje Keefe. 


-Bursting through that woody screen 

What vision of strange aspect met his- eyes ! 

In that fantastic temple’s porch was seen 

The youthful pastor- 

---No sabbath sound 

Came from the village :—no rejoicing bells 
Were heard ; no groups of strolling youth were found. 

Nor lovers loitering on the distant fells, 

No laugh, no shout of infancy, which tells 
Where radiant health and happiness repair; 

But silence, such as with the lifeless dwells. 

The Desolation of Eyam. 

in, and, in a dreadful and desolating strug¬ 
gle, destroyed and buried with its victims.” 

William Mompesson exercised a pow^r 
greater than legislators have yet attained. 
He had found the great secret of govern¬ 
ment. He ruled his flock by the Law of 
Kindness. * 


In the summer, 1757, live cottagers were 
digging on the heathy mountain above 
Eyam, which was the place of graves after 
the church-yard became a too narrow repo¬ 
sitory. Those men came to something 
which had the appearance of having once 
been linen. Conscious of their situation, 
they instantly buried it again. In a few 
days they all sickened of a putrid fever, 
and three of the five died. The disorder 
was contagious, and proved mortal to num 
bers of the inhabitants. 


A plate in the “ Gentleman’s Magazine” 
of September, 1801, presents the above 
1 view, taken about three years before, ac¬ 
companied by a remark from Mr. Urban’s 
correspondent, that it was “ at that time 
an exact resemblance of the perforated 
rock near the village of Eyam, in which 
the pious and worthy Mr. Mompesson, the 
rector, punctually performed the duties of 
his office to the distressed inhabitants dur¬ 
ing the time of the plague in that village.” 

Here it may be well to observe, in the 
expressive language of “ William and 
Mary Howitt,” that “ what a cordon of 
soldiers could not have accomplished was 
effected by the wisdom and love of one 
man. This measure was the salvation of 
the country. The plague, which would 
most probably have spread from place to 
nlace may be said to have been hemmed 




662 























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


<§arttcfe paps. 

No. XXXVIt. 

[From “ Ram Alley,” a Comedy, by 
Lodowick Barry, 1611.] 

In the Prologue the Poet protests the 
innocence of his Play, and gives a promise 
of better things. 

Home bred mirth our Muse doth sing ; 

The Satyr’s tooth, and waspish sting. 

Which most do hurt when least suspected. 

By this Play are not affected. 

But if conceit, with quick-turn’d scenes. 

Observing all those ancient streams 
Which from the Horse-foot fount do flow— 

As time, place, person—and to show 
Things never done, with that true life, 

That thoughts and wits shall stand at strife. 

Whether the things now shewn be true ; 

Or whether we ourselves now do 
The things we but present: if these, 

Free from the loathsome Stage-disease, 

So over-worn, so tired and stale ; 

Not satyrising, but to rail;— 

May win your favors, and inherit 
But calm acceptance of his merit,— 

He vows by paper, pen, and ink. 

And by the Learned Sisters’ drink. 

To spend his time, his lamps, his oil. 

And never cease his brain to toil. 

Till from the silent hours of night 
He doth produce, for your delight. 

Conceits so new, so harmless free, 

That Puritans themselves may see 
A Play ; yet not in public preach, 

That Players such lewd doctrine teach. 

That their pure joints do quake and tremble. 

When they do see a man resemble 
The picture of a villain.—This, 

As he a friend to Muses is. 

To you by me he gives his word. 

Is all his Play does now afford. 


! [From the “ Royal King and Loyal Sub- 
ject ” a Tragi-comedy, by T. Heywood, 
1627.] 

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywood 
descants upon the variety of topics, which 
nad been introduced upon the English 
stage in that age,—the rich Shakspearian 
epoch 

To give content to this most curious age. 

The Gods themselves we’ve brought down to the stage. 
And figured them in Planets; made ev’n Hell 
Deliver up the Furies, by no spell 
Saving the Muses’ raptures : further we 
rfave traffickt by their help ; no History 


We’ve left nnrifled ; our pens have been dipt 
As well in opemug each hid manuscript, 

As tracts more vulgar, whether read or sung. 

In our domestic or move foreign tongue. 

Of Fairy elves, Nymphs of the Sea and Land, 
The Lawns and Groves, no number can be scaan’d. 
Which we’ve not given feet to. Nay, ’tis known. 
That when our Chronicles have barren grown 
Of story, we have all Invention stretcht; 

Dived low as to the center, and then reacht 
Unto the Primum Mobile above, 

(Nor ’scaped Things Intermediate), for your lor 
These have been acted often ; all have past 
Censure : of which some live, and some are cast. 
For this* in agitation, stay the end; 

Tho’ nothing please, yet nothing can offend. 


[From the “ Challenge to Beauty,” a Tragi¬ 
comedy, by T. Heywood, 1636.] 

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywooa 
commends the English Plays; not without 
a censure of some writers, who in his time 
had begun to degenerate. 

The Roman and Athenian Dramas far 
Differ from us : and those that frequent are 
In Italy and France, ev’n in these days. 

Compared with ours, are rather Jiggs than Plays. 

Like of the Spanish may be said, and Dutch ; 

None, versed in language, but confess them such. 

They do not build, their projects on that ground ; 

Nor have their phrases half the weight and sound. 
Our labour’d Scenes have had. And yet our nation 
(Already too much tax’d for imitation. 

In seeking to ape others) cannot ’quit 
Some of our Poets, who have sinn’d in it. 

For where, before, great Patriots, Dukes, and Kings, 
Presented for some high facinorous things} 

Were the stage subject; now we strive to fly 
In their low pitch, who never could soar high • 

For now the common argument entreats 
Of puling Lovers, crafty Bawds, or Cheats. 

Nor blame I their quick fancies, who can fit 
These queasy times with humours flash’d in wit. 
Whose art I both encourage and commend ; 

I only wish that they would sometimes bend 
To memorise the valours of such men. 

Whose very names might dignify the pen ; 

And that our once-applauded Rosscian strain 
In acting such might be revived again; 

Which you to count’nance might the Stage make proud, 
And poets strive to key their strings more loud. 

C. L. 


* His own Play. 

t The foundations of the English Drama were laid 
deep in tragedy by Marlow, and others — Marlow 
especially—while our comedy was yet in its lisping 
•Cate. To this tragic preponderance (forgetting hn 
own sweet Comedies, and Shakspeare’s), Heywood 
seems to refer with regret; as in the “Roscian Strain” 
he evidently alludes to Alleyn, who was great in the 
“ Jew of Malta,” as Heywood elsewhere testifies, and 
in the principal tragic parts both of Marlow ani 
Shakspeare. 


663 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


©ShTsStlmg 

IN CORNWALL AND DEVONSHIRE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The ready insertion given to my 
letter on the above subject, in the second 
volume of the Every-Day Book , (p. 1009,) 
encourages me to hope that you will as 
readily insert the present, which enters 
more fully into the merits of this ancient 
sport, as practised in both counties, than 
any other communication you have as yet 
lain before your numerous readers. 

Having been the first person to call your 
attention to the merits of Polkinhurne, 
Parkins, and Warren, of Cornwall, (to 
which I could easily have added the names 
of some dozen or two more, equally deserv¬ 
ing of notice,) I was much amused at the 
article you extracted from the London 
Magazine, (into the Every-Day Book , vol. 
ii. p. 1337,) because I was present at the 
sport there spoken of; and being well ac¬ 
quainted with the play, and an eye-witness, 
I found the picture much too highly co¬ 
loured. 

I am neither a Cornwall nor a Devon man 
myself, but have resided in both counties 
for the last ten years, and am really an ad¬ 
mirer of Abraham Cann, of Devon, whose 
behaviour in the ring no one can at all 
complain of: he is a fine fellow, but so is 
Polkinhorne, and* beyond doubt, the latter 
is “ much the better man he threw Cann 
an acknowledged fair fall, and I regret he 
left the ring on the bad advice of those 
whom he thought then his friends. Had he 
not, I am certain he would have thrown 
Cann “ over and over again.” 

In a late number of the Table Book (p. 
416) is given an extract from Homer, to 
show that Ulysses’ mode of wrestling was 
similar to that of Abraham Cann ; it may 
be so; but what does Achilles say upon the 
subject:— 

” Your nobler vigour, oh, my friends, restrain : 

Nor weary out your gen’rous strength in vain. 

Ye both have won : let others who excel 

Now prove that prowess you have prov’d so well.” 

Now Abraham Cann, with his monstrous 
shoe, and most horrible mode of kicking, 
has never yet been able to throw Polkin¬ 
horne, nor do I think he has the power or 
skill to enable him to do so. His defeat of 
Gaffney has added no laurel to his brow, 
for the Irishman had not a shadow of 
chance; nor is there an Irishman or a 
Cornishman, now in London, that would 


stand any chance with Cann; but he would 
find several awkward opponents if he would 
meet those from Westmoreland, Carlisle 
and Cumberland, and play in their mode. Ir- 
the match, however, between Polkinhorm, 
and Cann the latter very properly re 
ceived the stakes, on account of the formei 
having quitted the ring on conceiving he had 
won the day, by throwing two falls. The 
second throw, on reference to the umpires, 
was after some time deemed not a fair back 
fall.—This, however, is foreign to my pur¬ 
pose; which is to systematically explain 
the methods of wrestling in Cornwall and 
Devon. 

I have seen m Cornwall more persons 
present at these games, when the prize has 
only been a gold-laced hat, a waistcoat, or 
a pair of gloves, than ever attend the sports 
of Devon, (where the prizes are very liberal 
—for they don’t like to be kicked severely j 
for a trifle,) or even at the famed meetings 
of later days in London, at the Eagle in the 
City Road, or the Golden Eagle in Mile 
End. How is this? Why, in the latter 
places, six, eight, and, at farthest, twelve 
standards are as much as a day’s play will 
admit of; while in Cornwall I have seen 
forty made in one day. At Penzance, on 
Monday, 24th ult.,* thirty standards were 
made, and the match concluded the day 
following. In Devon, what with the heavy 
shoes and thick padding, and time lost in 
equipment and kicking, half that number 
cannot be made in a day : I have frequently 
seen men obliged to leave the ring, and 
abandon the chance of a prize, owing solely 
to the hurt they have received by kicks 
from the knee downwards ; and let me here 
add, that I have been present when even 
Cann’s brothers, or relations, have been 
obliged to do so. So much for kicking.— 
To the eye of a beholder unacquainted with 
wrestling, the Cornish mode must appear 
as play , and that of Devon barbarous .—It 
is an indisputable fact, that no Cornish 
wrestler of any note ever frequents the 
games in Devon ; and that whenever those 
from Devon have played in Cornwall, they 
have been thrown : Jordan by Parkins, and 
so on. 

At a Cornish wrestling, a man’s favourite 
play can be seen by the hitch or holdfast he 
takes; as right or left, which is sure to be 
crossed by left and right, and the struggle 
immediately commences. The off-hand 
play is that in which the men have each a 
gripe on his adversary’s collar, or on the 
collar and opposite elbow, or wrist; when 


• Sw the West Briton paper of the 5th October. 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


by a sudden blow against the outside of 
itie foot, by the striker’s inside, (if strong 
enough,) or by a corresponding twist of the 
collar, one lays the other Hat on his back. 
This is called playing with the toe ; but 
they never wear any shoes, and are gene* 
rally bare-legged from the knee downwards. 

When the hitch is collar and elbow, one 
mode of play is to lift with the heel placed 
in the fork, with the back twisted round 
towards the other’s front, and pulling him 
strongly by the elbow and collar, carry him 
forward; but a back fall is then uncertain. 
Another way is to heave forward or back¬ 
ward with the crook, or inlock, or with the 
hip. 

But the struggle is on what is termed the 
closing play, which is by hitching over and 
under. If righthanded, the over player 
has his right hand on the loins, or over the 
right shoulder of his adversary, with his 
right side towards him, and his left hand 
on the right arm, at the wrist or elbow ; he 
then throws forward with the hip, or back¬ 
ward and forward with the crook , as before. 

The under player has his right hand on 
the left side of the collar, his left crossing 
the loins on the back, or crossing the belly 
in front, and facing his opponent’s left side. 
His defensive play is to stop the hip by the 
clamp and the crook ; by pushing forward 
with his left hand on the nape of the neck, 
and then heaving ; which in the ring is con¬ 
sidered the best play. A good and sure 
heaver is a perfect player. It must be 
done backward, if the arm crosses the 
back; but if it crosses the belly, either 
backward or forward will do. Cann was 
thrown by Polkinhorne backwards, which 
is dangerous to the heaver to attempt; for, 
if he does not lift with sufficient strength, 
and keep himself clear of his antagonist’s 
legs, he will not go far enough round, and 
instead of throwing his adversary a fair 
fall, he may fall on his own back, which is 
termed throwing himself ; or his adversary 
may crook his leg within, and overbalance 
the heaver and by a quick movement throw 
him. Thus was Warren thrown by Cann. 
(See the Every-Day Book , vol. ii. p. 13.17.) 

The forward heave, if done quickly, is 
certain. Both arms must cross the belly, 
and your adversary be lifted across your 
chest; then, plunging forward, you fall on 
him crosswise; he has thus no chance, and 
the fall is complete; but the in-turn , if 
adopted before the lift from the ground 
takes place, baffles the heaver. 

The Cornish hug is a tremendous strug¬ 
gle for victory. Both grasp alike, and not 
n.uch science is required. It only takes 


place where each conceives himself to be 
the stronger of the two. It is either right 
or left. If right, each man has his right 
hand on the other’s loins on the left side, 
and his left hand on the right shoulder; 
they stand face to face, and each strives to 
draw his adversary towards him, and grasps 
him round the waist, till the hug becomes 
close, and the weakest man is forced back¬ 
ward—the other falling heavily upon him. 
This is a very sure and hard fall. So much 
for Cornish play. Now for that of Devon¬ 
shire ; which resembles in every respect | 
(the toe and heel excepted) the cff-hand 
play of Cornwall, but goes no farther. 

The Devonshire men have no under-play, 
nor have they one heaver ; and they do not 
understand or practise the hug. Visit a 
Devon ring, and you’ll wait a tedious time 
after a man is thrown ere another appears. 
After undergoing the necessary prepara¬ 
tions for a good kicking, 8cc. he enters, 
and shakes his adversary by the hand, and 
kicks and lays hold when he can get a fit 
opportunity. If he is conscious of superior 
strength he “ goes to work,” and by strength 
of arms wrests him off his legs, and lays 
him flat; or, if too heavy for this, he carries 
him round by the hip. But when the men 
find they are “ much of a muchness ” it is 
really tiresome; “ caution ” is the word ; 
the shoe, only, goes to work ; and after 
dreadful hacking, cutting, and kicking, one 
is at last thrown. The hardest shoe and 
the best kicker carries the day. Cann is a 
very hard kicker and a cautious wrestler. 
The Irishman’s legs bore ample testimony 
of the effects of Cann’s shoe. lie left him 
knee-deep in a stream of gore. 

The Devon men never close with a 
Cornish adversary, if they find he possesses 
any science; because they have no under¬ 
play, and cannot prevent the risk of being 
heaved ; they therefore stand off, with only 
one hand in the collar, and kick; the 
Cornishman then attempts to get in, and 
the Devonman tries to confine one of his 
opponent’s arms by holding him at the 
wrist, and keeping him from coming in 
either over or under, and at every move of 
his leg kicking it. Here ends the descrip¬ 
tion; by which it will be plainly seen that 
a Cornishman cannot enter a Devon ring 
on any thing like an equality. 

Wishing well to both counties, and dis¬ 
claiming undue partiality to either, I remain 
a true lover of wrestling as a rustic sport, 
and your obedient servant, 

Sam Sam’s Son. 

October 8, 1827. 


665 







THE TABLE BOOH. 


©fecobmcs 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. XII. 

Ether—Weight and Elasticity of the 
Air—Air-guns. 

By ether the moderns understand a rare 
fluid, or species of matter, beyond the at¬ 
mosphere, and penetrating it, infinitely 
more subtile than the air we respire, of an 
: immense extent, filling all the spaces where 
| the celestial bodies roll, yet making no 
sensible resistance to their motions. Some 
suppose it to be a sort of air, much purer 
than that which invests our globe; others, 

; that its nature approaches to that of the 
celestial fire, which emanates from the sun 
and other stars; others, again, suppose it 
to be generically different from all other 
matter, sui generis , and its parts finer than 
those of light; alleging that the exceed¬ 
ing tenuity of its parts renders it capable 
of that vast expansive force, which is the 
source of all that pressure and dilatation 
whence most of the phenomena in nature 
arise; for that by the extreme subtilty of 
its parts it intimately penetrates all bodies, 
and exerts its energy everywhere. This last 
is the opinion of Newton and Locke. But 
whatever be the sentiments now entertained 
on the subject, we find the origin of all of 
them in the ancients. 

The stoics taught, that there w r as a subtile 
and active fire which pervaded the whole 
universe, that by the energy of this ethereal 
substance, to which they gave the name of 
ether, all the parts of nature were produced, 
preserved, and linked together; that it em¬ 
braced every thing; and that in it the 
celestial bodies performed their revolutions. 

According to Diogenes Laertius and 
Hierocles, Pythagoras affirmed, that the air 
which invests our earth is impure and 
mixed; but that the air above it is essen¬ 
tially pure and healthful. He calls it “ free 
ether, emancipated from all gross matter, a 
celestial substance that fills all space, and 
penetrates at will the pores of all bodies.” 

Aristotle, explaining Pythagoras’s opi¬ 
nion of ether, ascribes the same also to 
Anaxagoras. Aristotle himself, in another 
place, understands by ether, a fifth element 
pure and unalterable , of an active and vital 
nature , but entirely different from air and 
fire. 

Empedocles, one of the most celebrated 
disciples of Pythagoras, is quoted by Plu¬ 
tarch, and St. Clemens Alexandrinus, as 
admittine an ethereal substance, which 


filled all space, and contained in it all the 
bodies of the universe, and which he calls 
by the names of Titan and Jupiter. 

Plato distinguishes air into two kinds, 
the one gross and filled with vapours, which 
is what we breathe; the other “ more re¬ 
fined, called ether, in which the celestial 
bodies are immerged, and where they roll.” 

The nature of air was not less known to 
the ancients than that of ether. They re¬ 
garded it as a general “ menstruum ,” con¬ 
taining all the volatile parts of every thing 
in nature, which being variously agitated, 
and differently combined, produced me¬ 
teors, tempests, and all the other changes 
we experience. They also were acquainted 
with its weight, though the experiments 
transmitted to us, relative to this, are but 
few. Aristotle speaks of “ a vessel filled 
with air as weighing more than one quite 
empty.” Treating of respiration, he reports 
the opinion of Empedocles, who ascribes 
the cause of it “ to the weight of the air, 
which by its pressure insinuates itself with 
force ” into the lungs. Plutarch, in the 
same terms, expresses the sentiments of 
Asclepiades. He represents him, among 
other things, as saying, that “ the external 
air by its weight opens its way with force 
into the breast.” Heron of Alexandria 
ascribes effects to the elasticity of the air, 
which show that he perfectly understood 
that property of it. 

Seneca also knew its weight, spring, and 
elasticity. He describes “ the constant 
effort it makes to expand itself when it is 
compressed;” and he affirms, that “ it has 
the property of condensing itself, and for¬ 
cing its way through all obstacles that oppose 
its passage.” 

It is still more surprising, however, that 
Ctesibius, “ upon the principle of the air’s 
elasticity,” invented IVind-guns , which we 
look upon as a modern contrivance. Philo 
of Byzantium gives a very full and exact 
description of that curious machine, plan¬ 
ned upon the property of the air’s being 
capable of condensation, and so constructed 
as to manage and direct the force of that 
element, in such a manner as to carry stone* 
with rapidity to the greatest distance. 

INSCRIBED ON A SIGN 
At Castle Cary, Somerset. 
FOOT, 

Maker of pattens, clogs, rakes, and mouse-traps too. 
Grinds razors, makes old umbrellas good as new; 
Knives bladed, spurs and lanterns mended; other job 
done ; 

Teakettles clean’d, repaired, and carried home. 

J. T. H. 


666 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


iManmrsf ana Customs. 

For the Table Book. 

Provincial Sayings, &e. 

1. As the days grow longer. 

The storms grow stronger. 

2. As the days lengthen. 

So the storms strengthen. 

3. Blessed is the corpse, that the rain falls on. 

4. Blessed is the bride, that the sun shines on. 

5. He that goes to see his wheat in May, 

Comes weep-ing away. 

Harvest-home Call, 
in the County of Durham. 

Blest be the day that Christ was born, 

JVe've getten mell of Mr.-’s corn. 

Well won, and better shorn. 

Hip, hip, hip!—Huzza ! huzza 1 huzza ! 

An old Yorkshire May-Game. 

u An account of a May-Game, performed 
at Richmond, Yorkshire , on the 29 th of 
May, 1660 , by the inhabitants of that 
town; whereby they demonstrated their 
U niversal joy for the happy return of 
Charles II., whom God was pleased to 
make the instrument of freeing this na¬ 
tion from tyranny, usurpation, and the 
dismal effects of a civil war. 

u They came into the town, in solemn 
equipage, as follows :— 

“ 1. Three atitics before them with bag¬ 
pipes. 

“ 2. The representative of a lord, attend¬ 
ed by trumpets, falconers, four pages, as 
many footmen, and fifty attendants, all 
suited as became persons of their quality. 

“ 3. The representative of a sheriff, with 
forty attendants, in their liveries. 

“ 4. The bishop of Hereford , with four 
images and footmen, his chaplain, and twenty 
other household officers, besides their at¬ 
tendants. 

5. Two companies of morris-dancers, 
who acted their parts to the satisfaction of 
the spectators. 

“ 6. Sixty nymphs, with music before 
them, following Diana, all richly adorned 
in white and gorgeous apparel, with pages 
and footmen attending them. 

“ 7. Three companies of foot soldiers, 
with a captain and other officers, in great 
magnificence. 

“ 8. Robin Hood, in scarlet, with forty 
bowmen, all clad in Lincoln green. 


“ Thus they marched into the town. 
Now follows their performance. 

“ They marched decently, in good order, 
round the market-cross, and came to the 
church, where they offered their cordial 
prayers for our most gracious sovereign; a 
sermon preached at that time. 

“ From thence my lord invited all his at¬ 
tendants to his house to dinner. 

“ The reverend bishop did the same to 
all his attendants, inviting the minister and 
other persons to his own house, where they 
were sumptuously entertained. 

“ The soldiers marched up to the cross, 
where they gave many vollies of shot, with 
push of pike, and other martial feats. 

“ There was erected a scaffold and ar¬ 
bours, where the morris-dancers and nymphs 
acted their parts; many thousands of spec¬ 
tators having come out of the country and 
villages adjacent. 

“ Two days were spent in acting ‘ Robin 
Hood/ The sheriff and reverend bishop 
sent bottles of sack to several officers acting- 
in the play, who all performed their parts 
to the general satisfaction of the spectators, 
with acclamations of joy for the safe arrival 
of his sacred majesty. 

“ Something more might have been ex¬ 
pected from the civil magistrate of the 
town, who permitted the conduit to run 
water all the time. 

“ The preceding rejoicings were per¬ 
formed by the commonalty of the borough 
of Richmond/' 

Christmas Pie. 

The following appeared in the New¬ 
castle Chronicle, 6th Jan. 1770:—“Mon¬ 
day last was brought from Howick to Ber¬ 
wick, to be shipp’d for London, for sir 
Hen. Grey, bart., a pie, the contents where¬ 
of are as follows : viz. 2 bushels of flour, 
20 lbs. of butter, 4 geese, 2 turkies, 2 rab¬ 
bits, 4 wild ducks, 2 woodcocks, 6 snipes, 
and 4 partridges; 2 neats' tongues, 2 cur¬ 
lews, 7 blackbirds, and 6 pigeons: it is 
supposed a very great curiosity, was made 
by Mrs. Dorothy Patterson, housekeeper at 
Howick. It was near nine feet in circum¬ 
ference at bottom, weighs about twelve 
stones, will take two men to present it 
to table ; it is neatly fitted with a case, and 
four small wheels to facilitate its use to 
every guest that inclines to partake of its 
contents at table.” 

Oliver Cromwell’s Weddings. 

The singular mode of solemnizing mar 
riages that took place during Cromwell's 


667 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


usurpation, was pretty strictly observed for 
the space of four years ; during which time 
sixty-six couple were joined together before 
the civil magistrate (at Knaresbrough.) 
The gentlemen who were applied to in this 
case, for the most part, appear to be Thomas 
Stockdale, of Bilton Park, Esq.; sir Thomas 
Mouleverer, bart. of Allerton Park; or the 
mayor of Ripon. The bans were pub¬ 
lished on three separate days before mar¬ 
riage, sometimes at the market-cross, and 
sometimes in the church. The following is 
a copy of one of the certificates:— 

“ 30 Mar. 1651. Marmaduke Inman and 
Prudence Lowcock, both of the parish 
of Knaresbrough, were this day mar¬ 
ried together at Ripon, having first 
been published three several market- 
lays in the market-place at Knares¬ 
brough, according to the act of parlia¬ 
ment, and no exceptions made. 

“ In the presence of 

“ Thomas Davie , 

“ Anthony Simpson .” 

Electioneering. 

In sir Henry Slingsby’s Diary is the fol¬ 
lowing note, respecting the election at 
Knaresbrough in the year 1640. “There 
is an evil custom at such elections, to bestow 
wine on all the town, which cost me sixteen 
pounds at least.” 

D. A. M. 

-_- 

A RARE BROAD FARTHING! 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—In your last very pleasing number, 
p. 242, you give an account of a “ Farthing 
Lord.” As addenda to that article I state, 
that in the west of England I knew a 
penurious old gentleman, who, by way of 
generous reward, used to give the person 
who performed little services for him a 
farthing!, with this grateful apostrophe, 

“ Here, my friend; here is a rare broad 
farthing for thee !—go thy way—call to¬ 
morrow; and, if thou earn it, thou shalt 
nave another rare broad farthing !” By 
the exercise of this liberality, he gained the 
appellation of “Broad Farthing!” and re¬ 
tained it to the day of his death, when he 
left immense wealth. 

I am, sir, yours, &c. 

* * * 

» > • 

Islington, August 25, 1827. 


SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

The following good-tempered and agree¬ 
able letter has been published in illustration 
of an excellent engraving of Wilkie’s in¬ 
teresting picture of Sir Walter Scott and 
his family:— 

Letter from Sir Walter Scott to Sir 
Adam Ferguson, descriptive of a Pic¬ 
ture painted by David Wilkie, Esq., 
R.A., EXHIBITED AT THE ROYAL ACADE¬ 
MY, 1818. 

My dear Adam,—I have duly received 
your letter, with that enclosed from the 
gentleman whom you have patronised, by 
suffering the sketch from the pencil of our 
friend Wilkie to be engraved for his work. 

The picture has something in it rather of 
a domestic character, as the personages are 
represented in a sort of masquerade, such 
being the pleasure of the accomplished 
painter. Nevertheless, if it is to be en¬ 
graved, I do not see that I can offer any 
objection, since it is the wish of the dis¬ 
tinguished artist, and the friendly pro¬ 
prietor of the sketch in question. 

But Mr. Balmanno [Secretary to the 
Incorporated Artists’ Fund] mentions, be¬ 
sides, a desire to have anecdotes of my 
private and domestic life, or, as he expresses 
himself, a portrait of the author in his 
night-gown and slippers; and this from 
you, who, I dare say, could furnish some 
anecdotes of our younger days, which might 
now seem ludicrous enough. 

Even as to my night-gown and slippers, 

I believe the time has been, when the 
articles of my wardrobe were as familiar to 
your memory as Poins’s to Prince Henry ; 
but that time has been for some years past, 
and I cannot think it would be interesting 
to the public to learn that I had changed 
my old robe-de-chambre for a handsome 
douillette when I was last at Paris. The 
truth is, that a man of ordinary sense can¬ 
not be supposed delighted with the species 
of gossip which, in the dearth of other news, 
recurs to such a quiet individual as myself; 
and though, like a well-behaved lion of 
twenty years’ standing, I am not inclined to 
vex myself about what I cannot help, I 
will not in any case, in which I can prevent 
it, be accessory to these follies. There is 
no man known at all in literature, who may 
not have more to tell of his private life 
than I have : I have surmounted no diffi¬ 
culties either of birth or education, nor 
have I been favoured by any particular ad¬ 
vantages, and my life has been as void oi 


668 










THE TABLE BOOK 


incidents of importance, as t'nat of the 
“ weary knife-grinder,”— 

“ Stoi 7 1 God bless yon. I have none to tell, sir.” 

The follies of youth ought long since to 
have passed away; and if the prejudices 
and absurdities of age have come in their 
place, I will keep them, as Beau Tibbs did 
his prospect, for the amusement of my do¬ 
mestic friends. A mere enumeration of 
the persons in the sketch is all I can posr 
sibly permit to be published respecting 
myself and my family ; and as must be the 
lot of humanity, when we look back seven 
or eight years, even what follows cannot be 
drawn up without some very painful re¬ 
collections. 

The idea which our inimitable Wilkie 
adopted was to represent our family group 
in the garb of south country peasants, sup¬ 
posed to be concerting a merry-making, for 
which some of the preparations are seen. 
Ihe place is the terrace near Kayside, 
commanding an extensive view towards the 
Eildon hills. 1. The sitting figure, in the 
dress of a miller, I believe, represents Sir 
Walter Scott, author of a few scores of 
volumes, and proprietor of Abbotsford, in 
the county of Roxburgh. 2. In front, and 
presenting, we may suppose, a country 
wag somewhat addicted to poaching, 
stands sir Adam Ferguson, Knight-Keeper 
of the Regalia of Scotland. 3. In the 
background is a very handsome old man, 
upwards of eighty-four years old at the time, 
painted in his own character of a shepherd. 
He also belonged to the numerous clan of 
Scott. He used to claim credit for three 
things unusual among the Southland shep¬ 
herds : first, that he had never been fou in 
the course of his life; secondly, he never 
Lad struck a man in anger; thirdly, that 
though intrusted with the management of 
large sales of stock, he had never lost a 
penny for his master by a bad debt. Fie 
died soon afterwards at Abbotsford. 4, 5, G. 
Of the three female figures, the elder is the 
late regretted mother of the family repre¬ 
sented. 5. The young person most forward 
in the group is Miss Sophia Charlotte Scott, 
now Mrs. J. G. Lockhart; and 6, hei 
younger sister, Miss Ann Scott. Both are 
represented as ewe-milkers, with their 
leglins, or milk-pails. 7 On the left hand 
of the shepherd, the young man holding a 
fowling-piece is the eldest son of sir Walter, 
now captain in the king’s hussars. 8. The 
boy is the youngest of the family, Charles 
Scott, now of Brazenose College, Oxford 
The two dogs were distinguished favourites 
of the family; the large one was a stag- 


hound of the old Highland breed, called 
Maida, and one of the handsomest dogs 
that could be found; it was a present from 
the chief of Glengary to sir Walter, and 
was highly valued, both on account of his 
beauty, his fidelity, and the great rarity of 
the breed. The other is a little Highland 
terrier, called Ourisk , (goblin,) of a parti¬ 
cular kind, bred in Kintail. It was a pre¬ 
sent from the honourable Mr. Stewart Mac¬ 
kenzie, and is a valuable specimen of a 
race which is now also scarce. 

Maida, like Bran, Luath, and other dogs 
of d istinction, slumbers “beneath his stone,” 
distinguished by an epitaph, which, to the 
honour of Scottish scholarship be it spoken, 
has only one false quality in two lines. 

“ Maidae marmorea dormis sub imagine Maida, 

“ Ad januam domini Bit tibi terra levis.” 

Ourisk still survives, but, like some other 
personages in the picture, with talents and 
temper rather the worse for wear. She has 
become what Dr. llutty, the quaker, records 
himself in his journal as having sometimes 
been—sinfully dogged and snappish. 

If it should suit Mr. Balmanno’s ptupose 
to adopt the above illustrations, he is 
heartily welcome to them ; but I make it my 
especial bargain, that nothing more is said 
upon such a meagre subject. 

It strikes me, however, that there is a 
stoty about old Thomas Scott, the shepherd, 
which is characteristic, and which I will 
make your friend welcome to. Tom was, 
both as a trusted servant and as a rich 
fellow in his line, a person of considerable 
importance among the class in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and used to stickle a good deal 
to keep his place in public opinion. Now, 
he suffered, in his own idea at least, from 
the consequence assumed by a country 
neighbour, who, though neither so well 
reputed for wealth or sagacity as Thomas 
Scott, had yet an advantage over him, from 
having seen the late king, and used to take 
precedence upon all occasions when they 
chanced to meet. Thomas suffered under 
this superiority. But after this sketch was 
finished and exhibited in London, the news¬ 
papers made it known that his present 
majesty had condescended to take some 
notice of it. Delighted with the circum¬ 
stance, Thomas Scott set out, on a most 
oppressively hot day, to walk five miles to 
Bowden, where his iival resided. He had 
no sooner entered the cottage, than he 
called out in his broad forest dialect— 
“ Andro’, man, de ye anes sey (see) the 
king?” “ In troth did I, Tam,” answered 
Andro’, “ sit down, and I'll tell ye a’ abou 


669 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


it: ye sey, I was at Lonon, in a place they 
ca’ the park, that is no like a hained hog- 
fence, or like the four-nooked parks in this 

country-.” “ Hout awa,” said Thomas, 

“ I have heard a’ that before : I only came 
ower the Know to tell you, that, iY you 
have seen the king, the king has seen mey,” 
(me.) .And so he returned with a jocund 
heart, assuring his friends “ it had done 
him much muckle gude to settle accounts 
wi’ Andro’. ” 

Another favour I must request is, that 
Mr. Balmanno will be so good as to send 
me a proof of these illustrations, as my hand 
is very bad, and there be errors both of the 
pen and of the press. 

Jocose hcec, as the old Laird of Restalrig 
writes to the Earl of Gowrie.—Farewell, 
my old tried and dear friend of forty long 
years. Our enjoyments must now b« of a 
character less vivid than we have shared 
together. 

But still at our lot it were vain to repine. 

" Youth cannot return, or the days of Lang Syne.” 

Yours affectionately, 

Walter Scott.* 

Abbotsford , August 2. 


ADVICE 

To “ Look at Home !” 

The advice given by a girl to Thales, 
the Milesian philosopher, was strong and 
practical. Seeing him gazing at the heavens, 
as he walked along, and perhaps piqued 
by his not casting an eye on her attractions, 
she put a stool in his path, over which he 
tumbled and broke his shins. The excuse 
she made was, that she meant to teach him, 
before he indulged himself in star-gazing, 
to “ look at home.” 

Advice for a broken Limb. 

In a late translation of Hippocrates, we 
read the following piece of grave advice, 
which, notwithstanding the great name of 
the counsellor, will hardly have many fol¬ 
lowers. 

In a fracture of the thigh, “ the exten¬ 
sion ought to be particularly great, the 
muscles being so strong that, notwithstand¬ 
ing the effect of the bandages, their con¬ 
traction is apt to shorten the limb. This 
is a deformity so deplorable, that when 
there is reason to apprehend it, I would 
advise the patient to suffer the other thigh 

• From The Times , Octooer 16, 182?. 


to be broken also, in order to have tnem 
both of one length.” 

The founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius 
Loyola, who, to preserve the shape of his 
boot, had a considerable part of his leg- 
bone cut off, would have been a docile j 
patient to the sage Hippocrates. The story 
is in the Every-Day Book, vol. i. p. 1050. 

Sincere Advice. 

While Louis XIV. was besieging Lisle, 
the Spanish governor very handsomely sent 
him, from the town, every day, fresh ice for 
the use of his table. M. de Charost, a 
favourite of the king, happening to be near 
him when one of these presents arrived, said 
to the messenger, with a loud voice, “ Dc 
you be sure to tell M. de Brouai, your 
governor, that I advise him not to give up 
his town like a coward, as the commandant 
of Douai has done.” “ Are you mad, 
Charost?” said the king, turning to him 
angrily. “ No, sir,” said Charost, “ but 
you must excuse me. The comte de 
Brouai is my near relation.” 

Advice for Judging of Poetry. 

Cardinal de Retz desired Menage to 
favour him with a few lectures on poetry ; 

“ for,” said he, “ such quantities of verses 
are brought to me every day, that I ought 
to seem, at least, to be somewhat of a 
judge.” — “It would,” replied Menage, 

“ be difficult to give your eminence many 
rudiments of criticism, without taking up 
too much of your time. But I would* ad¬ 
vise you, in general, to look over the first 
page or two, and then to exclaim, Sad 
stuff! wretched poetaster ! miserable verses ! 
Ninety-nine times in a hundred you will be 
sure you are right.” 


A NOMINAL ACCIDENT. 

To the Editor. 

It is rather extraordinary that of the two 
pork-butchers in Clare-market, one of their 
names should be “ Hum,” the other’s 
“ Shum.” —Fact! upon honour!—See foi 
yourself; one is at the corner of Blackmore* 
street, the other in the street adjoining 
Clement’s Inn. 

. F. C N. 

August 9, 1827 


670 

















































THE TABLE BOOK. 



Cf)e ReboIutton-bouSe at Whittington, Berbgsbu?. 

To eternize the delegated band. 

That seal’d their great forefathers’ fields their own. 

Rais’d ev’ry art that decks a smiling land. 

And laws that guard the oottage as the throne. 

Rev. P. Cunningham 


This edifice obtained its name from the 
neeting of Thomas Osborne earl ofDanby, 
and William Cavendish earl of Devon¬ 
shire, with Mr. John D’Arcy, privately one 
morning, in 1688, upon Whittington Moor, 
as a middle place between Chatsworth, 
Kniveton, and Aston, their respective resi¬ 
dences, to consult about the revolution, 
then in agitation. * A shower of rain 
happening to fall, they removed to the 
village for shelter, and finished their con¬ 
versation at a public-house there, the sign 
of “The Cock and Pynot.”f 

The part assigned to the earl of Danby 
was, to surprise York; in which he suc¬ 
ceeded. After which, the earl of Devon¬ 
shire was to rake measures at Nottingham, 
where the declaration for a free parliament, 
which he, at the head of a number of gentle¬ 
men of Dm-oyshire, had signed Nov. 28, 
1688,1 adopted by the nobility, gentry, 


and commonalty of the northern counties 
there assembled.* To theconcurrence of these 
patriots with the proceedings in favour of 
the prince of Orange in the west, the nation 
is indebted for the establishment of its rights 
and liberties. 

The cottage here represented stands at 
the point where the road from Chesterfield ' 
divides into two branches, to Sheffield and 
Rotherham. The room where the noble¬ 
men sat is fifteen feet by twelve feet ten, 
and is to this day called “ The Plotting 
Parlour.** The old armed-chair, still re¬ 
maining in it, is shown by the landlord with 
particular satisfaction, as that in which it is 
said the earl of Devonshire sat; and he tells 
with equal pleasure, how it was visited by 1 
his descendants, and the descendants of his 
associates, in the year 1788. Some new 
rooms, for the better accommodation oi 
customers, were added several years ago. 


. A p;o*ir.cjal name for a Magpie 
1 Rapin, xr. 199. 


• Jtenner.l. 


Deering’s Nottingham, p. ‘2f>8 











































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The duke of Leeds' own account of his meet¬ 
ing the earl of Devonshire and Mr. John 

D'Arcy* at Whittington , in the county 

of Derby, a. d. 1688. 

The earl of Danby, afterwards duke of 
Leeds, was impeached, a. d. 1678, of high 
treason by the house of commons, on a 
charge of being in the French interest, and, 
in particular, of being popishly affected : 
many, both peers and commoners, were 
misled, and had conceived an erroneous 
opinion concerning him and his political 
conduct. This he has stated himself, in 
the introduction to his letters, printed in 
1710, where he says, “ The malice of my 
accusation did so manifestly appear in that 
article wherein F was charged to be popishly 
affected, that I dare swear there was not 
one of my accusers that did then believe 
that article against me.” 

The duke then proceeds, for the further 
clearing of himself, in these memorable 
words, relative to the meeting at Whitting¬ 
ton :— 

u The duke of Devonshire also, when we 
were partners in the secret liust about the 
revolution, and who did meet me and Mr. 
JohnD’Arcy, for that purpose, at a town 
called Whittington, in Derbyshire, did, in 
the presence of the said Mr. D’Arcy, make 
a voluntary acknowledgment of the great 
mistakes he had been led into about me; 
and said, that both he, and most others, 
were entirely convinced of their error. And 
he came to sir Henry Goodrick’s house in 
Yorkshire purposely to meet me there 
again, in order to concert the times and 
methods by which he should act at Notting¬ 
ham, (whieh was to be his post,) and one 
at York, (which was to be mine;) and we 
agreed, that I should first attempt to sur¬ 
prise York, because there was asmall garri¬ 
son with a governor there; whereas Not¬ 
tingham was b.ut an open town, and might 
give an alarm to York, if he should appear 
in arms before I had made my attempt 
upon York ; which was done accordingly ;f 
but is mistaken in divers relations of it. 
And I am confident that the duke (had he 
been now alive) would have thanked 
nobody for putting his prosecution of me 
amongst the glorious actions of his life.” 


On the 4th and 5th of November 1788, 
the centenary of the landing of king Wil- 


# Son and heir of Conyers earl of Holderness. 
t For the earl of Devonshire’s proceedings at Derby 
and Whitting on, see Mr. Veering’s History of Notting¬ 
ham, p. 2G0 Mr. Drake, p, 177 of his Kboracum, just 
mention the e«rl of Danby’s appearance at York. 


liam, the Revolution Jubilee was celebrated 
at Whittington and Chesterfield, as appears 
by the following letter from the venerable 
rector of the parish •— 

To Mr. Gough. 

Whittington, Oct. 11, 1788. 

Dear sir,—We are to have most grand 
doings at this place, 5th of November next, 
at the Revolution-house , which I believe 
you saw when you was here. The resolu¬ 
tions of the committee were ordered to be 
inserted in the London prints, so I presume 
you may have seen them. I am desired 
to preach the sermon. 

I remain, your much obliged, &c. 

S. Pegge 

Resolutions. 

The committee appointed by the lords 
and gentlemen at the last Chesterfield races, 
to conduct and manage the celebration of 
the intended jubilee, on the hundredth an¬ 
niversary of the glorious revolution, at the 
Revolution-house in Whittington, in the 
county of Derby, where measures were first 
concerted for the promotion of that grand 
constitutional event, in these midland parts, 
have this day met, and upon consideration 
come to the following resolutions :— 

That general Gladwin do take the chair 
at this meeting. That the Rev. Samuel 
Pegge be requested to preach a sermon on 
the occasion at Whittington church, on the 
5th day of November next. That the gen¬ 
tlemen wlio intend to honour the meeting 
with their company do assemble at Whit¬ 
tington church, exactly at eleven o’clock in 
the forenoon of that day, to attend divine 
service. That immediately after service 
they meet at the Revolution-house, where a 
cold collation will be provided. That they 
go in procession from thence to Chester¬ 
field, where ordinaries will be provided at 
the Angel, Castle, and Falcon inns. That 
the meeting be open to all friends of the 
revolution. That letters be written to the 
dukes of Devonshire and Leeds, and the 
earl of Stamford, to request the honour of j 
their attendance at that meeting. That 
there be a ball for the ladies in the evening 
at the assembly-room in Chesterfield. That 
a subscription of oive guinea each be en¬ 
tered into for defraying the extraordinary 
expenses on the occasion, and that the 
same be paid into the hands of Messrs 
Wilkinson’s, in Chesterfield. That the 
committee do meet again on Wednesday 
the 8th of October next, at the Angel inn, 
in Chesterfield, at one o’clock. That f .hes 


672 


































THE TABLE-BOOK. 


resolutions be published in the Derby and 
| Nottingham newspapers, and in the St. 
James’s, Whitehall, and Lloyd’s Evening 
Posts, and the London and English Chro- 
nioles. 

Henry Gladwin, Chairman. 

Chesterfield , Sept. 27, 1 788. 

According to these resolutions, on Tues¬ 
day the 4th of November, the committee 
j appointed to conduct the jubilee had a pre¬ 
vious meeting, and dined together at the 
“ Revolution-house” in Whittington. The 
duke of Devonshire, lord Stamford, lord 
George and lord John Cavendish, with 
several neighbouring gentlemen, were pre¬ 
sent. After dinner a subscription was 
opened for the erecting of a monumental 
column, in commemoration of the glorious 
revolution, on that spot where the earls of 
Devonshire and Danby, lord Delamere, 
and Mr. John D’Arcy, met to concert 
measures which were eminently instrumen¬ 
tal in rescuing the liberties of their country 
from perdition. As this monument was 
intended to be not less a mark of public 
gratitude, than the memorial of an impor¬ 
tant event, it was requested, that the 
representatives of the above-mentioned 
families would excuse their not being per¬ 
mitted to join in the expense. 

On the 5th, at eleven in the morning, the 
commemoration commenced with divine 
service at Whittington church. The Rev. 
Mr. Pegge, the rector of the parish, deli¬ 
vered an excellent sermon from the words 
* This is the day which the Lord hath 
Hade; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” 
Though of a great age, having that very 
morning entered his eighty-fifth year, he 
spoke with a spirit which seemed to have 
been derived from the occasion ; his senti¬ 
ments were pertinent, well arranged, and 
his expression animated. 

The descendants of the illustrious houses 
of Cavendish, Osborne, Boothe, and D’Arcy, 
(for the venerable duke of Leeds, whose 
age would not allow him to attend, had 
sent his two grandsons, in whom the blood 
of Osborne and D’Arcy united ;) a nume¬ 
rous and powerful gentry; a wealthy and 
respectable yeomanry; a hardy, yet decent 
and attentive peasantry ; whose intelligent 
countenances showed that they understood, 
and would be firm to preserve, that blessing, 
for which they were assembled to return 
thanks to Almighty God, presented a truly 
solemn spectacle, and, to the eye of a philo¬ 
sopher, the most interesting that can be 
Vnagined. 

After service the company went in suc¬ 


cession to view the “ Revolution-house, 
and the room called “The Plotting Parlour, 
with the old armed-chair in which the ear 
of Devonshire is said to have sitten ; ana 
every one partook of an elegant cold colla¬ 
tion, which was prepared in the new rooms 
annexed to the cottage. Some time being 
spent in this, then began 

The Procession. 

Constables with long staves, two and 
two. 

The eight clubs, four and four, with flags 
inscribed “ The Protestant Religion, and 
the Liberties of England, we will maintain,” 
—“ Libertas ; quse sera, tamen respexit in- 
eitem.” “ Liberty secured.”—“ Ihe Glo¬ 
rious Revolution 1688.” —“ Liberty, Pro¬ 
perty, Trade, Manufactures.”—“ In Me¬ 
mory of the Glorious Asset tors of British 
Freedom 1688.” —“ Revolted from Tyranny 
at Whittington 1688.” —“ Bill of Rights.” 
“ Willielmus Dux Devon. Bonorum Prin- 
cipum Fidelis Subditus; Inimicus et In- 
visus Tyrannis.” 

[The members of the eight clubs were 
estimated at two thousand persons, 
each having a white wand in his hand, 
with blue and orange tops and favours, 
with the word “ Revolution” stamped 
upon them.] 

The Derbyshire militia’s band of music. 
The corporation of Chesterfield in their 
formalities, who joined the procession 
on entering the town. 

The duke of Devonshire in his coach and 

six. 

Attendants on horseback with four led 
horses. 

The earl of Stamford in his post-chaise and 

four. 

Attendants on horseback. 

The earl of Danby and lord Francis Os¬ 
borne in their post-chaise and four. 
Attendants on horseback. 

Lord George Cavendish in his post-chaise 
and four. 

Attendants on horseback. 

Lord John Cavendish in his post-chaise 
and four. 

Attendants on horseback. 

Sir Francis Molyneux and sir Henry Hun- 
loke, barts. in sir Henry’s coach and six. 
Attendants on horseback. 

And upwards of forty other carriages of the 
neighbouring gentry, with their attendants. 
Gentlemen on horseback, three and three. 
Servants on horseback, ditto. 

The procession paraded different parts of 
the town of Chesterfield to the Castle, 


673 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


where* the Derbyshire band of music formed 
in the centre, and played “ Rule Britan¬ 
nia/' “ God save the King/’ &c. The 
clubs and corporation still proceeded in 
the same order to the mayor’s, and then 
dispersed. 

The whole was conducted with order 
and regularity. Notwithstanding there 
were fifty carriages, four hundred gentle¬ 
men on horseback, two thousand on foot, 
and an astonishing throng of spectators, 
not an accident happened. All was joy 
and gladness, without a single burst of un¬ 
ruly tumult and uproar. The sun shed 
auspicious beams, and blessed the happy 
day with unusual splendour. 

The company was so numerous as 
scarcely to be accommodated at the three 
principal inns. The dinner at the Castle 
was served in a style of unusual elegance. 
The first five toasts after the repast were :— 

1. The king. 

2. The glorious and immortal memory 
of king William III. 

3. The memory of the Glorious Revolu¬ 
tion. 

4. The memory of those Friends to their 
Country, who, at the risk of their lives and 
fortunes, were instrumental in effecting the 
Glorious Revolution in 1688. 

5. The Law of the Land. 

In the evening a brilliant exhibition of 
fireworks was played off, under the direc¬ 
tion of signior Pietro; during which the 
populace were regaled with a proper dis¬ 
tribution of liquor. The day concluded 
with a ball, at which were present near 
three hundred gentlemen and ladies. The 
late duchess of Devonshire, surrounded by 
the bloom of the Derbyshire hills, presented 
a picture scarcely to be portrayed. Nearly 
two hundred and fifty ball-tickets were re¬ 
ceived at the door. 

The warm expression of gratitude and 
affection sparkling in every eye must have 
excited in the breasts of those noble per¬ 
sonages, whose ancestors were the source 
of this felicity, a sensation which monarens 
in all their glory might envy. The utmost 
harmony and felicity prevailed throughout 
the whole meeting. A hogshead of ale 
was distributed to the populace at Whit¬ 
tington, and three hogsheads at Chester¬ 
field ; where the duke of Devonshire gave 
also three guineas to each of the eight 
clubs. 

At this meeting party distinctions were 
forgotten. Persons of all ranks and deno¬ 
minations wore orange and blue in memory 
of the great event; and the most respecta¬ 
ble Roman Catholic families vied in their 


endeavours to show how just a k ' 3e * ie - 
had of the value of civil liberty.* 

The Rev. P. Cunningham, of Eyam, a 
place which readers of the last sheet can 
scarcely have forgotten, addressed some 
stanzas to the Rev. Samuel Pegge, the 
rector of Whittington, on occasion of the 
festivity, together with the fcllowing 

Ode 

For the Revolution Jubilee , 1788. 

When lawless power liis iron hand. 

When blinded zeal her flaming brand 
O'er Albion’s island wav’d ; 

Indignant freedom veil’d the sight; 

Eclips’d her son of glory’s light; 

Her fav’rite realm enslav’d. 

Distrest she wander’d :—when afar 
She saw her Nassau’s friendly star 
Stream through the stormy air : 

She call’d around a patriot band 
She bade them save a sinking land ; 

And deathless glory share. 

Her cause their dauntless hearts inspir’d. 

With ancient Roman virtue fir’d. 

They plough’d the surging main ; 

With fav’ring gales from Belgia’s shore 
Her heaven-directed hero bore, 

And freedom crown’d his reign. 

With equal warmth her spirit glows. 

Though hoary Time’s centennial snows 
New silver o’er her fame. 

- For hark, what songs of triumph tell, 

Still grateful Britons love to dwell 
On William’s glorious name. 


VIRTUOUS DESPOTISM. 

Character of Alia Bhye, 

One of the purest and most exemplary 
monarchs that ever existed, a female with¬ 
out vanity, a bigot without intolerance, 
possessed of a mind imbued with the 
deepest superstition, yet receiving no im¬ 
pressions except what promoted the happi¬ 
ness of those under its influence; a being 
exercising in the most active and able 
manner despotic power, not merely with 
sincere humility, but under the severest 
moral restraint that a strict conscience can 
impose upon human action. And all this 
combined with the greatest indulgence foi 
the weakness and faults of others.f 


• Pegge’s Anecdotes of Old Times, p. lxiii, &e. 
f Sir John Malcolm’s Cential India. 


674 


- 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


UXBRIDGE 

AND 

THE TREATY HOUSE. 

Remarkable Cooking Fountain, &c. 

For the Table Book. 

Uxbridge, the most considerable market 
town in the county of Middlesex, is distant 
from London about fifteen miles on the 
north-west. It consists of one long street, 
which is neatly paved, and its situation on 
the road to Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford 
; Haven, is productive of much benefit to the 
j inhabitants, while it imparts a constant air 
of bustle and vivacity to the main thorough¬ 
fare.* The name of this place was anciently 
spelt Oxebruge; and in more modern re¬ 
cords VVoxebrugge, or Woxebruge.f The 
derivation seems easily discovered :—the 
place was noted in distant ages for the 
passage of oxen from the adjacent fields 
in Buckinghamshire, and a bridge was 
constructed over the river Colne, which 
flows near the town. 

Speed asserts that a monastery was 
founded here, dedicated to St. Mary ; but 
it is neither mentioned by any other writer, 
nor is any trace of it now to be met with. 

Uxbridge has been celebrated in history, 
for the treaty which took place there be¬ 
tween commissioners appointed respec¬ 
tively by the king and the parliament, 
during the disturbances of the seventeenth 
century. 

The commissioners met in January 1645 ; 
the numbers were sixteen on the part of the 
king, and twelve on behalf of the parlia¬ 
ment, together with the Scottish commis¬ 
sioners. It was agreed, that the Scottish 
and parliamentary commissioners should 
give in their demands with regard to three 
important articles, viz. religion, the militia, 
and Ireland ; and that these should be suc¬ 
cessively discussed in conference with the 
king’s commissioners.} 

It was soon discovered that no rational 
discussion could be expected. The demands 
made by the parliament were so great, that, 
had they been granted, the crown would 
have been divested of its due weight and 
dignity in the state; and been rendered 
unable to protect those who had so faith¬ 
fully adhered to the royal cause during its 
troubles. 


• Beauties of England and Wales. . 

+ I believe I am right in stating (I doit from memory) 
tliat on the town measures it is spelt IV exb r ige. 

J. R. J* 

$ Wnitelock. p. *21. Dugdale, J. 758. 


The mansion in which the commissioners 
met is thus described by lord Clarendon :— 
“ There was a good house at the end of the 
town, which was provided for the treaty, 
where was a fair room in the middle of the 
house, handsomely dressed up for the com¬ 
missioners to sit in ; a large square table 
being placed in the middle with seats for 
the commissioners, one side being sufficient 
for those of either party ; and a rail for 
others who should be thought necessary to 
be present, which went round. There were 
many other rooms on either side of this 
great room, for the commissioners on either 
side to retire to, when they thought fit tc 
consult by themselves, and to return again 
to the public debate ; and there being good 
stairs at either end of the house, they never 
went through each other’s quarters, nor 
met but in the great room.” 

This mansion, which is situated at th» 
western extremity of the town of Uxbridge, 
(was formerly a seat of the Bennet family, 
and at the time of the treaty, the residence 
of Mr. Carr,) is still standing, and was a 
few years since converted into an inn, 
bearing the sign of the Crown, and has 
since undergone considerable repairs. The 
part towards the high road has been newly 
fronted, but one entire end, and some in¬ 
ferior portions of the outside, still retain 
their original appearance. Two principal 
rooms likewise remain untouched by mo¬ 
dern innovations ; one of these is the room 
in which Charles I. slept; the other in 
which he signed the treaty with the parlia¬ 
ment, and in which the commissioners 
afterwards met. The treaty ’•oom, as it is 
called, is a spacious apartment, and is lined 
w r ith panelled oak wainscotting: it con¬ 
tains an original portrait of Mary queen of 
Scots, taken a short time previous to her 
execution, which is greatly admired ; a copy 
from Vandyke of Charles I.; and some 
excellent portraits engraved by Bartolozzi 
from paintings in Windsor castle, among 
whom are sir Thomas More, his father, 
(judge More,) and his son ; and two females 
who I believe were governesses to part of 
the family of Charles I. The room in 
which the king slept is more handsomely 
wainscotted than the former, being in many 
parts curiously and laboriously carved, and 
has a circular oak pillar on each side of the 
fire-place, which is ornamented with taste¬ 
ful and elaborate workmanship. 

Another curiosity at this house, though 
not of so ancient a date, or possessing 
equal charms for the antiquarian, deserves 
a slight notice. In the garden is a foun¬ 
tain supplied with water, which has been 


675 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


obtained by boring, and which falls into a 
reservoir containing perch, tench, and a 
considerable quantity of eels ;* at the top 
of the fountain is an appropriate weather¬ 
cock—an angler, with his landing-net rest¬ 
ing against his shoulder, his rod in his 
hand, and his line and float moving on the 
surface of the water, according as the figure 
is turned by the wind. On the water at¬ 
taining a certain height it is carried off by 
i pipe, and falls on an overshot wheel 
ibout three feet in circumference; the use 
o which this is applied is very remarkable 
—that of turning four spits at once before 
he kitchen fire 1 I am informed that a 
similar plan to this is adopted in Cheshire, 
out I am unable to ascertain the place. 

J. R. J. 

[Tn the “ Gentleman’s Magazine ” for August, 1789, 
there is an engraving, described as “ a view of the 
muse where the unfortunate Charles I. signed the 
ireaty of Uxbridge, Jan. 30, 1644.” The writer of the 
account annexed to that print says, “ The house has 
r>een pulled down within these few years: it stood at 
the end of Uxbridge town, in the road to Beacons- 
lield.” Ed.] 


LONDON WATCHMEN. 

Had a council of thieves been consulted, 
the regulations of the Watch could not 
have been better contrived for their accom¬ 
modation. The coats of the Watchmen 
are made as large and of as white cloth as 
possible, to enable the thieves to discern 
their approach at the greatest distance ; and 
that there may be no mistake, the lantern 
is added. They are fixed at stations, that 
thieves, by knowing where they are, may 
infer where they are not, and do their best; 
the intervals of half an hour in going the 
rounds are just such as to give expert thieves 
a fair opportunity of getting a moderate 
booty from a house. That they may not 
oe taken by surprise, they have the same 
accommodation in the cry of the time that 
was prayed for by the rats, when they asked 
that bells might be hung about the necks of 
the cats; and lastly, that the burglars may 
have all possible chance, even, if surprised, 
Ihe watchmen mostly chosen are old, infirm, 
fnd impotent.f 


• At the time of my visit I was informed there were 
aaarly two hundred weight. J. R. J 

f The Times, October, 1827. 


©arrfdt fJIaps. 

No. XXXVIII. 

[From the “ Fawn,” a Comedy, by John 
Marston, 1606.] 

In the Preface to this Play, the Poet 
glances at some of the Play-wrights of his 
time; with a handsome acknowledgment, 
notwithstanding, of their excellencies. 

“ for my own interest let this once be printed, 
that, of men ot my own addition, I love most, pity 
some, hate none : for let me truly say it, I once only 
loved myself for loving them ; and surely I shall ever 
rest so constant to my first affection, that, let their un¬ 
gentle combinings, discurtcous whisperings, never so 
treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced repu¬ 
tation, I shall (as long as I have being) love the least 
of their graces, and only pity the greatest of their 
vices. 

Ipse semi-paganus 

Ad sacra vatum carmen affero nostrum." 


[Commendatory Verses before three Plays 
of Sir William Killigrew, by T. L.j 

1 . 

That thy wise and modest Muse 
Flies the Stage’s looser use; 

Not bawdry Wit does falsely name, 

And to move laughter puts off shame : 

2 . 

That thy theatre’s loud noise 
May be virgin’s chaste applause ; 

And the stoled matron, grave divine. 

Their lectures done, may tend to thine : 

3. 

That no actor’s made profane, 

To debase Gods, to raise thy strain ; 

And people forced, that hear thy Play, 

Their money and their souls to pay : 

4. 

That thou leav’st affected phrase 
To the shops to use and praise ; 

And breath’st a noble Courtly vein,— 

Such a9 may Caesar entertain, 

5. 

When he wearied would lay down 
The burdens that attend a crown , 

Disband his soul’s severer powers ; 

In mirth and ease dissolve two hour? * 

6 . 

These are thy inferior arts. 

These I call thy second uarts. 

But when thou carriest os tne plo.. 

ADd all are lost i“ tb’ subtle kno*’ 


C7G 


-J 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


7. 

When the scene sticks to every thought. 
And can to no event be brought; 

When (thus of old the scene betraid) 

Poets call’d Gods unto their aid, 

8 . 

Who by power might do the thing. 

Art could to no issue bring ; 

As the Pellean prince, that broke 
With a rude and down-right stroke 

9. 

The perplext and fatal noose, 

Which his skill could not unloose :— 
Thou dost a nobler art profess ; 

And the coyl’d serpent can’st no less 

10 . 

Stretch out from every twisted fold, 

In ivhich he lay inwove and roll’d, 
Imloce a night, and then a day. 

Wrap all in clouds, and then display. 

11 . 

Th’ easy and the even design : 

A plot, without a God, divine I— 

I**t others’ bold pretending pens 
Write acts of Gods, that know not men’s ; 

In this to thee all must resign : 

Th’ Surprise of th’ Scene is wholly thine.* 


[Commendatory Verses before the “ Faith¬ 
ful Shepherd ” of Fletcher.] 

There are no sureties, good friend, will be taken 
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken. 

A Poem and a Play too I Why, 'tis like 
A Scholar that’s a Poet; their names strike. 

And kill out-right: one cannot both fates bear.— 

But as a Poet, that’s no Scholar, makes 
Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes 
Passage with ease and state thro* both sides ’press 
Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please. 

That are no Poets, more than Poets leam’d. 

Since their art solely is by souls discern’d, 

(The others’ falls within the common sense, 

And sheds, like common light, her influence): 

So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing 
That every cobbler to his patch might sing; 

A rout cf nifles, like the multitude. 

With no one limb of any art endued, 

Like would to like, and praise you : but because 
Your poem only hath by us applause; 

Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all 
The holy laws of homely Pastoral, 

Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods, 
And all the Graces, find their old abodes; 

Where poets flourish but in endless verse, 

And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers : 

This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never 
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever 
Loved as itself. Then, like your Book, do you 
Live in old peace : and that far praise allow. 

0. Ctuinwan. 


[Commendatory Verses before the “Rebel¬ 
lion,” a Tragedy, by T. Rawlins, 1640.1 

1 

To see a Springot of thy tender age j j 

With such a lofty strain to word a Stage; 

To see a Tragedy from thee in print. 

With such a world of fine meanders in t, 

Puzzles my wond’ring soul: for there appears 
Such disproportion 'twixt thy lines and years, 

That, when 1 read thy lines, methinks I see 
The svveet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee 
With •* Parce Precor." Every line and word 
Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord. 

But I am thunderstruck, that all this while 
Thy unfeather’d quill should write a tragic style. 

This, above all, my admiration draws, 

That one so yonng should know dramatic laws : 

Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span 
Or greasy thumbs of every common man. 

The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring, 

Is fit for none to smell at but a king. 

Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see 
Thy temples rounded with the Daphncan tree ; 

And if men ask “ Who nursed thee ?” I’ll say thus, 

“ It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus.” 

Robert Chamberlab 

C. L, 


THE ACTING OF CHILDREN. 

The acting of ehildren in adult characters 
is of very ancient date. Labathiel Pavy, a 
boy who died in his thirteenth year, was so 
admirable an actor of old men, that Ben 
Jonson, in his elegant epitaph on him, says, 
the fates thought him one, and therefore 
cut the thread of life. This boy acted in 
“ Cynthia’s Revels” and “ The Poetaster,” 
in 1600 and 1601, in which year he pro- | 
bably died. The poet speaks of him with ) 
interest and affection. 

* 

Weep with me all you that read 
This little story; 

And know for whom a tear you shed 
Death’s self is sorry. , 

’Twas a child that did so thrive 
In grace and feature, 

That heaven and nature seem’d to strive 
Which own’d the creature. 

Years he number’d, scarce thirteen 
When fates turn’d cruel. 

Yet three fill’d Zodiacs had he been 
The stage’s jewel. 

And did act, what now we moan, 

Old men so duly 

As sooth, the Parc® thought him one, 

He play’d so truly. 

Jet MO*. j 


677 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


91 HBtnr.b peal of <§tantn3U'f CttpIfO 


In the just departed summer, (1827,) on 
my way from Keston, I stept into “ The 
Sun—R. Tape,” at Bromley, to make in¬ 
quiry of the landlord respecting a stage to 
London; and. over the parlour mantel¬ 


piece, carefully glazed, in a gilt frame, 
beneath the flourishing surmounting scroll, 
there appeared the following incription “ in 
letters of gold — 



Ok the 15th of January 1817, by the Society of Bromley Youths, A complete 
Peal of Graudsire Triples , which is 5040 changes with the Bells Muffled, in commemo¬ 
ration of Wm. Chapman deceased, being a Ringer in the Parish of Bromley 43 years, 
and rang upwards of 60 peals. This Dumb Peal was completed in 3 Hours and 6 
minutes. 


Thos. Giles -1st. 

Rd. Chapman - - 2nd. 
Wm. Sanger- - - 3rd. 
Ge. Stone 4th. 


Wm. King - - 5th. 
Jno. Allen- - 6th 
Wm. Fuller - 7th 
Jno. Green- - 8th 


Being the first Dumb Peal of this kind ever rang in this Kingdom , and conducted by 

J. Allen. 


If “ Wm. Chapman deceased” deserved 
to be commemorated by such a singular 
feat, should not the commemoration of the 
feat itself be commemorated ? Is R. Tape 
—(sfmy-Tape, though he now be)— everlast¬ 
ing Tape? Will he not “ fall as the leaves 
do?’’ Shall “The Sun” itself move to and 
fro in the High Street of Bromley, as a sign, 
for ever? Can the golden inscription—in 
honour of “ the first Dumb Peal of Grand- 
sire Triples ever rang in this kingdom'’— 
endure longer than corporation freedoms 
presented “ in letters of gold,” which are 
scarcely seen while the enfranchised wor¬ 
thies live; nor survive them, except with 
their names, in the engulfing drawers of 
the lovers and collectors of hand-writings ? 
The time must come when the eloquence of 
the auctioneer shall hardly obtain for the 
golden record of the “ Bromley Youths” 
the value of the glass before it—when it 


shall increase a broker’s litter, and be of as 
little worth to him as Chatterton’s manu¬ 
script was to the cheesemonger, fiom whose 
rending fangs it was saved, the other day, 
by the “ Emperor of Autographs.” 

“ A Dumb Peal of Grandsire Triples!”— 
I am no ringer, but I write the venerable 
appellation—as I read it—with reverence. 
There is a solemn and expressive euphony 
in the phrase, like that of a well-known 
sentence in Homer, descriptive of the bil- 
lowings and lashings of the sea ; which, the 
first time l heard it, seemed to me an essay 
by the father of Greek poesy towards uni¬ 
versal language. 

There is a harmony in the pealing of 
bells which cannot be violated, without dis¬ 
covery of the infraction by the merest tyro; 
and in virtue of the truth in bells, good 
ringers should be true men. There is, also, 
evidence of plainness and sincerity in th# 


67S 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


▼ery terms of their art: a poem, “ In 
praise of Ringing,” duly dignifies the 
practice, and sets forth some of them— 

First, the Youths try One Single Bell to sound ; 

For, to perfection who can hope to rise. 

Or climh the steep of science, but the man 
Who builds on steady principles alone. 

And method regular. Not he who aims 
To plunge at once into the midst of art. 
Self-confident and vain :—amaaed he stands 
Confounded and perplex’d, to find he knows 
Least, when he thinks himself the most expert. 

• • • 

In order due to Rounds they next proceed. 

And each attunes numerical in turn. 

Adepts in this, on Three Bells they essay 
Their infant skill. Complete in this, they try 
Their strength on Four, and, musically bold, 

Full four-and-twenty Changes they repeat. 

Next, as in practice, gradual they advance 
Ascending unto Five, they ring a peal 
Of Orandsires ,—pleasing to a tuneful soul I 
On they proceed to Six. What various peals 
Join’d with plain Bobs loud echo thro* the air. 

While ev'ry ear drinks in th’ harmonic sound. 

With Grandsire Triples then the steeple shakes—&c. 

Next come the musical Bob-majors, on 
sight bells,— Caters , on nine,— 

On ten, Bobs-royal; —from eleven. Cinques 
Accompanied with tenor, forth they pour; — 

And the Bob-maximus results from twelve ! 

“ Grandsire Triples 1” My author says, 
rt Ever since Grandsire Triples have been 
discovered or practised, 5040 changes mani¬ 
festly appeared to view; but ”—mark ye 
his ardent feeling under this—“ but—to 
reach the lofty summit of this grand climax 
was a difficulty that many had encountered, 
though none succeeded ; and those great 
names, Hardham, Condell, Anable, &c., 
who are now recorded on the ancient rolls 
of fame, had each exhausted buth skill and 
patience in this grand pursuit to no other 
purpose than being convinced, that either 
the task itself was an utter impossibility, 
or, otherwise, that all their united efforts 
were unequal to it; and it is possible that 
this valuable piece of treasure would at 
this day have been fast locked up in the 
barren womb of sterile obscurity, had not 
a poor unlettered youth appeared, who no 
sooner approached this grand pile, but, as 
if by magic power, he varied it into what¬ 
ever form he pleased, and made it at once 
subservient to his will!” It appears that 
this surprising person was Mr. John Holt 
'•< whose extraordinary abilities must fo 


ever excite the astonishment and admira¬ 
tion of all professors in this art, whether 
novices or adepts!” The first perfect peal 
of “ Grandsire Triples” was John Holt’s; 
“ it was rung at St. Margaret’s, Westmin¬ 
ster, on Sunday, the 7ih of July, 1751.” 
Be it remembered, that it is to commemo¬ 
rate the ringing of the first “ complete peal 
of Grandsire Triples with the bells muf¬ 
fled ,” by the “ Bromley youths,” that they 
have placed their golden lines in the 
“ Sun.” 

The “ Bromley Youths!'' Why are ringers 
of all ages called “youths?” Is it from 
their continued service in an art, which by 
reason of multitudinous “ changes ” can 
never be wholly learned ?—such, for instance, 
as in “ the profession, ” barristers whereof, 
are, in legal phraseology, “ apprentices of 
the Law ?” 

By the by, I have somewhere read, or 
heard, that one of the ancient judges, a lover 
of tintinnabulary pastime, got into a county 
town incog, the day before he was expected 
thither to hold the assizes, and the nex\ 
morning made one among the “ youths” in 
the belfry, and lustily assisted in “ ringing- 
in” his own clerk. Certain it is that doctors 
in divinity have stripped off their coats to the 
exercise. “ And moreover,” says the author 
of the treatise before quoted, “ at this time, 
to our knowledge, there are several learned 
and eminent persons, both clergy and lay¬ 
men of good estates, that are members of 
several societies of ringers, and think them¬ 
selves very highly favoured that they can 
arrive at so great an happiness and ho¬ 
nour.” 

In the advice to a “ youth,” on the 
management of his bell, he is recommended 
to “ avoid all ungraceful gestures, and un¬ 
seemly grimaces, which, to the judicious 
eye, are both disagreeable and highly cen¬ 
surable.”* Ringing, then, is a comely exer 
cise ; and a lover of the “ music of bells” 
may, genteelly, do more than “ bid them 
discourse.” Before the close of all gentle¬ 
manly recreation, and othei less innocent 
vanities, he may as ure himself of final 
commemoration, by a muffed peal of 
“ Grandsire Triples.” As a loyal subject 
he dare not aspire to that which is clearly 
for kings alone,— dumb “ Bobs Royal .” I 
take it that the emperor of Austria is the 
only sovereign in Europe, except his Holi¬ 
ness, who can rightfully claim a tnnfflca 
Bob Maximus." 

* 


• Clavis Campanalojrin. 


679 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


THE CONDEMNED SHIP 

AND 

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 

Various announcements in the American 
papers of a large vessel, constructed for the 
\ purpose of passing the Falls of Niagara, 

! have terminated in very unsatisfactory ac- 
j counts of the manner wherein the ship 
descended. All descriptions, hitherto, are 
deficient in exactness; nor do we know for 
i what purpose the experiment was devised, 
nor why certain animals were put aboard 
the condemned ship. The latest particulars 
are in the following letter to the printers of 
the “ Albany Daily Advertiser ; ■— 

“ Buffalo , Sept. 9, 1827. 

u I would have written yesterday some 
few lines on the subject of the ‘ Condemned 
Ship ,’ but it was utterly impossible. The 
public-houses at the falls were so thronged, 
that almost every inch of the floor was 
occupied as comfortable sleeping apart¬ 
ments. My companions and myself slept 
upon three straws for a bed, and had a 
feather turned edgeways for a pillow. At 
about two o’clock p.m. the word was given 
‘ she comes, she comes,’ and in about half 
an hour she struck the first rapid, keeled 
very much, and lost her masts and spars, 
which caused her again to right. Imagine 
to yourself a human being on board, and 
the awful sensations he must have experi¬ 
enced on her striking the rapid, which ap¬ 
peared for a moment to the beholders to be 
her last; but, as I observed before, on her 
masts giving way, she again righted, and 
was turned sideways, in which course she 
proceeded to the second rapid, where she 
truck and stuck about a minute, and it 
teemed as though the elements made their 
last and desperate effort to drive her over 
this rapid. She was thrown completely on 
her side, filled, and again righted, and pro¬ 
ceeded on her course. Here let me remark, 
there were two bears, a buffalo, a dog, and 
several other animals on board. The bears 
now left the wreck and laid their course for 
shore, where they were caught, and brought 
up to Mr. Brown’s hotel, and sold for five 
lollars a piece. The buffalo likewise left 
‘he schooner, but laid his course down the 
falls, and was precipitated over them and 
was killed, as was said, by a spar falling 
across his back ; as for the other animals, it 
is not known what became of them. The 
vessel after going over the second rapid 
was turned stern foremost, in which way 


she was precipitated over the mighty falls, 
and when about half way over her keel 
broke, and in a few seconds she was torn 
to fragments. There were probably from 
thirty to fifty thousand spectators who wit¬ 
nessed this novel and imposing spectacle.’’ 

It appears from the same paper that 
“ the perpendicular height of tne falls, 
was then taken by actual measurement, 
from the new bridge recently erected 
from the west end of Goat Island, extend¬ 
ing to the Terrapin rocks, eight hundred 
feet from the shore. The mode adopted 
in ascertaining the depth, from the brink of 
the fall to the surface of the water below, 
leaves no room to question its correctness. 
A piece of scantling was used, projecting 
from the railing of tlie bridge over the edge 
of the precipice, from which was suspended 
a cord with a weight attached, reaching 
fairly to the water in a perpendicular line. 
The length of the cord to the surface of the 
water at the brink was thirteen feet one 
inch—from this to the water below, on 
accurate measurement, the distance was 
found to be a hundred and fifty-three feet 
four inches. These facts are duly certified 
to us by several gentlemen, natives and fo¬ 
reigners, and by Mr. Hooker, the superin¬ 
tendent of Goat Island. We are told, this 
is the first successful attempt that was ever 
made to ascertain the perpendicular descent 
by actual measurement. Heretofore it has 
been done by observation.” 

Kalm, the Swedish traveller and natural¬ 
ist, who was born in 1715, and died about 
1779, visited the Falls of Niagara in August 
1750, and he being, perhaps, the first dis¬ 
tinguished writer who seems to have written 
concerning them with accuracy, his account 
is subjoined, divested of a few details, which 
on this occasion would not be interesting. 

When Kalm saw these astonishing waters 
the country was in the possession of the 
French. By the civility of the command¬ 
ant of the neighbouring fort, he was at¬ 
tended by two officers of the garrison, with 
instructions to M. Joncaire, who had lived 
ten years at the “carrying place,” to go with 
him and show and tell him whatever he knew. 
He writes to thiseffect in a letter to one of his 
friends at Philadelphia :—“ A little before 
we came to the carrying-place the water of 
Niagara river grew so rapid, that four men 
in a light birch canoe had much work to 
get up thither. Canoes can go yet half a 
league above the beginning of the carrying- 
place, though they must work against a 
water extremely rapid; but higher up it is 
quite impossible, the whole course of the 
water, for two leagues and a half up to the 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


great fall, being a series of srr.allei falls, 
one under another, in which the greatest 
canoe or bateau would in a moment be 
turned upside down. We went ashore 
therefore, and walked over the carrying- 
place, having, besides the high and steep 
side of the river, two great lulls to ascend 
one above the other. At half an hour past 
ten in the morning we came to the great 
fall, which I found as follows *— 

“ The river (or rather strait) runs here 
from S.S.E. to N.N.W. and the rock of the 
great fall crosses it, not in a right line, but 
forming almost the figure of a semicircle, 
or horse-shoe. Above the fall, in the mid¬ 
dle of the river, is an island, lying also 
S.S.E. and N.N.W. or parallel with the 
sides of the river; its length is about seven 
| or eight French arpents, (an arpent being 
; a hundred and twenty feet.) The lower 
J end of this island is just at the perpendicu¬ 
lar edge of the fall. On both sides of this 
island runs all the water that comes from 
the Lakes of Canada, viz. Lake Superior, 
Lake Misohigan, Lake Huron, and Lake 
Erie, which are rather small seas than 
lakes, and have besides a great many large 
rivers that empty their water into them, 
whereof the greatest part comes down this 
Niagara fall. Before the water comes to 
this island it runs but slowly, compared 
with its motion when it approaches the 
island, where it grows the most rapid water 
in the world, running with a surprising 
swiftness before it comes to the fall ; it is 
quite white, and in many places is thrown 
high up into the air! The greatest and 
strongest bateaux would here in a moment 
J he turned over and over. The water that 
goes down on the west side of the island is 
more rapid, in greater abundance, whiter, 
and seems almos.t to outdo an arrow in 
swiftness. When you are at the fall, and look 
up the river, you may see that the river 
above the fall is everywhere exceeding 
steep, almost as the side of a hill. When 
all this water comes to the very fall, there 
it throws itself down perpendicular. The 
hair will rise and stand upright on your 
head when you see this ! I cannot with 
words express how amazing this is ! You 
cannot see it without being quite terrified ; 
to behold so vast a quantity of water falling 
abrupt from so surprising a height! 

“ Father Hennepin calls this fall six 
hundred feet perpendicular; but he has 
gained little credit in Canada ; the name of 
honour they give him there is uh grand 
menteur, or “ the great liar.” Sin^e Hen¬ 
nepin’s time this fall, in all the accounts 
it-A t have been given of it. has grtwn less 


and less; and those who have measured it 
with mathematical instruments find the 1 
perpendicular fall of the water to be exactly ! 
one hundred and thirty-seven feet. M. j 
Morandrier, the king’s engineer in Canada, I 
told me, and gave it me also under his 
hand, that one hundred and thirty-seven 
feet was precisely the height of it; and all 
the French gentlemen that were present 
with me at the fall did agree with him 
without the least contradiction. It is true, 
those who have tried to measure it with a 
line find it sometimes one hundred and 
forty, sometimes one hundred and fifty feet, 
and sometimes more; but the reason is, it 
cannot that way be measured with any cer¬ 
tainty, the water carrying away the line. 

“ When the water is come down to the 
bottom of the rock of the fall, it jumps 
hack to a very great height in the air; in 
other places it is as white as milk or snow; 
and all in motion like a boiling caldron. 
When the air is quite calm you can hear it 
to Niagara fort, six leagues; but seldom at 
other times, because when the wind blows 
the waves of Lake Ontario make too much 
noise there against the shore. The gentle¬ 
men who were with me said it could be 
heard at the distance of fifteen leagues, but 
that was very seldom. When they hear, at 
the fort, the noise of the fall louder than 
ordinary, they are sure a north-east wind 
will follow, which never fails: this seems 
wonderful, as the fall is south-west from 
the fort; and one would imagine it to be 
rather a sign ot a contrary wind. Some¬ 
times it is said, that the fall makes a much 
greater noise than at other times; and this 
is looked on as a certain mark of approach¬ 
ing bad weather or rain; the Indians here 
hold it always for a sure sign. 

“From the place where the water falls 
there rises abundance of vapours, like the 
greatest and thickest smoke, though some¬ 
times more, sometimes less : these vapours 
rise high in the air when it is calm, but are 
dispersed by the wind when it blows hard. 
If you go nigh to this vapour or fog, or if 
the wind blows it on you, it is so penetrat¬ 
ing, that in a few minutes you will be as 
wet as if you had been under water. I got 
two young Frenchmen to go down, to bring 
me from the side of the fall, at the bottom, 
some of each of the several kinds of herbs, 
stones, and shells, they should find there; 
they returned in a few minutes, and I really 
thought they had fallen into the water: 
they were obliged to strip themselves, and 
hang their clothes in the sun to dry. 

“ When you are on the other or east side 
of Lake Ontario, a great many leagv.es 


681 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


from the fall, you may every clear a., 
calm morning see the vapours of the fall 
risiog in the air; you would think all the 
woods thereabouts were set on tire by the 
j Indians, so great is the apparent smoke. 
! In the same manner you may see it on the 
west side of Lake Erie a great many leagues 
off. Several of the French gentlemen told 
me, that when birds come flying into this 
fog or smoke of the fall, they fall down and 
perish in the water; either because their 
wings are become wet, or that the noise of 
the fall astonishes them, and they know not 
where to go in the darkness: but others 
were of opinion, that seldom or never any 
bird perishes there in that manner, because, 
as they all agreed, among the abundance 
of birds found dead below the fall, there 
are no other sorts than such as live and 
swim frequently in the water, as swans, 

! geese, ducks, waterhens, teal, and the like ; 

! and very often great flocks of them are 
1 seen going to destruction in this manner. 
As water fowl commonly take great delight 
in being carried with the stream, so here 
they indulge themselves in enjoying this 
pleasure so long, till the swiftness of the 
water becomes so great that it is no longer 
possible for them to rise, but they are 
driven down the precipice and perish. 
They are observed when they are drawing 
nigh to endeavour with all their might to 
take wing and leave the water, but they 
cannot. In the months of September and 
October such abundant quantities of dead 
water-fowl are found every morning below 
the fall, on the shore, that the garrison of 
the fort for a long time live chiefly upon 
them. Besides the fowl they find several 
sorts of dead fish, also deer, bears, and 
other animals, which have tried to cross the 
water above the fall; the larger animals are 
generally found broken to pieces. Just 
below, a little way from the fall, the water is 
not rapid, but goes all in circles and whirls, 
like a boiling pot, which, however, does not 
hinder the Indians going Upon it in small 
canoes a fishing; but a little further, and 
lower, begin the other smaller falls. When 
you are above the fall, and look down, 
your head begins to turn. The French, 
who have been here a hundred times, will 
seldom venture to look down, without, at 
the same time, keeping fast hold of some 
tree With one hand. 

“ It was formerly thought impossible for 
any body living to come at the island that 
is in the middle of the fall: but an accident 
that happened twelve years ago, or there¬ 
abouts, made it appear otherwise. Two 
Indians of the Five Nations went out from 


Niagara fort to hunt upon an island in the 
middle of the river, above the great fall, on 
which there used to be abundance of deer. 
They took some French brandy with them 
from the fort, which they tasted several 
times as they were going over the carrying- 
place, and when they were in their canoe 
they took now and then a dram, and so 
went along up the strait towards the island 
where they proposed to hunt; but growing 
sleepy they laid themselves down in the 
canoe, which getting loose drove back with 
the stream farther and farther down, till it 
came nigh that island that is in the middle 
of the fall. Here one of them, awakened 
by the noise of the fall, cried out to the 
other that they were gone! They tried if 
possible to save their lives. This island 
was nighest, and with much working they 
got on shore there. At first they were 
glad; but when they considered, they 
thought themselves haidly in a better state 
than if they had gone down the fall, since 
they had now no other choice than either to 
throw themselves down the same, or to 
perish with hunger. But hard necessity 
put them on invention. At the lower end 
of the island the rock is perpendicular, and 
no water is running there. The island has 
plenty of wood ; they went to work then, 
and made a ladder or shrouds of the bark 
of lindtree, (which is very tough and 
strong,) so long, till they could with it reach 
the water below ; one end of this bark lad¬ 
der they tied fast to a great tree that grew 
at the side of the rock above the fall, and 
let the other end down to the water. By 
this they descended. When they came to 
the bottom in the middle of the fall they 
rested a little, and as the water next below 
the fall is not rapid, they threw themselves 
out into it, thinking to swim on shore. I 
have said before, that one part of the fall 
is on one side of the island, the other on 
the other side. Hence it is, that the waters 
of the two cataracts running against each 
other, turn back against the rock that is just 
under the island. Therefore hardly had the 
Indians begun to swim, before the waves 
of the eddy threw them with violence 
against the rock fiom whence they came. 1 
They tried it several times, but at last grew 
weary, for they were much bruised and 
lacerated. Obliged to climb up their stairs 
again to the island, and not knowing what 
to do, after some time they perceived In¬ 
dians on the shore, to whom they cried out. 
These hastened down to the fort, and told 
the commandant where two of their bro¬ 
thers were. He persuaded them to try all 
possible means of relief, and it was dons 


682 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


in this manner:—The water that runs on 
the east side of this island being shallow, 
especially a little above the island towards 
! the eastern shore, the commandant caused 
poles to be made and pointed with rron, 
and two Indians undertook to walk to the 
island by the help of these poles, to save 
the other poor creatures or perish them¬ 
selves. They took leave of all their friends 
as if they were going to death. Each had 
two poles in his hands, to set to the bottom 
of the stream to keep them steady. So 
they went and got to the island, and having 
given poles to the two poor Indians there, 
they all returned safely to the main. 

“ The breadth of the fall, as it runs in a 
semicircle, is reckoned to be about six ar- 
pents, or seven hundred feet. The island 
is in the middle of the fall, and from it to 
each side is almost the same breadth The 
breadth of the island at its lower end is 
two thirds of an arpent, eighty feet, or 
thereabouts. 

“ Every day, when the sun shines, you 
see here from ten o’clock in the morning to 
two in the afternoon, below the fall, and 
under you, where you stand at the side 
of the fall, a glorious rainbow, and some¬ 
times two, one within the other, I was so 
happy as to be at the fall on a fine clear 
day, and it was with great delight I viewed 
this rainbow, which had almost all the 
colours you see in a rainbow in the air. 
The more vapours, the brighter and clearer 
is the rainbow. I saw it on the east side 
of the fall in the bottom under the place 
where I stood, but above the water. When 
the wind carries the vapours from that place, 
the rainbow is gone, but appears again as 
soon as new vapours come. From the fall 
to the landing above it, where the canoes 
from Lake Erie put ashore, (or from the fall 
to the upper end of the carrying place,) is 
half a mile. Lower the canoes dare not 
come, lest they should be obliged to try the 
fate of the two Indians, and perhaps with 
less success. 

“ The French told me, they had often 
thrown whole great trees into the water 
above, to see them tumble down the tall. 
They went down with surprising swiftness, 
but could never be seen afterwards ; whence 
it was thought there was a bottomless deep 
or abyss just under the fall. I am of 
opinion that there must be a vast deep heie ; 
for I think if they had watched very well, 
they might have found the trees at some 
distance below the fall. The rock of the 
fall consists of a grey limestone.’’ 

So far is Kalm’s account; to which may 
be added, that the body of water precipi¬ 


tated from the fall has been estimated to 
be nearly seven hundred thousand tons per 
minute ! 


A recent traveller, Miss Wright, departing 
from the falls of the Gennesse river, for the 
purpose of seeing ihe Falls of Niagara, 
alighted in the evening at a little tavern in 
the village of Lewiston, about seven miles 
short of the place she was proceeding to. 
She heard the roar of the waters at that dis¬ 
tance. Her description of the romantic 
scene is surprisingly interesting; viz:— 

' ■ In the night, when all was still, I 
heard the first rumbling of the cataract. 
Wakeful from over fatigue, rather than 
from any discomfort in the lodging, I rose 
more than once to listen to a sound which 
the dullest ears could not catch for the first 
time without emotion. Opening the win¬ 
dow, the low, hoarse thunder distinctly 
broke the silence of the night; when, at 
intervals, it swelled more full and deep, 
yo will believe, that I held my breath to 
listen ; they were solemn moments. 

’Tbs mighty cataract is no longer one of 
nature’s secret mysteries; thousands now 
make their pilgrimage to it, not through 

Lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and caves of death,” 

but over a broad highway ; none of the 
smoothest, it is true, but quite bereft of all 
difficulty or danger. This in time may 
somewhat lessen the awe with which this 
scene of grandeur is approached ; and even 
now we were not sorry to have opened 
upon it by a road rather more savage and 
less frequented than that usually chosen. 

Next morning we set off in a little wag¬ 
gon, under a glorious sun, and a refreshing 
breeze. Seven miles of a pleasant road 
which ran up the ridge we had observed 
the preceding night, brought us to the cata¬ 
ract. In the way we alighted to look down 
from a broad platform of rock, on the edge 
of the precipice, at a fine bend of the river. 
From hence the blue expanse of Ontario 
bounded a third of the horizon; fort Niagara 
on the American shore; fort George on the 
Canadian, guarding the mouth of the river 
where it opens into the lake; the bank* 
rising as they approached us, finely wooded 
and winding now hiding and now reveal¬ 
ing the majestic waters of the channel. 
Never shall I forget the moment when, 
throwing down my eyes, I first beheld the 
deep, slow, solemn tide, clear as crystal, 
and green as the ocean, sweeping through 
bs channel of rocks with a sullen dignity 
of motion and sound, far beyond all that I 
had heard, or could ever have conceived 


683 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


You saw and/e/ir immediately that it was 
no river you beheld, but an imprisoned 
sea; for such indeed are the lakes of these 
regions. The velocity of the waters, after 
the leap, until they issue from the chasm at 
Queenston, flowing over a rough and shelv¬ 
ing bed, must actually be great; but, from 
their vast depth they move with an appa¬ 
rent majesty, that seems to temper their 
vehemence,, rolling onwards in heavy vo¬ 
lumes, and with a hollow sound, as if labour¬ 
ing and groaning with their own weight. 
I can convey to you no idea of the solem¬ 
nity of this moving ocean. Our eyes fol¬ 
lowed its waves until they ached with 
gazing. 

A mile farther, we caught a first and 
partial glimpse of the cataract, on which 
the opposing sun flashed for a moment, as 
on a silvery screen that hung suspended in 
the sky. It disappeared again behind the 
forest, all save the white cloud that rose 
far up into the air, and marked the spot 
from whence the thunder came. 

Two foot-bridges have latterly been 
thrown, by daring and dexterous hands, 
from island to island, across the American 
side of the channel, some hundred feet 
above the brink of the fall; gaining in this 
manner the great island which divides the 
cataract into two unequal parts, we made 
its circuit at our leisure. From its lower 
point, we obtained partial and imperfect 
views of the falling river; from the higher, 
we commanded a fine prospect of the upper 
channel. Nothing here denotes the dread¬ 
ful commotion so soon about to take place; 
the thunder, indeed, is behind you, and 
the rapids are rolling and dashing on either 
j hand; but before, the vast river comes 
sweeping down its broad and smooth waters 
between banks low and gentle as those of 
the Thames. Returning, we again stood 
long on the bridges, gazing on the rapids 
that rolled above and beneath us; the 
I waters of the deepest sea-green, crested 
j with silver, shooting under our feet with the 
velocity of lightning, till, reaching the brink, 
the vast waves seemed to pause, as if gather¬ 
ing their strength for the tremendous plunge. 
Formerly it was not unusual for the more 
adventurous traveller to drop down to the 
island in a well-manned and well-guided 
: boat. This was done by keeping between 
I the currents, as they rush on either side of 
I the island, thus leaving a narrow stream, 

I which flows gently to its point, and has to 
the eye, contrasted with the rapidity of the 
tide, where to right and left the water is 
sucked to the falls, the appearance of a 
> strong back current. 


It is but an inconsiderable portion of 
this imprisoned sea which flows on the 
American side; but even this were suffi¬ 
cient to fix the eye in admiration. Descend- ; 
ing the ladder, (now easy steps,) and ap- ! 
proaching to the foot of this lesser fall, we 
were driven away blinded, breathless, and 
smarting, the wind being high and blowing 
right against us. A young gentleman, who 
incautiously ventured a few steps farther, 
was thrown upon his back, and 1 had some 
apprehension, from the nature of the ground 
upon which he fell, was seriously hurt; he 
escaped, however, from the blast, upon 
hands and knees, with a few slight bruises. 
Turning a coi ner of the rock (where, de¬ 
scending less precipitously, it is wooded to 
the bottom) to recover our breath, and 
wring the water from our hair and clothps, 
we saw, on lifting our eyes, a corner of the 
summit of this graceful division of the cata-1 
ract hanging above the projecting mass ot 
trees, as it were in mid air, like the snowy j 
top of a mountain. Above, the dazzling 
white of the shivered water was thrown into j 
contrast with the deep blue of the unspotted 
heavens; below, with the living green of 
the summer foliage, fresh and sparkling in 
the eternal shower of the rising and falling 
spray. The wind, which, for the space of 
an hour, blew with some fury, rushing down 
with the river, flung showers of spray from 
the crest of the fall. The sun’s rays glan¬ 
cing on these big drops, and sometimes on 
feathery streams thrown fantastically from 
the main body of the water, transformed 
them into silvery stars, or beams of light; 
while the graceful rainbow, now arching 
over our heads, and now circling in the 
vapour at our feet, still flew before us as we 
moved. The greater division of the cataract 
was here concealed from our sight by the; 
dense volumes of vapour which the wind j 
drove with fury across the immense basin 
directly towards us; sometimes indeed a! 
veering gust parted for a moment the thick 
clouds, and partially revealed the heavy 
columns, that seemed more like fixed pillars 
of moving emerald than living sheets of 
water. Here, seating ourselves at the brink 
of this troubled ocean, beneath the gaze of 
the sun, we had the full advantage of a 
vapour bath; the fervid rays drying our 
garments one moment, and a blast from the 
basin drenching them the next. The wind 
at length having somewhat abated, and the 
ferryman being willing to attempt the pas¬ 
sage, we here crossed in a little boat to the 
Canada side. The nervous arm of a single 
rower stemmed this heavy current, just 
below the basin of the falls, and yet in the 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


whirl occasioned by them; the stormy 
north-west at this moment chafing the 
waters yet more. Blinded as we were by 
the columns of vapour which were driven 
upon us, we lost the panoramic vie ,v of the 
cataract, which, in calmer hours, or with 
other winds, may be seen in this passage. 
The angry waters, and the angry winds 
together, drove us farther down the channel 
than was quite agreeable, seeing that a few 
toods more, and our shallop must have been 
whirled into breakers, from which ten such 
arms as those of its skilful conductor could 
not have redeemed it. 

Being landed two-thirds of a mile below 
the cataract, a scramble, at first very intri¬ 
cate, through, and over, and under huge 
masses of rock, which occasionally seemed 
to deny all passage, and among which our 
guide often disappeared from our wander¬ 
ing eyes, placed us at the foot of the ladder 
by which the traveller descends on the 
Canada side. From hence a rough walk, 
along a shelving ledge of loose stones, 
brought us to the cavern formed by the 
projection of the ledge over which the water 
rolls, and which is known by the name of 
the Table Rock. 

The gloom of this vast cavern, the whirl¬ 
wind that ever plays in it, the deafening 
roar, the vast abyss of convulsed waters 
beneath you, the falling columns that hang 
over your head, all strike, not upon the 
ears and eyes only, but upon the heart. 
For the first few moments, the sublime is 
wrought to the terrible. This position, in¬ 
disputably the finest, is no longer one of 
safety. A part of the Table Rock fell last 
/car, and in that still remaining, the eye 
traces an alarming fissure, from the very 
summit of the projecting ledge over which 
the water rolls; so that.the ceiling of this 
dark cavern seems rent jfrom the precipice, 
and whatever be its hold, it is evidently fast 
yielding to the pressure of the water. You 
cannot look up to this crevice, and down 
upon the enormous masses which lately 
fell, with a shock mistaken by the neigh¬ 
bouring inhabitants for that of an earth¬ 
quake, without shrinking at the dreadful 
possibility which might crush you beneath 
ruins, yet more enormous than those which 
lie at your feet. 

The cavern formed by the projection of 
this reck, extends some feet behind the 
water, and, could you breathe, to stand 
behind the edge of the sheet were perfectly 
easy. I have seen those who have told me 
they have done so; for myself, when I 
descended within a few paces of this dark 
*«cess, I was obliged to hurry back some 


varas to draw breath. Mine to be sure are 
not the best of lungs, but theirs must be j 
little short of miraculous, that can play in the 
wind, and foam, that gush from the hidden 
depths of this watery cave. It is probable, 
however, that the late fracture of the rock 
has considerably narrowed this recess, and 
thus increased the force of the blast that 
meets the intruder. 

From this spot, (beneath the Table Rock,) 
you feel , more than from any other, the 
height of the cataract, and the weight of its 
waters. It seems a tumbling ocean ; and 
that you yourself are a helpless atom amid 
these vast and eternal workings of gigantic 
nature 1 The wind had now abated, and 
what was better, we were now under the 
lee, and could admire its sport with the 
vapour, instead of being blinded by it. From 
the enormous basin into which the waters 
precipitate themselves in a clear leap of one 
hundred and forty feet, the clouds of smoke 
rose in white volumes, like the round-headed 
clouds you have sometimes seen in the even¬ 
ing horizon of a summer sky, and then shot 
up in pointed pinnacles, like the ice of moun¬ 
tain glacibres. Caught by the wind, it was 
now whirled in spiral columns far up into 
the air, then, re-collecting its strength, the 
tremulous vapour again sought the upper 
air, till, broken and dispersed in the blue 
serene, it spread against it the only silvery 
veil which spotted the pure azure. In the 
centre of the fall, where the water is the 
heaviest, it *akes the leap in an unbroken 
mass of the deepest green, and in many 
places reaches the bottom in crystal columns 
of the same hue, till they meet the snow- 
white foam that heaves and rolls convul- 
sedly in the enormous basin. But for the 
deafening roar, the darkness and the stormy 
whirlwind in which we stood, I could have 
fancied these massy volumes the walls of 
some fairy palace—living emeralds chased 
in silver. Never surely did nature throw 
together so fantastically so much beauty, 
with such terrific grandeur. Nor let me 
pass without notice the lovely rainbow that, 
at this moment, hung over the opposing 
division of the cataract as parted by the 
island, embracing the whole breadth in its 
span. Midway of this silvery screen of 
shivered water, stretched a broad belt of 
blazing gold and crimson, into which the 
rainbow dropped its hues, and seemed to 
have based its arch. Different from all 
other scenes of nature that have come under 
my observation, the cataract of Niagara is 
seen to most advantage under a powerful ( 
and opposing sun ; the hues assumed by 
the vapour a r e then by far the most varied 


680 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


ana brilliant; and of the beauty of these 
hues, I can give you no idea. The gloom 
of the cavern (for I speak always as if under 
the Table Rock) needs no assistance from 
the shade of evening; and the terrible gran¬ 
deur of the whole is not felt the less for 
being distinctly seen. 

We again visited this wonder of nature 
tn our return from Lake Erie; and have now 
gazed upon it in all lights, and at all hours, 
—under the rising, meridian, and setting 
sun, and under the pale moon when 


was dispossessed of it by Neleus, and fled 
into Elis, where he dwelt in a small town, 
also called Pylos. There was likewise a 
third town of the same name, and they 
respectively claimed the honour of having 
given birth to Nestor. The Pylos at Elis 
seems, in the opinion of the learned, to 
have won the palm. Pindar, however, 
assigns it to the town now called Nava- 
rino. 


riding in her highest noon.’ 


COUNSELS AND SAYINGS. 


The edge of the Table Rock is not ap¬ 
proached without terror at the latter hour. 
The fairy hues are now all gone ; excepting 
indeed, the rainbow, which, the ghost of 
what it was, now spans a dark impervious 
abyss. The rays of the sweet planet but 
feebly pierce the chill dense vapour that clogs 
the atmosphere; they oiiy kiss, and coldly 
kiss, the waters at the brink, and faintly 
show the upper half of the columns, now 
black as ebony, plunging into a storm-tossed 
sea of murky clouds, whose depth and boun¬ 
daries are alike unseen. It is the storm of 
the elements in chaos. The shivering mortal 
stands on the brink, like the startled fiend 


By Dr. A. Hunter. 


“ on the tare outside of this world. 
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air 


NAVARINO. 


This is a strong town on the west coast 
of the Morea on the Gulf of Zoncheo, 
with an excellent harbour, recently distin¬ 
guished by the fleet of the pacha of Egypt 
being blockaded there by admiral sir E. 
Codrington. 

It is affirmed that this was the ancient 
Pylus, where the eloquent and venerable 
Nestor reigned. At the siege of Troy, ac¬ 
cording to Homer, he moderated the wrath 
of Achilles, the pride of Agamemnon, the 
impetuosity of Ajax, and the rash courage 
of Diomedes. In the first book of the Iliad 
he is represented as interposing between 
the two first-mentioned chiefc: 


Up, and be Doing. 

The folly of delaying what we wish tc 
be done is a great and punishing weakness 

Be orderly. 

Uniformity of conduct is the best rule 
of life that a man can possibly observe. 

Man is orderly by Nature. 

Is it not a matter of astonishment that 
the heart should beat, on the average, about 
four thousand strokes every hour during a 
period of “ threescore years and ten/' and 
without ever taking a moment’s rest? 

In Travelling be contented. 

When we complain of bad inns in poor 
and unfrequented countries, we do not 
consider that it is numerous passengers 
that make good inns. 

Are you an Orator? 

Chew a bit of anchovy, and it will in¬ 
stantly restoie the tone of voice when lost 
by public speaking. 

Do not forget. 


When your memory begins to leave you, 
learn to make memorandums. 


To calm their passions with the words of age 
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage. 
Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill’d. 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill’d.t 


Shun Will-mongering. 

If you induce a person to make an im¬ 
proper will, your conscience will smite you 
from the rising to the setting sun. 

Marriage is a Voyage for Life. 


One who marries an ill-tempered person 
attempts to lick honey from off a thorn 


An odd Remark. 


It appears to ha* ** 1 been also called Cory- 
phasion, from the promontory on which it 
was erected. It was built by Pylus, at the 
head of a colony from Megara. The founder 


Women who love their husbands gene 
rally lie upon their right side. 


* Views of Society and Maimers in America ; by an 
Englishwoman, 1821, 8vo. 

t Bourn’s Gazettetr. 


Note—I can only speak, from expe 
rience, of one ; and, as regards her, the ob¬ 
servation is true. 




686 




































To the Editor . 

The preceding sketch was made on the 
17th instant. The well stands by the road¬ 
side.. The covering stones, though heavy, 
were at that time laid as above represented, 
having just before been knocked over by 
some waggon. Although but a poor sub¬ 
ject for the pencil, it is an object of interest 
from its connection with St. John of Be¬ 
verley. 

“ St. John of Beverley may be challenged 
by this county (York) on a threefold title; 
because therein he had his 

“1. Birth; at Harpham, in this county, 
in the East Riding. 

** 2. Life; being three and thirty years, 
and upwards, archbishop of York. 

“ 3. Death; at Beverley, in this county, 
in a college of his own foundation. 

u He was educated under Theodorus the 
Grecian, and archbishop of Canterbury. 
Yet was he not so famous for his teacher as 
for nis scholar. Venerable Bede, who wrote 


this John’s life; which he hath so spiced 
with miracles, that it is of the hottest for a 
discreet man to digest into his belief.” 

See u Fuller’s Worthies,” in which a 
lengthened account of St. John may be 
found, 

Bridlington , July 30, 1827. T. C. 


Respecting the subject of the engraving, 
T. C. subsequently writes : “ The stones 
over St. John’s Well w r ere replaced when I 
passed it on the 9th of October, 1827.” 

Concerning St. John of Beverley, not 
having “ Fuller’s Worthies” at hand to re¬ 
fer to, a few brief particulars are collected 
from other sources. If the curious reader 
desires more, he may consult my autho¬ 
rities, and “ old Fuller,” as recommended 
by T. C. 

St. John of Beverley. 

On his return from pupilage under St. 
Theodorus, in Kent, St. John of Beverley 


Jj>t. Sfofm’S ®£!eTI, at Sarp&atn, ©orfeljfrf. 


THE TABLE BOOK* 



m 































THE TABLE BOOK. 



settled at Whitby, in the monastery of St. 
Hilda, till, in the reign of Alfred, he was 
made bishop of Hexham, which see he 
vacated in favour of St. Wilfrid, and some¬ 
time afterwards was seated in the archi 
episcopal chair of York. He occasionally 
retreated to a monastery he had built at 
Beverley, which was then a forest, called 
Endeirwood, or Wood of the Deiri. In 
717 he resigned the see of York to his 
chaplain, St. Wilfrid the younger, and 
finally retired to Beverley, where he died 
on the 7th of May, 721.* 

According to Bede, St. John of Beverley 
being at a village near Hexham, there was 
brought to him a youth wholly dumb, and 
with a disorder in the head, “ which entirely 
hindred the grouth of haires, except a few 
which, like bristles, stood in a thinn circle 
about the lower part of his head.” He de¬ 
sired the child “ to putt forth his tongue, 
which the holy man took hold of, and made 
the sign of the crosse upon it. And having 
done this, he bid him speak : Pronounce, 
said he to him, gea, gea, (that is, yea, yea.) 
This the child pronounced distinctly, and 
presently after other words of more sylla¬ 
bles; and, in conclusion, whole sentences : 
so that, before night, by frequent practice, 
he was able to expresse his thoughts freely." 
Then St. John “ commanded a surgeon to 
use his skill; and in a short time, by such 
care, but principally by the prayers and 
benedictions of the good prelat, he became 
of a lovely and chearfull countenance, 
adorned with beautifully curled haire, and 
ready in speech. This miracle was wrought 
m his first diocese.”f Notwithstanding the 
author of the “ Church History of Brittany ” 
calls this a “miracle,” the story rather 
proves that John of Beverley used a judi¬ 
cious method to remove impediments of 
speech, and obtained the growth of the 
boy’s hair by surgical aid. 

The same writer adds, on the same au¬ 
thority, that the wife of “ a count, named 
Puch.” was cured of a forty days' sickness, 
by John of Beverley giving her holy water, 
which he had used in dedicating the count’s 
church. Also, according to him, when the 
lusty men of Beverley drag wild bulls into 
ihe church-yard (to bait them) in honour of 
the saint, they “ immediately loose all their 
fury and fiercenes, and become gentle as 
lambes, so that tney are left to their free¬ 
dom to sport themselves.” William of 
Malmsbury relates this “ as a thing usually 
performed, and generally acknowledged by 


* Alban Butler, 
t Father Cressy. 


the inhabitants of Beverley, in testimony 
of the sanctby of their glorious patron." 

Again, it is related in the Breviary of 
the church of Sarum, concerning St. John 
of Beverley, that while he governed in the 
see of York, “ he was praying one day in 
the porch of St. Michael, and a certain 
deacon peeping in saw the Holy Ghost 
sitting upon the altar, excelling in white¬ 
ness a ray of the sun and the face of this 
deacon, whose name was Sigga, “ was 
burnt by the heat of the Holy Spirit," so 
that the skin of his cheek was shrivelled 
up; and his face was healed by the touch 
of the saint’s hand : and “ the saint ad¬ 
jured him, that whilst he lived he would 
discover this vision to no man.”* 

The more eminent fame of the patron of 
Beverley is posthumous. In 937, when 
England was invaded by the Norwegians, 
Danes, Piets, and certain chiefs of the 
Scottish isles, under Analaf the Dane, king 
Athelstan, marching with his army through 
Yorkshire to oppose them, met certain 
pilgrims returning from Beverley, who “in¬ 
formed him of the great miracles frequently 
done there, by the intercession of St. John.” 
Whereupon the king, with his army, went 
to Beverley, and entering into the church 
there performed his devotions before St 
John's tomb; and, earnestly begging his in¬ 
tercession, rose up before the clergy, and 
vowed, that if victory were vouched to him 
by the saint’s intercession, he would enrich 
that church with many privileges and plen¬ 
tiful revenues. “ In token of which," said 
he, “ I leave this my knife upon the altar, 
which at my return I will redeem with an 
ample discharge of my vow." Then he 
caused an ensign, duly blessed, to be taken 
out of the church, and carried before him. 
And at the sea-coast “ he received a certain 
hope of victory by a vision, in which St. 
John of Beverley, appearing to him, com¬ 
manded him to passe over the water, and 
fight the enemy, promising him the upper 
hand.” Athelstan was suddenly surprised 
by Analaf; but a sword fell “ as from hea¬ 
ven” into the king's scabbard, and he “ not 
only drove Analafe out of his camp, but 
courageously sett upon the enemy, with 
whose blood he made his sword drunk, 
which he had received from heaven." This 
battle, which was fought at Dunbar, was 
the bloodiest since the coming of the 
Saxons. The victory was entirely for the 
English : five kings were slain, and among 
them the Scottish king Constantine. Athel- 
•- 

* Capgrave : in bishop Patrick’s Devotions of the 
Roman Church. 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


stan, returning m triumph, passed by the 
church of St. John at Beverley, where he 
redeemed his knife. He bestowed large 
possessions on the church, with privilege of 
sanctuary a mile round ; ordaining that 
whoever should infringe it should forfeit 
eight pounds to the church; if within the 
three crosses, at the entrance of the town, 
twenty-four pounds; if within the church¬ 
yard, seventy-two pounds ; but, if in sight 
of the relics, the penalty was the same 
that was due to the most enormous capital 
crime. A testimony of this privilege of 
sanctuary at Beverley was a chair of stone, 
thus inscribed :—“ This stone chair is called 
Freed-stoole, or the Chaire of Peace: to 
which any offender flying shall enjoy entire 
security.” In the charter of the privilege, 
“ King Athelstan,” saith mine author, “ex¬ 
pressed it elegantly, in this distich :— 

As free make I thee. 

As heart may think or eye may see.”* * 

Moreover, respecting the great victory of 
Athelstan, an ancient biographer of the 
saints f relates, that the king prayed that 
through the intercession of St. John of 
Beverley he might show some evident sign, 
whereby both future and present ages might 
know, that the Scots ought, of right, to be 
subject to the English. And thereupon, 
saith this writer, “ the king with his sword 
smote upon a hard rock by Dunbar, and to 
this day it is hollowed an ell deep by that 
stroke.’’^ This, saith another author, was 
near Dunbar castle ; and “ king Edward the 
first, when there was question before pope 
Boniface of his right and prerogative over 
Scotland,brought this historic for the main¬ 
tenance and strength of his cause.” § 

The monastery of St. John at Beverley 
having been destroyed by the Danes, king 
Athelstan founded in that place a church 
and college of canons, of which church St. 
Thomas h Becket was some time provost. || 
In 1037, the bones of St. John were “trans¬ 
lated” into the church by Alfric, archbishop 
of York, and the feast of his translation 
ordained to be kept at York on the 25th of 
October.^ “ On the 24th of September, 
1664, upon opening a grave in the church 
of Beverley a vault was discovered of free¬ 
stone, fifteen feet long and two broad; in 
which' there was a sheet of lead, with 
an inscription, signifying that the church 
of Beverley having been burnt in the year 

• Father Cressy. 

t Bishop Patrick’s Devotions of ti e Roman Chu"A. 

4 Father Porter’s Lives. 

; Britannia Sancta 

^ Alban Butler. 


1188, search had been made for the relics 
of St. John, anno 1197, and that his Dones 
were found in the east part of the sepulchre 
and there replaced. Upon this sheet lay a 
box of lead, in which were several pieces of 
bones, mixed with a lit'tle dust, and yield¬ 
ing a sweet smell: all these were reinterred 
in the middle alley of the church.”* Ano¬ 
ther writerf states the exhumation to have 
taken place “ on the thirteenth of Septem¬ 
ber, not the twenty-fourth and he adds, 
“ that these relics had been hid in the be¬ 
ginning of the reign of king Edward VI.” 

It must not be omitted, that the alleged 
successful intercession of St. John of Be¬ 
verley in behalf of the English against the 
Scotch, is said to have been paralleled by 
patronage as fatal to the French. The 
memorable battle of Agincourt was fought 
in the year 1415, on the anniversary of the 
translation of St. John of Beverley, and 
Henry V. ascribed the decisive victory to 
the saint’s intercession. In a provincial 
synod, under Henry Chicheley, archbishop 
of Canterbury, is a decree, at the instance 
of that king, “ whereby it appeares, that 
this most holy bishop, St. John of Beverley, 
hath been an ayde to the kings of England 
in the necessitie of their warres, not only 
in auncient, but allsoe in these later ages.”! 
In consequence of this ascription, his 
festivals were ordained to be celebrated 
annually through the whole kingdom of 
England. The anniversary of his death 
has ceased to be remembered from the time 
of the Reformation ; but that of his trans¬ 
lation is accidentally kept as a holiday by 
the shoemakers, in honour of their patron, 
St. Crispin, whose feast falls on the same 
day. 


BEVERLEY THE STRONG MAN. 

In March 1784, a porter of amazing 
strength, named Beverley, was detected in 
stealing pimento on board a ship in the 
river Thames. A number of men were 
scarcely able to secure him; and when they 
did, they were tinder the necessity of tying 
him down in a cart, to convey him to pri¬ 
son. The keeper of the Poultry Counter 
would not take him in ; they were therefore 
obliged to apply for an order to carry him 
to Newgate. Beverley was supposed to 
have been the strongest man of his time in 
England.§ 

* Britannia Sancta. 

* Alban Butler. 

t Father Porter. 

§ Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1/84. 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


(©arricfe 

No. XXXIX. 

[From the “ Ambitious Statesman,” a Tra¬ 
gedy, by John Crowne, 1679.J 

Vendome, returning from the wars , hears 
news, that Louize is false to him. 

Ven. (solus.) Wherere I go, I meet a wandering 
rumour, 

Louize is the Dauphin’s secret mistress. 

I heard it in the army, but the sound 
Was then as feeble as the distant murmurs 
Of a great river mingling with the sea; 

But now I ain corne near this river’s fall, 

Tis louder than the cataracts of Nile. 

If this be true. 

Doomsday is near, and all the heavens are falling.— 

I know not what to think of it, for every where 
I meet a choking dust, such as is made 
After removing all a palace furniture : 

If she be gone, the world in my esteem 
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it 
But dust and feathers, like a Turkish inn. 

And the foul steps where plunderers have been.— 

Valediction. 

Vendome (to his faithless Mistress.) Madam, I’m 
well assur’d, you will not send 
One poor thought after me, much less a messenger, 

To know the truth ; but if you do, he’ll lind. 

In some unfinish’d part of the creation. 

Where Night and Chaos never were disturb’d. 

But bed-rid lie in some dark rocky desari;, 

There will he find a thing—whether a man. 

Or the collected shadows of the desart 
Condens’d into a shade, he’ll hardly know. 

This figure he will find walking alone, 

Poring one while on some sad book at noon 
By taper-light, for never day shone there : 

Sometimes laid grovelling on the barren earth, 

Moist with his tears, for never dew fell there : 

And when night comes, not known from day by dark¬ 
ness. 

But by some faithful messenger of time. 

He’ll find him stretcht upon a bed of stone. 

Cut from the bowels of some rocky cave, 

Offering himself either to Sleep or Death ; 

And neither will accept the dismal wretch ; 

At length a Slumber, in its infant arms, 

Takes up his heavy soul, but wanting strength 
To bear it, quickly lets it fall again , 

At which the wretch starts up, and walks about 
All night, and all the time it should be day ; 

Till quite forgetting, quite forgot of every thing 
But Sorrow, pines away, and in small tune 
Of the only man that durst inhabit there, 

Etooutea the only Ghost that dares walk there. 


Incredulity to Virtue, 

Vendome. Perhaps there never were such things A 
Virtues, 

But only in men’s fancies, like the Phoenix ; 

Or if they cnce have been, they’re now but names 
Of natures lost, which came into the world. 

But could not live, nor propagate their kind. 

Faithless Beauty. 

Louize. Dare you approach ? 

Vendome. Ves, but with fear, for sure you’re n<* 
Woman. 

A Comet glitter’d in the air o’ late. 

And kept some weeks the frighted kingdom waking. 
Long hair it had, like you; a shining aspect; 

Its beauty smiled, at the same time it frighten’d; 

And every horror in it had a grace. 


[From “ Belphegor,” a Comedy, by John 
Wilson, 1690.J 

Doria Palace described. 

That thou’d’st been with us at Duke Doria’s garii en ! 
The pretty contest between art and nature ; 

To see the wilderness, grots, arbours, ponds ; 

And ia the midst, over a stately fountain, 

The Neptune of the Ligurian sea— 

Andrew Doria—the man who first 
Taught Genoa not to serve: then to behold 
The curious waterworks and wanton streams 
Wind here and there, as if they had forgot 
Their errand to the sea. 

And then again, within 

That vast prodigious cage, in which the groves 
Of myrtle, orange, jessamine, beguile 
The winged quire with a native warble. 

And pride of their restraint. Then, up and down. 

An antiquated marble, or broken statue. 

Majestic ev’n in ruin 

And such a glorious palace : 

Such pictures, carving, furniture l my words 
Cannot reach half the splendour. And, after all. 

To see the sea, fond of the goodly sight. 

One while glide amorous, and lick her walls. 

As who would say Come Follow ; but, repuls’d. 

Rally its whole artillery of waves. 

And crowd into a storm j 


[From the “ Floating Island,” a Comedy, 
by the Rev. W. Strode, acted by the 
Students of Christ-Church, Oxford, 1639.] 

Song. 

Once Venus’ cheeks, that shamed the morn. 

Their hue let fall; 

Her lips, that, winter had out-born. 

In June look’d pale: 

Her heat grew cold, her nectar ary; 

No juice she had but in her eye. 

The wonted fire and flames to mortity. 

When was this so dismal sight ?— 

When Adonis bade good night. 

c. i. 


690 





the table book. 


PLAYERS—GHOST LAYERS. 

For the Table Book. 

Christian Malford, Wilts. 

It required a large portion of courage to 
venture abroad after sunset at Christian 
Malford, for somebody’s apparition pre¬ 
sented itself to the walker’s imagination. 
Spritely gossips met near their wells wi'th 
their crooked sticks and buckets, to devise 
means for laying the disturbed returners 
and their once native associates; but a 
party of strolling players did more towards 
sending the spectres to the “ tomb of all 
the Capulets,” than the divinations of fe¬ 
minine power. 

Application being made to the magis¬ 
trate, who was not exempt from the super¬ 
stitious and revered infection, that plays 
might be performed in the malthouse, said 
to be so daringly haunted, a timely caution 
was given as to “ Beelzebub and his imps,’' 
and permission was granted, and bills were 
circulated by the magnanimous manager 
himself. He was a polite man, a famous 
anecdote retailer, retainer, and detailer, an 
excellent spouter, and a passable singer. 
Ilis dress and address were eccentric. The 
hessians he wore, by fit necessity, were of 
the buskin order; and, as bread was then 
dear, a sixpenny loaf might have supplied 
the absence of calves. His pigtail-wig, 
hat, and all his apparel indeed, served, 
when on the dramatic floor, most aptly the 
variations required in his wardrobe. 

I remember, when the “ Miller of Mans¬ 
field ” was played, the bell rang, the baize 
was drawn up by a stable-halter, the fiddler 
began to scrape a ditty by way of overture; 
but, before the miller could appear, a 
smockfrock was called for, from one of the 
frocked rustics in the gallery, (the back seats 
of the scaffolding.) This call was gene¬ 
rously obeyed. A youth pulled off his 
upper-all, proudly observing, that “ the 
player should have it, because his was a 
sacred persuasion.” The miller appeared, 
and the play proceeded, with often repeated 
praises of the frock. On another night, 
“ Richard” was personated by a red-haired 
woman, an active stroller of the company. 
Her manner of enacting the deformed and 
ambitious Glo’ster so charmed the village 
censors, that for three weeks successively 
nothing else would please but “ Richard. 
Nor was the effect less operative in the field, 
(not-of Bosworth)—Virgil’s “ Bucolics and 
Georgies ” were travestied. Reaphooks, 
sithes, pitchforks, and spades were set in 


contact in the daytime, to the great amuse¬ 
ment and terror of quiet people. — The 
funds of the company being exhausted, the 
Thespians tramped off rather suddenly, 
leaving other bills than playbills behind 
them. Ever after this the ghosts of the 
malthouse disappeared, the rustics of the 
valley crying, as they triumphantly passed, 
“ Oft with his head !” and others, replying 
in the words of Hamlet, “ Oh! what a 
falling off is here !” 

npi. 

Oct. 1827. 


EX-TIIESPIANISM. 

For the Table Book. 

I am the son of a respectable attorney, 
who sent me, when very young, to an ex¬ 
cellent school, at which I conducted myself 
much to the satisfaction of my superiors. 
It was customary for the scholars to enact 
a play at Christmas, to which the friends of 
the master were invited. On one of these 
occasions, when I was now nearly head- 
boy, I was called upon to perform the part 
of Charles Surface, in the admirable comedy 
of the School for Scandal. I studied the 
character, and played it with great ap¬ 
plause, and shortly afterwards left the 
school, and was sent by my father to Bou¬ 
logne to finish my education. 

There were then at that place a number 
of English gentlemen, who were endea¬ 
vouring to establish a company of amateurs 
On their request I joined them, and made 
my first appearance upon a regular stage in 
the character of Shylock. It was a decided 
hit! I was received throughout with “un¬ 
bounded applause,” and the next day was 
highly gratified by reading “ honourable 
mention ” of my performance in the news¬ 
papers. I repeated this and other charac¬ 
ters several times with undiminished suc¬ 
cess; but, in the very zenith of my popu¬ 
larity, I was recalled to England by my 
father, who, having heard of my operations, 
began to fear (what afterwards proved to 
be the case) that I should be induced to 
adopt that as a profession, which I had 
hitherto considered merely as an amuse¬ 
ment. 

Soon after my return home my father 
articled me to himself, but it was impossi¬ 
ble for me to forget my success at Boulogne, 
and my inclination for the stage ripened 
into a determination to become an actor. 
I secretly applied to Mr. Sims, of the Harp, 
who procured me an engagement in a 


691 




' - ■-. . --- • W~~ ~ — ■ •. ■ v:r. -: 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


sharing company in the west of England, 
where I was to do the “ low comic busi¬ 
ness ” and “ second tragedy.” I spent 
some of the money that I had saved in 
buying wigs and a few other stage-requi¬ 
sites, and left my paternal roof with three 
pounds in my pocket. 

My exchequer not being in a state to 
afford me the luxury of riding, I was 
compelled to walk the last thirty miles of 

my journey. Upon my arrival at-—, 

my first care was to inquire for the theatre, 

- when I was directed to a barn, which had 
been dignified by that appellation. I was 
received with all possible civility by the 
company, which consisted of the manager, 
his wife, and three gentlemen. I was in¬ 
formed by the manager that Jane Shore 
was the play for that evening, and that he 
should expect me to perform the part of 
Belmont, and also that of Bombastes Fu- 
rioso in the afterpiece. The wardrobe of 
the theatre was unable to afford me a dress 
superior to my own for the part of Bel¬ 
mont, 1 therefore played that character 
“ accoutred as I was,” viz. in a blue coat, 
buff waistcoat, striped trowsers, and Wel¬ 
lington’s. The audience was very select, 
consisting only of ten persons, who seemed 
totally indifferent to the performance, for 
they never once, in the course of the even¬ 
ing, gave any indication of pleasure, or the 
reverse, but witnessed our effoits to amuse 
! with the most provoking apathy. Between 
the pieces I was much surprised by one of 
the gentlemen requesting the loan of my 
hat for a few minutes, as he was about to 
sing a song, and he assured me that there 
was no hat in the company, save mine, 
which was worthy to appear before the 
audience. At the conclusion of the per¬ 
formance we shared the receipts, which, 
offer deducting the expenses of the house, 
amounted to one shilling and sixpence each. 
We continued to act for some timesharing 
(three nights a week) from about one shil¬ 
ling and sixpence to two shillings each, 
which sum did not at all equal my sanguine 
expectations. Frequently have I performed 
kings and princes after having breakfasted 
upon a turnip. 

I soon found that this mode of living did 
not suit me, for I was becoming exceed¬ 
ingly spare. I therefore resolved to quit 
the company, and return to London. Hav¬ 
ing informed the manager of my intention, 

I departed, and arrived in the metropolis 
with twopence in my pocket. I proceeded 
to nry father's house, where I was received 
with kindness, a-nd where I still continue. 

1 hare relinquished all my pretensions to 


the sock, having learned from experience 
that which it was not in the power of rea¬ 
son to convince me of. 

Gilbertus. 


SILCHESTER, HANTS. 

For the Table Book. 

Every thing in this world is subject to 
change, and the strongest buildings to 
decay. The ancient Vindonum of the Ro¬ 
mans, from whence Constantius issued 
several of his edicts, does not form an ex¬ 
ception to this rule. From being a princi¬ 
pal Roman station, it is now a heap of 
ruins. 

Silchester is situated about eleven miles 
from Reading, on the side of a hill, or 
rather on a level spot between two, and 
commands most beautiful views : from its 
being surrounded by woodland, a stranger 
would be unaware of his approach to it, 
until he arrived at the spot. The circumfer¬ 
ence of the walls is about two miles; they 
possess four gates, east, north, west, and 
south, and are in some places twelve or 
fourteen feet high, and four or five feet in 
width ; there are many fine trees (as was 
observed by Leland in his time) growing 
out of them : the wall was surrounded by 
a deep and broad ditch, which is now in 
some places nearly filled up by the ruins 
of the wall, and beyond which is “ the ex¬ 
ternal vallum, very perfect and easily to be 
traced out round the whole city ; its highest 
parts, even in the present state, are at least'! 
fifteen feet perpendicular from the bottom ( 
of the ditch. A straight line, drawn from I 
the top of this bank to the wall on the 
north-east side, measured thirty-four yards, 
its full breadth.”* 

Between the outside of the walls and 
the furthest vallum was the Pomcerium, 
which is defined by Livy to be that space 
of ground both within and without the 
walls, which the augurs, at the first building 
of cities, solemnly consecrated, and on 
which no edifices were suffered to be rais¬ 
ed .f Plutarch is of a different opinion, 
and ascribes the derivation of Pomcerium 
to pone mcenia , and states that it signifies 


• The History and Antiquities of Silchester, p. 12. 
Silchester, a parish bordering on Berkshire, about 
7 miles N. from Basingstoke, and 45 from London, 
contains, according to the last census, 85 houses and 
407 inhabitants. It is supposed to have been once a 
populous city, called by the Romans “ Segontiaci,” bv 
the Britons “ Caer-Segont,” and by the Saxons “ Sil- 
cester,” or the great citv. Capper. —Kd, 
t Livy, b. i. 


092 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


the line marked out for tne wall at the first 
foundation of a city.* 

About a hundred and fifty yards from the 
! north-east angle of the wall is a Roman 
amphitheatre, the form of which is similar 
to that near Dorchester, with high and 
steep banks, now covered with a grove of 
trees, and has two entrances. The eleva¬ 
tion of the amphitheatre consists of a mix- 
j tuie of clay and gravel : the seats were 
ranged in five rows one above the other; 
the slope between each measuring about 
six feet: each bank progressively rises, 
(and increases proportionably in width,) to 
a considerable height in the centre. The 
area of the amphitheatre is about twenty- 
five yards in diameter, as near as l could 
guess; it is commonly covered with water, 
and is become a complete marsh, having a 
drain across the centre, and is filled up 
with rushes. I was informed by the wo- 
I man who showed it, that some gentlemen 
1 a short time since procured a shovel, and 
found a fine gravel bottom at about a foot 
deep. 

The only buildings within the walls are 
the farm-house and the parish church, which 
; is an ancient structure, built of brick and 
flint, in the form of the letter T. The in¬ 
terior of the church is plain and neat; the 
font is of an octagonal form, of plain stone ; 
the pulpit is also octagonal, made of oak, 
and is remarkably neat; over it is a hand¬ 
some carved oak sounding-board, sur¬ 
mounted by a dove, with an olive-branch 
in its mouth, and round the board, at the 
lower part, in seven compartments, is the 
following inscription : — “ The Gyift of 
James Hore, G'ent. 1639.” The ascent to 
the pulpit is from the minister’s reading- 
desk, which also serves for a seat for his 
family. The chancel is separated from the 
body of the church by a handsome carved 
screen, in excellent preservation. In the 
south wall of the church, under a low 
pointed arch, is the recumbent figure of a 
female, carved in stone, of a very remote 
date, with the feet resting against an ani¬ 
mal, (probably a dog,) the head of which 
is much damaged : there is also an angel’s 
head, which has been broken off from some 
part of the monument, and is of course 
j loose ; from what part it came I was unable 
to discover. 

In the chancel affixed to the north wall 
is the following inscription on a handsome 
white marble monument; it is surmounted 
by a crown of glory, and at the bottom i8 
a death’s head :—_ 

* Plutarch in Romul. See Kennet’s Antiquities ot 
Rome, p. 29. 


Vive ut Vivas. 

Hie juxta situs est 
Johannis PAniS, D.D. 

Collegii Trinitatis apud Cantabngiensis 
Socius Senior 

& huius Ecclesiae Rector: de quo 
nisi opera loquantur 
Siletur. 

O I * 

There are also monuments of the Bay- 
natds, the Cusanzes, and the Blewets, 
which families were owners of the manor 
from the time of the conquest for some 
generations. 

On the south side of the city is a small 
postern under the wall, called by the com¬ 
mon people “ Onion’s hole,” and is so de¬ 
signated from a traditional account of a 
giant of that name; the coins which have 
been discovered are called from the cause 
“ Onion’s pennies.” 

A fair field is here open for the researches 
of the antiquarian ; and it is much to be 
regretted that a good account of the place 
is not yet published. “ The History and 
Antiquities of Silchester,” whence 1 have 
cited, is a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, 
and affords but little information. Hoping 
to see justice done to the place, l beg to 
subscribe mvself, &c 

J R J. 


TO THE NIGHTSHADE. 

For the Table Book. 

Lovely but fearful. 

Thy stein clings round a stronger power. 

Like a fond child that trusts and grows 
More beautiful in feeling’s hour. 

Rich is thy blossom. 

Shaped like a turban, with a spire 
Of orange in a purple crest, 

And humid eye of sunny fire. 

When the day wakens. 

Thou hearest not the happy airs 
Breathed into zephyr’s faery dreams, 

By insects’ wings, like leaves, in pairs. 

Summer—when over— 

Quits thee, with clust’ring berries red. 

Hanging like grapes, and autumn’s cold 
Chills what the noon-day’s sunbeams fed. 

Thou art like beauty, 

Gentle to touch and quickly faded ; 

’Tis death to taste thee void of skill, 

And thou, like death, art nightly shaded. 

Sept. 1827. «> **• 

* I should like to be m'ormed the meaning of fnes* 

letters—there is no date ti the monument. J. R J 


693 




























0)c Wrtoritasf, 

Or Malton Driffield, and Hull Fly Boat, 


To the Editor. 

A carriage bearing this name, of which 
the above is a sketch, forms a neat, safe, 
pleasant, and commodious conveyance from 
ttlalton, by way of Driffield, to Hull every 
other day, and from Hull to Malton on the 
intermediate days, during the summer 
months. The vehicle is, in fact, a boat on 
wheels, driven like a stage-coach, and fur¬ 
nished on each side of the body with a seat, 
extending the whole length, on which the 
passengers are ranged. The top is covered 
with a permanent awning, to which a cur¬ 
tain appended may be drawn up or let 
down at pleasure, so as to enjoy a view of 
the country, or shut out the sun and wea- 
.her. 

Bridlington, Oct. 1827. T. C. 


SHEEPSHEARING IN CUMBER¬ 
LAND. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The letters of W. C., in a recent 
number of the Table Book , recalled to my 
mind four of the happiest years of my life, 
spent in Cumberland, amongst the beauti¬ 
ful lakes and mountains in the neighbour¬ 


hood of Keswick, where I became ac¬ 
quainted with a custom which I shall at¬ 
tempt to describe. 

A few days previous to the “ clipping,” 
or shearing of the sheep, they are washed 
at a “ beck,” or small river, not far from 
the mountain on which they are kept. The 
clippings that I have witnessed have gene¬ 
rally been in St. John’s vale. Several 
farmers wash their sheep at the same place ; 
and, by that means, greatly assist each 
other. The scene is most amusing. Ima¬ 
gine to yourself several hundred sheep 
scattered about in various directions ; some 
of them enclosed in pens by the water-side ; 
four or five men in the water rolling those 
about that are thrown in to them; the 
dames and the pretty maidens supplying 
the “ mountain dew” very plentifully to 
the people assembled, particularly those 
that have got themselves well ducked ; the 
boys pushing each other into the river, 
splashing the men, and raising tremendous 
shouts. Add to these a fine day in the 
beginning of June, and a beautiful land¬ 
scape, composed of mountains, woods, 
cultivated lands, and a small meandering 
stream; the farmers and their wives, chil¬ 
dren, and servants, with hearty faces, and as 
merry as summer and good cheer can make 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


6 ( J4 










































THE TABLE BOOK 


them: and I am sure, sir, that you, who 
are a lover of nature in all her forms, could 
not wish a more delightful scene. 

i will now proceed to the “ clipping” 
itself. Early in the forenoon of the ap¬ 
pointed day, the friends and relatives of the 
farmer assemble at his house, for they al¬ 
ways assist each other, and after having 
regaled themselves with hung-beef, curds, 
and home-brewed ale, they proceed briskly 
to business. The men seat themselves on 
their stools, with shears.in their hands, and 
the younger part of the company supply 
them with sheep from the fold ; which, after 
having been sheared, have the private mark 
of the farmer stamped upon them with 
pitch. In the mean time the lasses are flut¬ 
tering about, playing numerous tricks; for 
which, by the by, they get paid with in¬ 
terest by kisses; and the housewife may be 
seen busy in preparing the supper, which 
generally comprises ail that the season af¬ 
fords. After the “clipping” is over, and 
the sheep driven on to the fells, (mountains,) 
they adjourn in a body to the house; and 
then begins a scene of rustic merriment, 
which those who have not witnessed it, 
can have no conception of. The evening 
is spent in drinking home-brewed ale, and 
singing. Their songs generally bear some 
allusion to the subject in question, and are 
always rural. But what heightens the plea¬ 
sure is, that there is no quarrelling, and 
the night passes on in the utmost harmony. 
I have attended many of them, and never 
saw the slightest symptoms of anger in any 
of the party. They seldom break up till 
daylight makes its appearance next morning. 

I am, sir, 

Your constant reader, 

A. W. R. 


DR. GRAHAM. 

For the Table Book. 

[n the year 1782, that extraordinary em¬ 
piric of modern times, Dr. Graham, ap¬ 
peared in London. He was a graduate of 
Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, 
and possessed a great fluency of elocution. 
He opened a mansion in Pall Mall, called 
“The Temple of Health;” the front was 
ornamented with an enormous gilt sun, a 
statue of Hygeia, and other attractive em¬ 
blems. The rooms were superbly furnished, 
and the walls decorated with mirrors, so as 
I to confer on the place an effect like that of 
an enchanted palace. Here he delivered 
** I/’ctures on Health, &c ” at the extrava¬ 


gant rate of two guineas each. As a fur¬ 
ther attraction, he entertained a female of 
beautiful figure, whom he called the “ god¬ 
dess of health.” He hired two men of 
extraordinary stature, provided with enor¬ 
mous cocked hats and showy liveries, to 
distribute bills from house to house about 
town. 

These unusual means to excite curiosity 
were successful; but his two guinea audi¬ 
tors were soon exhausted ; he then dropped 
to one guinea ; afterwards to half a guinea ; 
then to five shillings ; and, subsequently, as 
he said, “ for the benefit of all,” to two 
shillings and sixpence. When he could 
not “ draw” at that price, he finally ex¬ 
hibited the “ Temple of Health ” at one 
shilling a head to daily crowds for several 
months. 

Among the furniture of Dr. Graham’s 
temple was a celestial bed, which he pre¬ 
tended wrought miraculous effects on those 
who reposed on it: he demanded for its 
use during one night one hundred pounds ; 
and such is the folly of wealth, that several 
personages of high rank acceded to his 
terms. He also pretended to have dis¬ 
covered “ The Elixir of Life,” by taking of 
which a person might live as long as he 
pleased. When this was worn out, he re¬ 
commended “ earth bathing,” and sanction¬ 
ed it by his own practice. During one 
hour every day, he admitted spectators to 
view him and the goddess of health im¬ 
mersed naked in the ground to their chins. 
The doctor’s head was dressed and pow¬ 
dered, and the goddess’s was arranged in 
the highest fashion of the times. He car¬ 
ried this exhibition to every provincial 
town wherein he could obtain permission 
of the magistrates. The goddess nearly , 
fell a victim to the practice, and the doctor, | 
in spite of his enormous charges and his 
“ Elixir of life,” died in poor circumstances 
at the age of fifty-two. 

Dr. Graham’s brother married the cele¬ 
brated Mrs. Macaulay, the historian, and 
Dr. Arnold, of Leicester, the respectable 
author of an able treatise on insanity, mar¬ 
ried his sister. It is generally understood 
that the lady who performed the singular 
part of the “ Goddess of Health ” was 
Emma, afterwards the wife of sir William 
Hamilton, and the personal favourite of 
the celebrated lord Nelson. She died ir 
misery— 

Deserted in her utmost need 

By those her former bounty fed. 

Sam Sam's Sou 

Sept. 1, 1827. 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


STORKS. 

The storks of the Low Countries are 
mentioned more than once in the journal 
of the gentlemen deputed by the “ Caledo¬ 
nian Horticultural Society ” to visit the 
gardens of our continental neighbours. 
Their route from Antwerp to Rotterdam is 
marked by the following entry :— 

August 22, 1817. “ In the course of our 
progress into this land of meadows and 
waters, we had been making inquiries about 
the storks (Ardea Ciconia r L.) which every 
year visit Holland in' the breeding season ; 
and we learned that the great flock had 
taken its departure about ten days before. 
We observed several of their nests, set like 
wicker-baskets on the roofs of the dwelling- 
houses ; and we had the good fortune to see 
one solitary dam still covering her brood, 
on account probably of the young one not 
having been sufficiently fledged to enable 
it to accompany the main body. We per¬ 
suaded the conductor to allow us to get out 
of the carriage, and examine this rarity: 
the bird showed no sort of alarm, the 
ooyevaar (as our Dutch friends called it) 
being privileged in Holland. In many 
places where a new house is built a nest- 
box is erected on the gable, or on the ridge 
of the roof, partly to invite the bird to 
make a settlement, and partly perhaps to 
save the thatch of the roof, in case it should 
come without invitation/’ It is remarked 
by way of note, that “ previous to the great 
migration the storks assemble in large 
groups, and make an unusual noise. It is 
known that they winter chiefly in Egypt. 
Pope has finely alluded to their remarkable 
instinct:— 

Who calls the council, states the certain day ? 

Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way ? 

In the beginning of May they return, like 
swallows, to their former haunts, the old 
birds carefully seeking out their accustomed 
nests. Sometimes, though rarely, a stray 
stork crosses the channel, and is seen on 
the English coast. It is there incessantly 
persecuted ; it commonly perches on the 
roof of some thatched farm-house, where 
its experience leads it to hope for protec¬ 
tion,—but it is not the dwelling of a quiet 
Dutch boor;* some pseudo-sportsman of a 
farmer shoots the poor bird while at roost.’’ 


Of the numeious families which frequent 
the skies of rivers and the sea-beach, that 

• Boer in the low countries, and Bauar in Germany, 

.cnifies a farm** 1 


of the stork is the best known and the most 
celebrated. It contains two species, the 
white and the black. They are exactly of 
the same form, and have no external differ¬ 
ence but that of colour. 

The black stork prefers desert tracts, 
perches on trees, haunts unfrequented 
marshes, and breeds in the heart of forests. 

The white stork, on the contrary, settles 
beside dwellings; inhabits towers, chim- 
nies, and ruins. The friend of man, it 
shares his habitations, and even his domain. 
It fishes in his rivers, pursues its prey intoj 
his gardens, and takes up its abode in the | 
midst of cities, without being disturbed by 
the noise and bustle. On the Temple of 
Concord, in the capitol of Rome, were 
many storks’ nests. The fact is memorial¬ 
ized on the medals of the emperor Adrian, 
and alluded to by Juvenal in his first satire. 


The stork flies steadily and with vigour ; 
holds its head straight forward, and stretches, 
back its legs, to direct its motion; soars to 
a vast height, and performs distant journies 
even in tempestuous seasons. It arrives in 
Germany about the eighth or tenth of May, 
and is seen before that time in the provinces 
of France. Gesner says, it precedes the 
swallow, and enters Switzerland in the 
month of April, and sometimes earlier. It 
arrives in Alsace in March, or even in the 
end of February. The return of the storks 
is ever auspicious, as it announces the 
spring. They instantly indulge those ten¬ 
der emotions which that season inspires : 
Aldrovandus paints with warmth their mu¬ 
tual signs of felicity, the eager congratula¬ 
tions, and the fondling endearments of the 
male and female, on their coming home 
from their distant journey. “ When they 

have arrived at their nest-good God ! 

what sweet salutation; what gratulation 
for their prosperous return! what em¬ 
braces ! what honied kisses! what gentle 
murmurs they breathe !” It is to be ob¬ 
served, that they always settle in the same 
spots, and, if their nest has been destroyed, 
they rebuild it with twigs and aquatic 
plants, usually on lofty ruins, or the battle¬ 
ments of towers; sometimes on large trees 
beside water, or on the point of bold cliffs. 
In France it was formerly customary to 
place wheels on the house-tops, to entice 
the stork to nestle. The practice still sub¬ 
sists in Germany and Alsace : and in Hol¬ 
land square boxes are planted on the ridge, 
with the same view. 

When the stork is in a still posture it 
rests on one foot, folds back its neck, and 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


"eclines its bead on its shoulder. It watches 
he motions of reptiles with a keen eye, 
ind commonly preys on frogs, lizards, ser¬ 
pents, and small fish, which it finds in 
marshes by the sides of the streams, and in 
wet Yales. 

It walks like the crane with .ong mea¬ 
sured strides. When irritated or discom¬ 
posed, or influenced by affection to its 
mate, it makes with its bill a repeated 
clattering, which the ancients express by 
the significant words crepitut and glotterat * 
and which Petronius accurately marks by 
the epithet crotatistria ,f formed from cro- 
talurn, the castanet or rattle. In this state 
of agitation it bends its head back, so that 
the lower mandible appears uppermost, the 
bill lies almost parallel on the back, and 
the two mandibles strike violently against 
each other; but in proportion as it raises 
up its neck the clattering abates, and ceases 
when the bird has resumed its ordinary 
posture. This is the only noise the stork 
ever makes, and, as it seems dumb, the 
ancients supposed it had no tongue. 

The stork does not lay more than four 
eggs, oftener not more than two; they are 
of a dirty and yellowish white, rather 
smaller, but longer than those of a goose. 
The male sits when the female goes in quest 
of food; the incubation lasts a month; 
both parents are exceedingly attentive in 
bringing provisions to the young, which 
rise up to receive it, and make a sort of 
whistling noise. The male and female 
never leave the nest at once ; but, while 
the one is employed in searching for piey, 
the other stands near the spot on one leg, 
and keeps an eye constantly on the brood. 
When first hatched the young are covered 
with a brown down, and their long slender 
legs not having yet strength enough to 
support them, they creep upon their knees. 
When their wings begin to grow, they essay 
their force in fluttering about the nest; 
though it often happens that in this exer¬ 
cise some of them fall, and are unable to 
regain their lodgment. After they venture 
to commit themselves to the air, the mother 
leads and exercises them in small circum¬ 
volutions around the nest, and conducts 
them back. About the latter end of Au¬ 
gust, when the young storks have attained 
strength, they join the adults, and prepare 
for migration. 


♦ Quseijne 6alutato crepitat concordia nitfo. Juvenal , 
Sat. I. 

Glotterat immense de turre ciconia rostro. Jut. 
Philomel. 

+■ Publius Syrn.® bad made the same application of 
hts word. 


The Greeks have placed the rendezvous 
of the storks in a plain of Asia, called the 
“ Serpent’s District,” where they congre¬ 
gated, as they do now in some parts of the 
Levant, and even in Europe, as in Bran¬ 
denburg and elsewhere. Shaw says, in his 
Travels, “ It is remarked that the storks 
before they pass from one country into 
another, assemble a fortnight beforehand, 
from all the neighbouring parts, in a plain; | 
holding once a day a divan , as they say in 
that country, as if their object was to fix 
the precise time of their departure and the 
place of their retreat.” 

When they convene previous to then 
departure, they make a frequent clattering 
with their bill, and the whole flock is in 
tumultuary commotion; all seem eager to 
form acquaintance, and to consult on the 
projected route, of which the signal in our 
climate is the north wind. Then the vast 
body rises at once, and in a few seconds is 
lost in the air. Klein relates, that having 
been called to witness this sight he was a 
moment too late, and the whole flock had 
already disappeared. Indeed this departure 
is the more difficult to observe, as it is 
conducted in silence, and often during the 
night. Belon says, that their departure is 
not remarked, because they fly without 
noise or cries, while the cranes and wild- 
geese, on the contrary, tt cam much on the 
wing. It is asserted, that in their passage, 
before they venture to cross the Mediterra¬ 
nean, they alight in great numbers in the 
neighbourhood of Aix in Provence. Their 
departure appears to be later in warm 
countries ; for Pliny says, that “ after the 
retreat of the stork it is improper to sow.” 

It was remarked by the Jewish prophet, 
that “ the stork in the heaven knoweth her 
appointed time/’ (Jeremiah viii. 7.;) but 
though the ancients observed the migra¬ 
tions of these birds, they do not seem to 
have been certain as to the countries of 
their retirement. Modern travellers ac¬ 
quaint us more accurately. “ It is per¬ 
fectly ascertained,” says Belon, “ that the 
storks winter in Egypt and in Africa ; for 
we have seen the plains of Egypt whitened 
by them in the months of September and 
October. At that season, when the waters 
of the Nile have subsided, they obtain 
abundance of food ; but the excessive heats 
of summer drive them to more temperate 
climates ; and they return again in winter, 
to avoid the severity of the cold : the con¬ 
trary is the case with the cranes, which 
visit us with the geese in winter, when the 
storks leave us.” This remarkable differ¬ 
ence is owing to that of the climates which 


097 

































THE TABLE BOOIv. 


these birds inhabit; the geese and ducks 
come from the north, to escape the rigours 
of the winter; the storks leave the south, 
to avoid the scorching heats of summer. 
It was a common opinion in the time of 
Albertus Magnus that the storks do not 
i retire in winter, but lurk in caverns, or 
' even at the bottom of lakes. Klein relates, 
that two storks were dragged out of the 
water in the pools near Elbing. Ger- 
vais of Tillebury speaks of other storks that 
were found clustered in a lake near Arles ; 
Merula, in Aldrovandus, speaks of some 
which fishermen drew out of the lake of 
Como; and Fulgosus, of others that were 
fished near Metz. Martin Schoockius, who 
wrote a treatise on the stork in 1648, sup¬ 
ports these testimonies. But the history 
of the migrations of the storks is too well 
known, not to attribute to accidents the 
facts just mentioned, if they indeed may 
be relied on. 

Belon says, that he saw storks wintering 
round Mount Amanus, near Antioch ; and 
passing about the end of. August towards 
Abydus, in flocks of three or four thousand, 
from Russia and Tartary. They cross the 
Hellespont; and on the summits of Tene- 
dos divide into squadrons, and disperse 
themselves northwards. 

Dr. Shaw says, that about the middle of 
May, 1722, “ Our vessel, being anchored 
under Mount Carmel, I saw three flocks 
of storks, each of which was more than 
three hours in passing, and extended a half 
mile in breadth.” Maillet relates, that he 
saw the storks descend, towards the end of 
April, from Upper Egypt, and halt on the 
grounds of the Delta, which the inundation 
of the Nile soon obliges them to leave. 

Crows sometimes intermingle with the 
storks in their passage, which has given 
rise to the opinion of St. Basil and Isidorus, 
that the crows serve to direct and escort 
the storks. The ancients also speak much 
of the combats between the storks and 
ravens, jays, and other species of birds, 
when their flocks, returning from Lybia 
and Egypt, met about Lycia and the river 
Xanthus. 

Storks, by thus removing from climate 
to climate, never experience the severities 
cf winter ; their year consists of two sum¬ 
mers, and twice they taste the pleasures 
natural to the season. This is a remarkable 
peculiarity of their history; and Belon 
positively assures us, that the stork has its 
second brood in Egypt. 

It is said, that storks are never seen in 
England, vjr'.ess they are driven upon the 
island by some storm. Albin remarks, as 


a singular circumstance, that the~e were 
two of these birds at Edgeware, in Middle¬ 
sex; and Willoughby declares, that a figure 
which he gives was designed from one sent 
from the coast of Norfolk, where it had 
accidentally dropped. Nor does the stork 
occur in Scotland, if we judge from the 
silence of Sibbald. Yet it often penetrates 
the northern countries of Europe; into 
Sweden, over the whole of Scania, into 
Denmark, Siberia, Mangasea on the river 
Jenisca, and as far as the territories of the 
Jakutes. Great numbers are seen also in 
Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania. They 
are also met with in Turkey, and in Persia, 
where Bruyn observed their nest carved on 
the ruins of Persepolis ; and according to 
that author, they are dispersed through the 
whole of Asia, except the desert parts, 
which they seem to shun, and the arid 
tracts, where they cannot subsist. 

Aldrovandus assures us, that storks are 
never found in the territory of Bologna; 
they are rare even through the whole of 
Italy, where Willoughby, during a resi¬ 
dence of twenty-eight years, saw them orly 
once. Yet it appears, from Pliny and 
Varro, that anciently they were there com¬ 
mon ; and we can hardly doubt but that, 
in their route from Germany to Africa, or 
in their return, they must pass over Italy 
and the islands of the Mediterranean, 
Koempfer affirms, that they reside the whole 
year in Japan; which therefore, if he is 
correct, is the only country where they are 
stationary ; in all others, they retire a few 
months after their arrival. In France, 
Lorraine and Alsace are the provinces 
where these birds are the most numerous ; 
there they breed ; and few towns or villages 
in Lower Alsace are without storks’ nests 
on their belfries. 

The stork is of a mild disposition, neither 
shy nor savage; it is easily tamed; and 
may be trained to reside in our gardens, 
which it will clear of insects and reptiles. 
It has almost always a grave air, and a 
mournful visage; yet, when roused by ex¬ 
ample, it shews a certain degree of gaiety ; 
for it joins the frolics of children, hopping 
and playing with them. Dr. Hermann, of 
Strasburg, says, “ I saw in a garden, where 
the children were playing at hide and seek, 
a tame stork join the party, run its turn 
when touched, and distinguish the child, 
whose turn it was to pursue the rest, so 
well as to be on its guard.” In the domes¬ 
tic condition the stork lives to a great age, 
and endures the severities of our winters. 
Ileerkens, of Groningen, author of a Latin 
poem on the stork, says that he kept en* 


698 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


fifteen years ; and speaks of another which 
lived twenty-one years in the fish-market 
of Amsterdam, and was interred with so¬ 
lemnity by the people. Oiaus Borrichius 
mentions a stork aged more than twenty- 
two years, which became gouty. 

To the stork are ascribed the virtues of 
temperance, conjugal fidelity, and filial and 
paternal piety. There is a history, famous 
in Holland, of “ the Delft storkwhich, 
in the conflagration of that city, after hav¬ 
ing in vain attempted to rescue her young, 
perished with them in the flames. It is 
certain, that the stork bestows much time 
on the education of its young, and does 
not leave thtm till they have strength suf¬ 
ficient for their defence and support; when 
they begin to flutter out of the nest, the 
moiher bears them on her wings, protects 
them from danger, and sometimes perishes 
with them rather than she will forsake 
them. The stork shows tokens of attach¬ 
ment to its old haunts, and even gratitude 
to the persons who have treated it with 
kindness. It has been heard to rap at the 
door in passing, as if to tell its arrival, and 
give a like sign of adieu on its departure. 
But these moral qualities are nothing in 
comparison of the affection and tender 
offices which these birds lavish on their 
aged and infirm parents. The young and 
vigorous storks frequently carry food to 
others, which, resting on the brink of 
the nest, seem languid and exhausted, 
either from accidental injuries or the infir¬ 
mities of years. 

The ancients assert, that nature has im¬ 
planted in brutes this venerable piety, as 
an example to man, in whose breast the 
delicious sentiment is often obliterated. 
The law which compelled the maintenance 
of parents was enacted in honour of the 
stork, and inscribed by its name. Aristo¬ 
phanes draws from its conduct a bitter 
satire on the human race. 

iElian alleges, that the mora. qualities of 
the stork were the chief cause of the respect 
and veneration which it enjoyed among 
the Egyptians; and the notion which the 
common people among whom it resorts still 
entertain, that its settling on a house be¬ 
tokens prosperity, is perhaps a vestige of 
che ancient opinion. 

An ancient writer affirms, that the storks, 
worn out with old age, repair to certain 
islands in the ocean, where, in reward for 
their piety, they are changed into men. 
In auguries, the appearance of the stork de¬ 
noted union and concord. Its departure 
in the time of public calamity was regarded 
a dismal presage; Paul, the deacon. 


says, that Attila, having purposed to raise 
the siege of Aquileia, was determined to 
renew his operations, upon seeing storks 
retiring from the city and leading away 
their young. In hieroglyphics it signified 
piety and benefieence, virtues which its 
name expressed in the most ancient lan¬ 
guages ; and we often see the emblem, as 
on the two beautiful medals of L. Antonius, 
given in Fulvius Ursinus, and in two others 
of Q. Metellus, surnamed “ the Pious,” as 
reported by Paterculus. Dr. Shaw says, 
that the Mahometans have a great esteem 
and veneration for it. It is almost as 
sacred among them as the ibis was among the 
Egyptians; and they would look upon a 
person as profane, who should kill or even 
harm it. So precious were storks held 
in Thessaly, which country they cleared of 
serpents, that the slayer of one of these 
birds was punished with death. They 
were not eaten among the Romans; and a 
person who, from a strange sort of luxury, 
ordered one to be brought to his table, 
drew upon himself the direful obloquy of 
the whole people. Nor is the flesh of this 
bird recommended by its quality—formed 
by nature for our friend, and almost our 
domestic, it was never destined to be our 
victim.* 


VARIA. 

For the Table Book. 

Newspaper Readers. 

Shenstone, the poet, divides the readers 
of a newspaper into seven classes. He 
says— 

1. The illnatured look at the list of 
bankrupts. 

2. The poor to the price of bread. 

3. The stockjobber to the lies of the 
day. 

4. The old maid to marriages. 

5. The prodigal to the deaths. 

6. The monopolizers to the hopes of a 
wet and bad harvest. 

7. The boarding-school and all other 
young misses, to all matters relative to 
Gretna Green. 

Fires in London. 

From the registry of fires for one year, 
commencing Michaelmas 1805, it appears, 
that there were 366 alarms of fire, attended 
with little damage; 31 serious fires, and 

• Buffon 


699 








THE TABLE BOOK. 


155 alarms occasioned by chimneys being 
on fire, amounting in all to 552 accidents 
of this nature. The offices calculate on 
an alarm of fire every day, and about eight 
serious fires in every quarter of the year. 

Henry VIII. and his Peers. 

When we advert to early parts of the 
history of this country, we cannot but be 
thankful to heaven for the progress of just 
principles, and the security we derive from 
the laws. In the reign of Henry VIII. 
that monarch wanted to carry some mea¬ 
sure through the house of lords, contrary to 
its wishes. The peers hesitated in the 
morning, but consented in the afternoon. 
Some of their body waited on him to in¬ 
form him thereof, when the tyrant made 
reply, “ It is well you did it, or by this 
time half your heads would have been 
upon Temple Bar.” 

Female Sheriffs and Justices. 

Nicholas, earl of Thanet, was succeeded 
by his next brother John, the fourth earl, 
born 7th August, 1638. He also succeeded 
his mother Margaret, countess of Thanet, 
as baron Clift’ord, Westmoreland, and 
Vescey, who by her last will, dated June 
19, 1676, gave the Yorkshire and West¬ 
moreland estates to this John for life ; she 
died the 14th August following, and he 
then succeeded her in trie sheriffdoms of 
Westmoreland and Cumberland, where it 
frequently happened that female heiresses 
became possessed of them. 

There are several instances of women 
bearing that office, as may be seen in most 
of the treatises in which that duty is men¬ 
tioned. Those things required by it, not 
proper to be undertaken by a female, were 
intrusted to a deputy, or shire clerk. 

Not only the office of sheriff, but even 
justice of peace, has been in the hands of 
the fair sex. Among the Harleian manu¬ 
scripts is a very remarkable note, taken 
from Mr. Attorney-general Noy’s readings 
in Lincoln’s-inn, in 1632, in which, upon 
the point whether the office of a justice of 
a forest might be executed by a woman, it 
was said, that Margaret, countess of Rich¬ 
mond, mother to Henry VII., was a justice 
of peace; that the lady Bartlet was made 
a justice of peace by queen Mary in Glou¬ 
cestershire ; and that in Sussex, one Rouse, 
a woman, did usually sit upon the bench at 
assizes and sessions among the other jus¬ 
tices, gladio-cincta, girded with a sword. 
It is equally ceitair., that Anne, countess of 
Pembroke, exercised the office c.’ Hereditary 


sheriff of Westmoreland, and at the assizes 
of Appleby sat with the judges on the 
bench, which puts this point beyond a 
question. 

Sam Sam’s Son 


WOMEN. 

It is the opinion of Mr. J. P. Andrews, 
that antiquarians are by no means apt to 
pay great attention to the fair sex. He says, 
“ Their Venus must be old, and want a nose.” 

He instances, as among those who have 
“ set themselves most warmly ” against fe¬ 
males, old Antony a Wood, whose diary 
affords some specimens of grotesque dis¬ 
like. 

Page 167. “ He” (sir Thomas Clayton) 
“ and his family, most of them womankind , 
(which before were looked upon, if resident 
in the college, a scandal and abomination 
thereunto,) being no sooner settled,” &c. 
than “ the warden’s garden must be altered, 
new trees planted, &c. All which, though 
unnecessary, yet the poor college must pa) 
for them, and all this to please a woman !” 

P. 168. “ Frivolous expenses to pleasure 
his proud lady.” 

P. 173. “ Yet the warden, by the motion 
of his lady, did put the college to unneces¬ 
sary charges and very frivolous expenses. 
Among which were a very large looking- 
glass, for her to see her ugly face and body 
to the middle, and perhaps lower.” 

P. 252. “ Cold entertainment, cold re¬ 
ception, cold, clownish woman.” 

P. 257. “ Dr. Bathurst took his place of 
vice-chancellor, a man of good parts, and 
able to do good things, but he has a wife 
that scorns that he should be in print. A 
scornful woman! Scorns that he was dian 
of Wells ! No need of marrying such a 
woman, who is so conceited that she thinks 
herself fit to govern a college or a univer¬ 
sity.” 

P. 270. “ Charles lord Herbert, eldest 
son of Henry, marquis of Worcester, was 
matriculated as a member of Ch. Ch. 
iEtat 16. natus Loud. I set this down here, 
because the father and ancestors were all 
catholics, but because the mother is a pres- 
byterian, a Capel, she (against the father's 
will, as it is said) will have him bred a 
proiestant; so that by this change the 
catholics will lose the considerablest family 
in England, and the richest subject the king 
has.” 

Selden, too, is cited as an antiquarian 
inattentive to gallantry. 

“It is reason,” says he, a man that 


700 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


will have a wife should be at the charge ot 
her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets 
on him. He that will keep a ir onkey it is 
fit he should pay for the glasses he breaks.” 

But ladies can, if they please, retaliate 
severely. A gentleman who had married a 
second wife, indulged himself in recurring 
too often in conversation to the beauty and 
virtues of his first consort. He had, how¬ 
ever, baiely discernment enough to discover 
that the subject was not an agreeable one 
to his present lady. “ Excuse me, ma¬ 
dam,” said he, “ I cannot help expressing 
my regrets for the dear deceased.” “ Upon 
my honour,” said the lady, “ I can most 
heartily affirm that I am as sincere a 
mourner for her as you can be.” 


DOWER. 

There was an absolute necessity for pro¬ 
viding a dower for the widow in the thir¬ 
teenth century, because women at that 
period had no personal fortune to entitle 
them to a jointure by way of marriage. 
Shiernhook, and all the writers upon the 
ancient laws of the northern nations, dwell 
much upon the morgengavinm ; i. e. the 
present made by the husband to his w'ife 
the morning after consummation. It is 
singular, therefore, that we have no traces 
of such a custom. In the Philippine 
islands, a certain proportion of the dower 
is paid to the intended wife after liberty of 
conversing with her; a greater share for 
'he permission of eating with her; and the 
oalance upon consummation.* 


SANS CHANGER. 

For the Table Book. 

The maiden, with a vivid eye. 

Whose breath is measured by her sigh ; 

The maiden, with a lovely cheek. 

Whose blushes in their virtue break ; 

Whose pulse and breath would die unblest 
If not by changeless Love carest 
*Tis she that gives her partner’s life 
The perfect and the happy wife 

Sans changer. 

If choice be true, she proves a friend 
Whose friendship fails not to the end ; 

She sweetens dear affection’s power 
That lasteth to life’s patting hour: 

Her heart beats that her love might go 
Through every pang her Love’s could know, 
And yields its latest throb, to give 
Truth to that heart she loves, to live 
Suns changer. 


• Gemelli, vol. v. Napoli, 1708. 


CASUALTIES OF THE ANCIENTS. 

i 

To the Editor. 

Your having, sii, inserted certain “ An¬ 
tipathies” which I communicated to your 
work, encourages me to hope you will find 
some “ Casualties ” not unacceptable. 

Anacreon, according to Pliny and Vale¬ 
rius Maximus, was choked with the kernel 
of a raisin, and Tarquinius Priscus with a 
fishbone ; the senator Fabius with a hair ; 
and the very sight of a physician in a 
dream, frighted Andragorus out of his life. 
Homer, Rutilius, Rusciacus, and Pompera- 
nus were overwhelmed with grief. Zeuxis 
and Philemon died with laughing; the one 
at the picture of an old woman which him¬ 
self had drawn, the other at an ass eating 
of figs. Polycryta,* Philippides, and Dia- 
gorus were carried away with a sudden 
joy ; and the tyrant Dionysius and Sopho¬ 
cles by excessive triumph at the news of a 
victory. The bald head of iEschylus cost 
him dearly ; for an eagle hovering over it 
mistook it for a stone, and thinking to 
break an oyster upon it, gave him a mortal 
wound.f Archimedes was killed by a sol¬ 
dier, as he was making diagrams in the 
sand; and Pindar, in the theatre, by his 
repose as he lay on the knees of his dear 
Theoxenus. \ 

Like the people in Pliny, w r e pay tribute 
for a shadow. Every age, condition, and 
family has its peculiar evils. Cares and 
sorrows intermingle with our possessions 
and gratifications. We taste myrrh in our 
wine ; and while we ciop losebuds to crown 
our heads, we prick our fingers. We do 
not so properly enjoy our pleasures, as 
suffer them. 

“ The portion of man is like that of a 
rose, which at first is fair as the morning, 
when it newly springs from the clefts of its 
hood, and full with the dew of heaven as 
the fleece of a lamb; but when a ruder 
breath has forced open its virgin modesty, 
and dismantled its retirements, it begins to 
decline to the symptoms of a sickly age; it 
bows the head and breaks the stalk, and 
at night having lost some of its leaves, and 
all its beauty, falls into the lap of noisome 
weeds.”§ 

nn. 


* Agellius, lib. iii. cap. 15. 

t Suidas, Aristoph. in Ranis, lib. x. cap. 3, el Max 
ibid. 

J ©£«|£v» ycvxrXf Suidas. 

$ Bishop Taylor 


701 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


THE HOUR OF PRIME. 


Mira d’intorno, Silvio, 

Quanto il mondo ha di vago, e di gootile, 

Opra e d’amore : • # 

• • • Amante e il cielo, Amant® 

La terra, Amante il mare. 

Al fine, Ama ogm cosa. 

Pastor Ftdo. 


Ask why the violet perfume throws 
O’er all the ambient air ; 

Ask why so sweet the summer rose. 

Ask why the lily’s fair. 

If these, in words, could answer frame. 

Or characters could trace, 

They’d say, the frolic zephyrs came 
And courted our embrace. 

And we (unskill’d in that false lore 
That teaches how to feign, 

While days and years fly swiftly o’er. 

And ne’er return again,) 

A prompt obedience ready paid 
To Nature’s kind command, 

And meeting Zephyr iu the glade. 

We took his proffer’d hand. 

And loving thus, we led along 
In jocund mirth the hours; 

The bee bestow’d her ceaseless song. 

The clouds refreshing show’rs. 

From out the Iris’ radiant bow 
In gayest hues we drest. 

And all our joy is, that we know 
We have been truly blest. 

Believe not iu the sombre lay 
Of one* wno lov’d griefs theme. 

That “ have been blest ” is “ title gay ” 

“ Of misery’s extreme.” 

Discard so woe-begone a muse 
In melancholy drown’d. 

And list* a mightier bardt who strews 
His laughing truths around. 

* The rose distill’d is happier far 

Than that which, with’ring on the thorn, 
Lives, grows, and dies a prey to care 
In single blessedness forlorn.” 

Mark then the lesson, O ye fair 1 
The pretty flow’rets teach, 

The truths they tell more precious are 
Than coquetry can reach. 

Or all cold prudence e’er design’d 
To cloud affection’s beams. 

To cross with doubts the youthful mind, 
Or cheat it with fond dreams. 


Leave then at once all fond delay. 

Nor lose the hour of prime. 

For nought can call back yesterda 
Nor stop the hand of time. 

And youth and beauty both have wings. 

No art can make them stay. 

While wisdom soft, but ceaseless sings, 

“ Enjoy them while you may.* 

E. E. 


For the Table Book. 

THE SOLDIER’S RETURN. 

A Fragment. 

The sound of trumpet, drum and fife 
Are fit for younger men. 

He seeks the calm retreat of life, 

His Mary and his glen. 

-Many days and nights the wounded 

soldier travelled with his knapsack and stick 
to reach his native place, and find solace in 
the bosom of his relatives. The season 
merged into the solstice of winter, the roads 
were bad, his feet were tender, and his 
means were scanty. Few persons in years 
could have borne the fatigue and hardships 
he endured; but if he could find his wished- 
for Mary, he trusted all would be well—his 
spirit could not break while the hope of his 
earliest attachment survived. He had fought 
hard in the conflict of the battle-field—the 
conflict of love had not smoothed his 
“ wrinkled front.” He trudged onward, 
and persevered till he reached the cottage 
of his nativity. It was humble but neat. 
He drew the latch, crossed the threshhold, 
and entered the domicile. An elderly 
female was lying on a bed. Her niece sat 
by the bedside reading to her. The maiden 
rose, and, putting the book aside, questioned 
his name and business. He threw down 
his knapsack; he caught the countenance, 
though faded from its youth, like his, of his 
dear, bedridden Mary, and, clasping his 
hands with hers, sat many hours reciting 
his history, and listening in tears to hei 
afflictions, occasioned by his roving dispo¬ 
sition. He now, to make reparation, 
seasoned her hopes by promises of final 
rest with her till their suns should set 
together in the sphere of earthly repose; 
for Mary was the only person living of a.' 
his once numerous companions in tot 
Gkn— 


*?r. Ycurg. 


♦ Shakwuai®. 


702 











(george 02Uatswm, tbe £>us«c>: Calculator, 


This singular being, who in every thing, 
but his extraordinary powers of memory 
and calculation, is almost idiotic, was born 
at Buxted, in Sussex, in 1735, and has 
followed the occupation of a labourer. He 
is ignorant in the extreme, and uneducated, 
not being able to read or write; and yet 
he can, with facility, perform some of the 
most difficult calculations in arithmetic 
The most extraordinary circumstance, how 
ever, is the power he possesses of recollect¬ 
ing the events of every day, from an early 
period of his life. Upon being asked, 
what day of the week a given day of the 
month occurred? he immediately names it 
and also mentions where he was, and what 
was the state of the weather. gen e- 


man who had kept a diary, put many ques 
tions of this kind to him, and his replies 
wera invariably correct. Watson has made 
two or three tours into Hampshire, Wilt¬ 
shire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire, 
and has exhibited his singular powers in 
the principal towns in those counties; is 
familiar with every town, village, and ham¬ 
let in Sussex, can tell the number of 
churches, public-houses, See. in each. The 
accompanying portrait, drawn by Mr. S. W. 
Lee, of Lewes, will give a correct idea of 
this singular individual. Phrenologists, 
who have examined George’s skull, state 
the organ of numbers to be very strongly 
developed 


THE TABLE BuOE 


703 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


©aiTttfe pags. 

No. XL. 

[From “ Fatal Jealousy,” a Tragedy, Au¬ 
thor unknown, 1673.] 

Xo Truth Absolute : after seeing a Masque 
of Gipseys. 

1st Spectator. By this we see that all the world’s a 
cheat, 

Whose truths and falsehoods lie so intermixt, 

And are so l>ke each other, that ’tis hard 
To find the difference. Who would not think these 
people 

A real pack of such as we call Gipseys? 

2 d Spect. Things perfectly alike are hut the same ; 
And these were Gipseys, if we did not know 
How to consider them the contrary: 

So in terrestrial things there is not one 
But takes its form and nature from our fancy, 

Not its own being, and is but what we think it. 

1st Spect. But Truth is still itself? 

2d Spect. No, not at all, as Truth appears to us ; 

For oftentimes 

That is a truth to me, that’s false to you ; 

So ’twould not be, if it was truly true. 

* * • 

How clouded Man 

Doubts first, and from one doubt doth soon proceed 
A thousand more, in solving of the first I 
lake ’nighted travellers we lose our way. 

Then every ignis fatuus makes us stray, 

By the false lights of reason led about, 
fill we arrive where we at first set out: 

Nor shall we e’er truth’s perfect highway see, 
fill dawns the day-break of eternity. 

Apprehension 

0 Apprehension !— 

So terrible the conseipience appears. 

It makes my brain turn round, and night seem darker. 
The moon begins to drown herself in clouds, 

Leaving a duskish horror everywhere. 

My sickly fancy makes the garden seem 

Like those benighted groves in Pluto’s kingdoms. 

Injured Husband. 

Wife (dying.") Oh, oh, I fain would live a little longer, 
I f but to ask forgiveness of Gerardo! 

My soul will scarce reach heav’n without his pardon. 

Gerardo (entering). Who’s that would go to heav’n, 
Take it, whate'er thou art; and may’st thou be 
Happy in death, whate’er thou didst design. » 

Gerardo ; his wife murdered. 

Ger■ It is in vain to look ’em,* if they hide; 

1'he garden’s large; besides, perhaps they’re gone. 
We’ll to the bodv. 

* The murderers. 


Servant. You are by tt now, my Lord. 

Ger. This accident amazes me so much, 

I go I know not where. 

Doubt. 

Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy, 

Two passions which to reason give the lye ; 

For fear torments, and never doth assist; 

And jealousy is love lost in a mist. 

Both hood-wink truth, and go to blind-man’s-butf. 
Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough. 

But all the while shift place; making the mind. 
As it goes out of breath, despair to find; 

And, if at last something it stumbles on, 

Perhaps it calls it false, and then ’tis gone. 

If true, what’s gain’d t only just time to see 
A breachless* play, a game at liberty ; 

That has no other end than this, that men 
Run to be tired, just to set down again. 

Owl. 

—- hark how the owl 

Summons their souls to take a flight with her. 
Where they shall be eternally benighted.— 


[From the “ Traitor,” a Tragedy, by J 
Shirley: by some said to have beer, 
written by one Rivers, a Jesuit: 1635.J 

Sciarrah, whose life is forfeited , has offer 
of pardon, conditionally, that he bring his 
sister Anxidea to consent to the Prince's 
unlawful suit. He jestingly tries her affec * 
tion. 

Sci. — if thou could’st redeem me 
With anything but death, I think I shou*» 

Consent to live. 

Amid. Nothing can be too precious 
To save a brother, such a loving brothel 
As you have been. 

Sci. Death’s a devouring gamester, 

And sweeps up all;—what think’st thou of an ey<• ? 
Could’st thou spare one, and think the blemish recoin 
penced 

To see me safe with the other ? or a hand— 

This white hand, that has so often 
With admiration trembled on the lute, 

Till we have pray’d thee leave the strings awhile. 
And laid our ears close to thy ivory fingers. 
Suspecting all the harmony proceeded 
From their own motions without the need 
Of any dull or passive instrument.— 

No, Amidea ; thou shalt not bear one scar, 

To buy my life; the sickle shall not touch 
A flower, that grows so fair upon his stalk* 

I would live, and owe my life to thee. 

So ’twere not bought too dear. 

Amid. Do you believe, I should not find 
The way to heav’n, were both mine eye3 tby vans 

• Breathless ? 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


shall climb up those high and rugged cliffs 
Vithout a hand. * 


From the “ Huntingdon Dlvertisement,’ , 
an Interlude, “ for the general entertain¬ 
ment at the County Feast, held at Mer¬ 
chant Taylor’s Hall, June 20ih, 1678, by 
W M 

Humour of a retired Knight. 

Sir Jeoffry Doe-right. Master Generous 
Goodman. 

Gen. Sir Jeoffry, good morrow. 

SirJ. The same to you, Sir. 

Gen. Your early zeal cortdemns the rising sun 
Of too much sloth ; as if you did intend 
To catch the Muses napping. 

Sir J. Did you know 
The pleasures of an early contemplation, 

You’d never let Aurora blush to find 
You drowsy on your bed ; but rouse, and spend 
Some short ejaculations,—how the night 
Disbands her sparkling troops at the approach 
Of the ensuing day, when th’ grey-eyed sky 
Ushers the golden signals of the morn ; 

VVihilst the magnanimous cock with joy proclaims 
Vhe sun's illustrious cavalcade. Your thoughts 
You Id ruminate on all the works of Heaven, 

And th’ various dispensations of its power. 

Our predecessors better did improve 
The precious minutes of the morn than we 
Their lazy successors. Their practice taught 
And left us th' good Proverbial, that “ To rise 
Early makes all men healthy, wealthy, wise.” 

Gen. Your practice. Sir, merits our imitation ; 
Where the least particle of night and day’s 
Improv’d to th’ best advantage, whilst your soul 
(Unclogg’d from th’ dross of melancholic cares) 
Makes every place a paradise. 

Sir J. ’Tis true, 

I bless my lucky stars, whose kind aspects 
Have fix’d me in this solitude. My youth 
Past thro* the tropics of each fortune, I 
Was made her perfect tennis-ball; her smiles 
Now made me rich and honour’d ; then her frowns 
Dash’d all my joys, and blasted all my hopes : 

Till, wearied by such interchange of weather, 

In court and city, I at length confined 
All my ambition to the Golden Mean, 

The Equinoctial of my fate ; to amend 
The errors of my life by a good end. 

C. L 


• My transcript breaks off here. Perhaps what 
follows was of less value ; or perhaps 1 broke off, as I 
own I have sometimes done, to leave in my readers a 
relish, and an inclination to explore for themselves the 
genuine fountains of these old dramatic delicacies 


“ BURNING THE WITCH 

At Bridlington, &c. 

For the Table Book. 

A custom was very prevalent in this part 
or Yorkshire about fifty years ago, and 
earlier, which has since been gradually dis 
continuing, until it has become nearly ex¬ 
tinct—called “ burning the witch ” in the 
harvest-field. On the evening of the da) 
in which the last corn was cut belonging t< 
a farmer, the reapers had a merrimaking 
which consisted of an extra allowance c 
drink, and burning of peas in the straw 
The peas when cut from the ground art 
left to dry in small heaps, named pea-reap* 
Eight or ten of these reaps were collected 
into one, and set fire to in the field, whilst 
the labourers ran and danced about, ate thr 
“ brustled peas,” blacked each other’s face." 
with the burned straw, and played othei 
tricks; the lads generally aiming for tb< 
lasses, and the lasses for the lads. Such O' 
them as could add a little grease to tin 
grime seldom failed to do it. Even the 
good dame herself has sometimes joined it 
the general sport, and consequently fallen 
in for her share of the face-blacking. The 
evening’s entertainment consisted also o; 
the cream-pot, which was a supper of crean 
and cakes, provided and eaten in the house 
prior to the commencement of the sport in 
the field. Cream-pot cakes were madt 
rather thick, and sweet with currants and 
caraway-seeds. They were crossed on 
the top by small squares, owing to tlx 
dough being slightly cut transversely im¬ 
mediately before baking. The practice oi 
** burning the witch ” probably had 1 ts 
origin in those days of superstition, when 
the belief in witchery so generally and, in¬ 
deed, almost universally prevailed, and was- 
considered necessary under an idea of its- 
being available in preventing the over¬ 
throwing of the wains, the laming of the 
horses, and the injuring of the servants, 
and of securing general success in the re¬ 
moving, housing, or stacking of the product 
of the farm. 

T. C. 

Bridlington, July , 1 27. 

P.S. October , 1827.—One evening in tin 
harvest of this year I was at North Burton, 
near Bridlington, and three distinct fires 
were then seen in the fields. 

T C 








THE TABLE BOOK 


WITCHCRAFT 
For the Table Book. 

Recollections or Practices formerly 

USED TO AVERT AND AVOID THE POWER 

of Witchery. 

Having a small, smooth limestone, 
kicked up on the beach, with its edges 
rubbed down by friction and the continual 
action of the sea, and with a natural hole 
Jhrough it, tied to the key of a house, ware¬ 
house, barn, stable, or other building, 
prevented the influence of witches over 
whatever the house, &c. contained. 

Sailors nailed a horse-shoe on the fore¬ 
mast, and jockeys one on the stable-door, 
but to be effective the shoe ought neces¬ 
sarily to be found by accident. 

On meeting a suspected witch the thumb 
of each hand was turned inward, and the 
fingers firmly closed upon it; care was also 
taken to let her have the wall-side or best 
path. 

Caution was used that gloves, or any 
portion of apparel worn next to the skin, 
came not into the possession of a witch, as 
it was strongly believed she had an highly 
ascendant power over the rightful owner. 

A bit of witch-wood, or a hare’s foot, 
was carried in the pocket, under an im¬ 
pression that the possessor was free from 
any harm that otherwise might accrue from 
‘he old hag’s malignant practices. 

One thing of importance was not to go 
out of the house in a morning without 
taking a bite of bread, cake, or other eat¬ 
able to break the fast. 

A thick white curtain was hung inside 
the window, to prevent an “ evil eye ” 
being cast into the room. 

If a few drops of the old creature’s blood 
could be obtained, they were considered 
sufficiently efficacious in preventing her 
“ secret, black, and baneful workings.” 

Although the practices abovementioned 
are spoken of in the past tense, they are 
not, at the present time, altogether done 
away ; not a few, who are now living, are 
credulous enough to believe in their po¬ 
tency. The following may be mentioned 
as a fact, which occurred a short time ago 
in the neighbourhood where the writer of 
this article resides:—A person bought a 
pig, which after keeping for some time 
“ grew very badly,” and witchery was sus¬ 
pected to be the cause; to ascertain the 
certainty of the fact nine buds of the elder- 
*ee (here commonly called buttery) were 
.id in a straight line, and all pointing one¬ 


way ; a dish made of ash wood was in¬ 
verted and placed carefully over them, and 
left to the next morning. This was don? 
under an idea that if the pig was bewitchee 
the buds would be found in disorder, but it 
not, in the state in which they were origi# 
nally left. 

T. C. 

Bridlington , July 30, 1827. 


OLD HOUSES AND FURNITURE. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—A rare and valuable copy of “ Ho- 
linshed’s Chronicles of Englande, Scot- 
lande, and Irelande,” a black letter folio 
volume, with curious wood-cuts, “ im¬ 
printed at London’’ in 1577, has lately 
fallen in my way, and afforded me consi¬ 
derable amusement. One chapter especi¬ 
ally, in “The Seconde Booke of the De¬ 
scription of Britaine,” namely, “ Cap. 10 
O. 1 the Maner of Buylding, and furniture ot 
our Houses,” cannot fail, I think, to interest 
your readers. 

After a very entertaining account of the 
construction of our ancient cottages and 
country houses before glass came into gene¬ 
ral use, this historian of the age of queen 
Elizabeth proceeds as follows :— 

“ The auncient maners and houses of 
our gentlemen are yet for the most 
part of strong tymber. Howbcit such as 
be lately buylded are commonly either 
of bricke, or harde stone, their rowmes 
large and stately, and houses of office 
farder distaunt fro their lodginges. Those 
of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with 
bricke and harde stone, as provision may 
best be made; but so magnificent and 
stately, as the basest house of a barren doth 
often match with some honours of princes 
in olde tyme ; so that if ever curious buyld¬ 
ing did flourish in Englande it is in these 
our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel 
and are in maner comparable in skill with 
old Vitrunius and Seilo. The furniture of 
our houses also exceedeth, and is growne 
in maner even to passing delicacie; and 
herein I do not speake of the nobilitie and 
gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte 
that have any thing * to take to.’* Certts 
in noble men’s houses it is not rare to set 
abundance of arras, riche hangings of apes, 
try, silver vessell, and so much other plate 


* “ To tack to,” a very common expression amons 
the lower classes hereabouts. ~ 


706 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


as may furnish sudrie cupbordes, to the 
summe ofte times of a thousand or two 
thousande pounde at the least; wherby 
the value of this and the reast of their stufle 
doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise, 
j m the houses of knightes, gentleme, mar- 
jhauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it 
is not geson to beholde generallye their 
great provision of tapestrie,Turkye worke, 
pewter , brasse, fine linen, and. therto costly 
cupbords of plate woorth five or sixe hun¬ 
dred pounde, to be demed by estimation. 
But as herein all these sortes doe farre ex- 
ceede their elders and predecessours, so in 
tyme past the costly furniture stayed 
there, whereas now it is descended yet 
lower, even unto the inferiour artificers and 
most fermers, who have learned to garnish 
also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes 
with tapestrie and silke hanginges, and 
their table with fine naperie, whereby the 
wealth of our countrie doth infinitely ap- 
peare. Neither do I speake this in reproch 
of any man, God is my judge, but to shew 
that I doe rejoyce rather to see how God 
hath blessed us with hys good giftes, and 
to behold how that in a time, wherein all 
thinges are growen to most excessive prices, 
we doe yet finde the meanes to obtayne 
and atchieve such furniture as hath hereto¬ 
fore been impossible. 

“ There are aide men yet dwelling in the 
village where I rcmayne , which have noted 
three things to be marveylously altered in 
Englande within their sound rernem- 
braunce. One is, the multitude of chimnies 
lately erected, wheras, in their young dayes 
there were not above two or three, if so 
many, in most uplandish townes of the 
! “ealme, (the religious houses and mannour 
places of their lordes alwayes excepted, 
and peradventure some great personages,) 
but eache one made his fire against a rere- 
dosse in the hall, where he dined and 
dressed his meate. 

*« The second is the great amendment of 
lodginge ; for, sayde they, our fathers, and 
we ourselves, have lyen full oft upon straw 
pailettes, covered onely with a sheete under 
coverlettes, made of dagswain or hop- 
harlots, (I use their own termes,) and a 
good round logge under their heades in 
steade of a boulster. If it were so that our 
fathers, or the good man of the house, had 
a matteress or flockbed, and therto a sacke 
of chafe to rest hys head upon, he thought 
himself as well lodged as the lorde of the 
towne, so well were they contented. Pil- 
lowes, sayde they, were thoughte meete 
onely for women in childbed. As for ser¬ 
vant* if thev had any sheete above them 


it was well; for seldom had they any under 
their bodies to kecpe them from the prick¬ 
ing strawes that ran oft thorow the canvass, 
and raced their hardened hides.* 

“ The thirde thinge they tell of is the 
exchange of treene platters into pewter, and 
woode spoones into silver or tin. For so 
comon were al sortes of treene vesselles 
in old time, that a man should hardly find 
four peces of pewter, of which one was, 
peradventure, a suite in a good farmer’s 
house; and yet for al this frugalitie, (if it 
may so be justly called,) they were scarse 
able to lyve and paye their rentes at their 
dayes without selling of a cow or a horse, 
or more, although they payde but foure 
poundes at the uttermost by the yeare. 
Such also was their poverty, that if a fer- 
mour or husbandman had been at the ale¬ 
house, a thing greatly used in those dayes , 
or amongst sixe or seaven of hys neygh- 
bours, and there in a bravery to shewr 
what store he had did cast down his purse, 
and therein a noble, or sixe shillings in sil¬ 
ver, unto them, it was very likely that ah 
the rest could not lay downe so much 
against it: wheras, in my tyme, although 
peradventure foure pounde of olde rent be 
improved to fourty or fiftye pound, yet will 
the farmer think his gaines very small to¬ 
ward the middest of his terme, if he have 
not sixe or seaven yeres rent lying by him, 
therewith to purchase a newe lease, besides 
a faire garnish of pewter in his cowborde, 
three or foure feather beddes, so many 
coverlettes, and carpettes of tapestry, a 
silver salte, a bowle for wine, (if not an 
wholef neast,) and a dussen of spoones to 
furnishe up the sute. Thys also he taketh 
to be his owne cleare; for what stocke of 
money soever he gathereth in all his yeares, 
it is often seene that the landlorde will take 
such order with him for the same when he 
renueth his lease, which is commoly eight 
or ten yeares before it be expyred, sith it is 
nowe growen almost to a custome, that if 
he come not to his lorde so long before, 
another shall step in for a reversion, and so 
defeat him outright, that it shall never trou¬ 
ble him more, then the heare of his bearde 
when the barber hath washed and shaven 
it from his chinne.” 


• It may be useful to note, that as the body is often 
called hereabouts the “ carcass,” so the skin is the 
« hide.” 

t I presume a ** peg tankerd,” a “ wassail cup, ’ a 
“ porringer ” or two, and a dozen ** apostles’ spoons,’ 
would seem a pretty neast in these days. Ac to 
the silver salte “ thereby hangs a tale,” and a curious 
one too, as I have discovered since writing the above. 
See Drake’s “ Illustrations of Shakspeare, &c. ' vol. » 
p. 74. 


707 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


Submitting the above to the especial con¬ 
sideration of our “ beaux ” and “ belles,” 
loctors and patients, landlords and farmers, 
and informing these last, that in the two 
reigns preceding land was let for one shil¬ 
ling per acre, 

I remain, Mr. Editor, 

yours respectfully, 

Morley, near Leeds , N. S. 

October 15, 1827, 

— ■ . — ■ — — - ■■ 1 1 - ' ■ — 1 .... . n .. — m •• . « ■ ' . ■ ■ 

LONDINIANA. 

For the Table Booh. 

Mr. Editor,—Since most of your readers 
will readily admit the propriety of the 
adage, “ Time and quarter-day wait for no 
man,” allow me the favour of insertion for 
the following rhyming couplets, by John 
Heywood the elder, distinctively known as 
“ the epigrammatist.” They are an extract 
from his “ Workes, newlie imprinted, with 
sixhundrede very pleasant, pithie, and in¬ 
genious Epigrammes, 1598, 4to.;” and are 
thus entitled :— 

Seeking for a Dwelling-place. 

Still thou seekest for a quiet dwelling place— 

What place for quietnes hast thou now in chase : 
London bridge —that’s ill for thee, for the water. 

Qucene hyth —that’s more ill for an other matter. 
Smart's Ley —that’s most ill for feare of smarting 
smart. 

Carter lane —nay, nay, that sounded all on the cart. 
Pawl’s cheyne— nay, in no wise dwell not nere the 
chaine. 

JVood street —why wilt thon be wood yet once againe. 
Bread street —that’s too drie, by drought thou shalt be 
dead. 

Philpot lane— that breedetb moist humours in the 
head. 

Silver street —coppersmiths in Silver street; fie. 
Newgate street —’ware ‘.hat, man, Newgate is hard 
bie. 

Foster lane —thou wilt as soone be tide fast, as fast. 
Crooked lane —nay crooke no more be streight at last. 
Creed lane —they fall out there, brother against bro¬ 
ther. 

Ave mary lane —that’s as ill as the tother. 

Pater noster row —aye, Pater noster row— 
tgreed—that’s the quietest place that I know. 

Sign. B b 3. 

London-bridge had then houses upon it 
—a circumstance more fully treated of in 
the Chronicles of London-bridge, recently 
published—and half Foster-lane is becom¬ 
ing extinct by the erection of the new gene¬ 
ral-post-office. The other places still retain 
their old appellations. 

I am, 8cc. 

Will o’ th’ Wisp. 

Oct 12,1827, 


Cbom^omnnn. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—I shall be greatly obliged, and there 
can be no doubt your readers will be con¬ 
siderably interested, by your insertion of 
the subjoined article in your valuable Table 
Book. It was copied from the “ Weekly 
Entertainer,” published at Sherborne, in 
Dorsetshire, in the year 1800, 

I am, sir, 

Yours, very respectfully, 

G. H.I. 

Memoranda of Mr. Thomson, the poet, 
collected from Mr. William Taylor, for¬ 
merly a barber and peruke-maker, at 
Richmond, Surrey, now blind. Septem¬ 
ber , 1791. 

(Communicated by the Earl of Buchan.) 

Q. Mr. Taylor, do you remember any 
thing of Thomson, who lived in Ivew-lane 
some years ago ? 

A. Thomson?— 

Q Thomson, the poet. 

A. Ay, very well. I have taken him 
by the nose many hundred times. I shaved 
him, I believe, seven or eight years, oi 
more; he had a face as long as a horse ; 
and he sweated so much, that I remember, 
after walking one day in summer, I shaved 
his head without lather by his own desire. 
His hair was as soft as a camel’s; I hardly 
ever felt such; and yet it grew so remark¬ 
ably, that if it was but an inch long, it 
stood upright an end from his head like 
a brush. (Mr. Robertson* confirmed this ! 
remark.) 

Q. His person, I am told, was large and 
clumsy ? 

A. Yes; he was pretty corpulent, and j 
stooped forward rather when he walked, as 
though he was full of thought; he was very 
careless and negligent about his dress, and 
wore his clothes remarkably plain. (Mi 
Robertson, when I read this to him, said, 
“ He was clean, and yet slovenly; he 
stooped a good deal.”) 

Q. Did he always wear a wig ? 

A. Always, in my memory, and very 
extravagant he was with them. I have 
seen a dozen at a time hanging up in m\ 
master’s shop, and all of them so big that 
nobody else could wear them. I suppose 
his sweating to such a degree made him 
have so many; for I have known him spoil 
a new one only in walking from London. 

• It appears fhat this gentleman was very intim&t* 
with the author of the“ Seasons,” but we know nothing 
farther respecting him. 


708 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Q. lie was a great walker, I believe? 

A. Yes, he used to walk from Malloch’s, 
at Strand on the Green, near Kew Bridge, 
and from London, at all hours in the night; 
he seldom liked to go in a carriage, and I 
never saw him on horseback ; I believe he 
was too fearful to ride. (Mr. Robertson 
said he could not bear to get upon a horse.) 

Q. Had he a Scotch accent ? 

A. Very broad; he always called me 
VVull. 

Q. Did you know any of his relations? 
j A. Yes ; he had two nephews, (cousins,) 
Andrew and Gilbert Thomson, both gar¬ 
deners, who were much with him. Andrew 
used to work in his garden, and keep it in 
order, at over hours; he died at Richmond, 
about eleven years ago, of a cancer in his 
face. Gilbert, his brother, lived at East 
Sheen, with one esquire Taylor, till he fell 
out of a mulberry-tree and was killed. 

Q. Did Thomson keep much company ? 

A. Yes; a good deal of the writing sort, 
l remember Pope, and Paterson, and Mal- 
loch, and Lyttleton, and Dr. Armstrong, 
and Andrew Millar, the bookseller, who 
had a house near Thomson’s, in Kew-lane. 
Mr. Robertson could tell you more about 
them. 

Q. Did Pope often visit him ? 

A. Very often; he used to wear a light- 
coloured great coat, and commonly kept it 
on in the house ; he was a strange, ill- 
formed, little figure of a man ; but I have 
heard him and Quin, and Paterson, talk 
together so at Thomson’s, that I could have 
listened to them for ever. 

Q. Quin was frequently there, I suppose ? 

A. Yes ; Mrs. Hobart, his housekeeper, 
often wished Quin dead, he made her mas¬ 
ter drink so. I have seen him and Quin 
coming from the Castle together at four 
o’clock in a morning, and not over sober 
you may be sure. When he was writing 
in his own house, he frequently sat with a 
bowl of punch before him, and that a good 
large one too. 

Q. Did he sit much in his garden? 

A. Yes, he had an arbour at the end of 
it, where he used to write in summertime. 
1 have known him lie along by himself upon 
the grass near it, and talk away as though 
three or four people were along with him. 
(This might probably be when he was re¬ 
citing his own compositions.) 

Q. Did you ever see any of his writing ? 

A. I was once terapted, I remember, to 
take a peep; his papers used to lie in a 
loose pile upon the table in his study, and 
I had longed for a look at them a good 
while : so one morning while I was waiting 

I _ 


in the room to shave him, and he was 
longer than usual before he came down, I 
slipped off the top sheet of paper, and ex¬ 
pected to find something very curious, but 
I could make nothing of it. I could not 
even read it, for the letters looked like all 
in one. 

Q. He was very affable in his manner ? 

A. O yes ! he had no pride ; he was very 
free in his conversation and very cheerful, 
and one of the best natured men that ever 
lived. 

Q. He was seldom much burthened wdh 
cash ? 

A. No; to be sure he wa3 deuced long- 
winded ; but when he had money, he would 
send for his creditors, and pay them all 
round ; he has paid my master between 
twenty and thirty pounds at a time. 

Q. You did not keep a shop yourself 
then at that time? 

A. No, sir; I lived with one Lar.der 
here for twenty years; and it was while I 
was apprentice and journeyman with him 
that I used to wait on Mr. Thomson. 
Lander made his majors and bobs, and a 
person of the name of Taylor, in Craven- 
street, in the Strand, made his tie-wigs. 
An excellent customer he was to both. 

Q Did you dress any of his visitors? 

A. Yes ; Quin and Lyttleton, sir George, 
I think he was called, lie was so tender¬ 
faced I remember, and so devilish difficult 
to shave, that none of the men in the shop 
dared to venture on him except myself. I 
have often taken Quin by the nose too, 
which required some courage, let me tell 
you. One day he asked particularly if the 
razor was in good order; and protested he 
had as many barbers’ ears in his parlour at 
home, as any boy had of birds’ eggs on a 
string ; and swore, if I did not shave him , 
smoothly, he would add mine to the num-j 
ber. “ Ah,” said Thomson, “ Wull shaves 
very well, I assure you.” 

Q . You have seen the “ Seasons,” I sup¬ 
pose? 

A. Yes, sir; and once had a great deal 
of them by heart (He here quoted a pas¬ 
sage from “ Spring. ”) Shepherd, who 
formerly kept the Castle inn, showed me a 
book of Thomson’s writing, which wa' 
about the rebellion in 1745, and set tc 
music, but I think he told me not pub¬ 
lished. (I mentioned this to Mr. Robert 
son, but he thought Taylor had made 
small mistake; perhaps it might be some 
of the patriotic songs in the masque of ( 
Alfred.) 

Q. The cause of his death is said to 
have been by taking a boat from Kew to 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Richmond, when he was mucn heated by 
walking ? 

A. No; I believe he got the better of 
that; but having had a batch of drinking 
with Quin, he took a quantity of cream of 
tartar, as he frequently did on such occa¬ 
sions, which, with a fever before, carried 
him off. (Mr. Robertson did not assent to 
this.) 

Q. He lived, I think, in Kew Foot-lane ? 

A. Yes, and died there; at the furthest 
house next Richmond Gardens, now Mr. 
Boscawen's. He lived sometime before at 
a smaller one higher up, inhabited by Mrs. 
Davis. 

Q. Did you attend on him to the last? 

A. Sir, I shaved him the very day before 
his death; he was very weak, but made a 
shift to sit up in bed. I asked him how he 
found himself that morning. “ Ah, Wull,” 
he replied, “ I am very bad indeed.” (Mr. 
Robertson told me, he ordered this opera¬ 
tion himself as a refreshment to his friend.) 

Taylor concluded by giving a hearty 
encomium on his character. 

This conversation took place at one of 
'.he alcoves on Richmond-green, where 1 
accidentally dropped in. I afterwards found 
it was a rural rendezvous for a set of old 
invalids on nature’s infirm list; who met 
there every afternoon, in fine weather, to re¬ 
count and comment on the “ tale of other 
times.” 

I inquired after Lander, and Mrs. Ho¬ 
bart, and Taylor, of Craven-street, but found 
that none of them were surviving. Mrs. 
Hobart was thought to have a daughter 
married in the town, called Egerton ; but 
it was not likely, from the distance of time, 
that she could impart any thing new. 

Taylor told me, the late Dr. Dodd had 
applied to him several years ago for anec¬ 
dotes and information relative to Thomson. 

Park Egerton, the bookseller, near 
Whitehall, tells me, that when Thomson 
first came to London, he took up his abode 
with his predecessor, Millan, and finished 
his poem of ‘‘Winter” in the apartment 
over the shop; that Millan printed it for 
him, and it remained on his shelves a long 
time unnoticed ; but after Thomson began 
to gain some reputation as a poet, he 
either went himself, or was taken by Mal¬ 
let, to Millar in the Strand, with whom 
he entered into new engagements for print¬ 
ing his works; which so much incensed 
Millan, his first patron, and his country¬ 
man also, that they never afterwards were 
cordially reconciled, although lord Lyttle- 
on took uncommon pains to mediate be- 
tweeu them. 


AN OLD SONG RESTORED 
“ Busy, curious, thirsty Fly.” 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—In Ritsc '’s “ Collection of Old 
Songs ” are but t\ i verses of this, in my 
estimation, very beautiful song. Going from 
this place, Liverpool, to Chester, it was 
my good fortune to hear a blind fiddler on 
board the packet both play and sing the 
whole of the following, which I procured 
from him at his domicile about two years 
ago. He was lost in the same boat with 
the captain and others, during a gale of 
wind off Elesmere port. If you think them 
worthy a place in your amusing Table Book, 
be pleased to accept from 

Sir, 

Your most obedient servant, 

J. F. Phcenix. 

Bold-street , Liverpool 
Oct. 15, 1827. 

Busy, curious, thirsty fly 
Drink with me and drink as I; 

Freely welcome to my eup, 

Couldst thou sip and sup it up. 

Make the most of life you may. 

Life is short and weirs away. 

Life is short. Sec. 

Both alike are thine and mine. 

Hastening quick to their decline ; 

Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more. 

Though repeated to threescore ; 

Threescore summers, when they’re gone. 

Then will appear as short as one. 

Then will appear, &«. 

Time seems little to look back. 

And moves on like clock or jack ; 

As the moments of the fly 
Fortune swiftly passes by. 

And, when life's short thread is spui 
The laruin strikes, and we are gone. 

The larum, Sic. 

What is life men so prefer ? 

It is but sorrow, toil, and care : 

He that is endow’d with wealth 
Oftentimes may want his health 
And a man of healthful state 
Poverty may be his fate. 

Poverty may. See. 

Some are so inclined to pride. 

That the poor they can’t abide, 

Tho’ themselves are not secure, 

He that’s rich may soon be poor 
Fortune is at no man’s call. 

Some shall rise whilst others talk 
Some shall. Sic. 


710 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


- 


Some ambitions men do soar 
For to get themselves in power. 

And those mirk and airy fools 
Strive to advance their master’s rule; 
But a sudden turn of fate 
Shall humble him who once was great. 

Shall humble, &c. 

He that will live happy must 
Be to his king and countr) just; 

Be content, and that is more 
Than all the miser’s golden store ; 
And whenever life shall cease. 

He may lay him down in peace. 

He may lay, &c. 


HERMITS. 

Mr. J. Pettit Andrews has two anecdotes 
concerning hermits, which exemplify the 
strength of the “ mling” passion, when the 
individual is “ dead to the worldviz. 

St. Romuald. 

Born at Ravenna, of noble parentage; 
he embraced, towards the middle of the 
tenth century, the state of a hermit, under 
the direction of a solitary, whose severity 
at least equalled his piety. Romuald bore 
for a long time, without a murmur, the 
repeated thumps which lie received from 
his holy teacher; but observing that they 
were continually directed to his left side, 
“ Honour my right ear, my dear master,’ 
said he, meekly, “ with some i f your atten¬ 
tion, for I have nearly lost th use of my 
left ear, through your partia ty to that 
side." Romuald, when he became master 
of his own conduct, showed that he could 
on occasion copy the rigour of his precep¬ 
tor; for, hearing that his own father, who 
had embraced a monastic life, entertained 
thoughts of re-entering the world again, he 
hurried to the monastery, and, by the rhe¬ 
toric of a very hearty drubbing, brought his 
unsteady parent over to a more settled way 
of thinking. 

Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. 

This prince, in the fifteenth century, took 
upon him to become a hermit; with how 
much abstinence and moderation he de- 
1 meaned himself, may be judged from this 
! circumstance, that the Irench make use of 
the expression “ faire ripuilles } when they 
would speak of giving way to every indul¬ 
gence and enjoyment; and they take the 
term from “ llipailles,” the name of this 
pious recluse’s hermitage. 

Besides his attachment to every possible 
luxury, this holy anchoret had a peculiar 


pride in his beard, which was singularly 
fine and picturesque. Political motives 
made the cardinals seek him in his retreat, 
to confer on him the dignity of pope; but 
no persuasions nor representations would 
make lum consent to part with that fa¬ 
vourite beard, until the ridicule which its 
preposterous appearance under the tiara 
occasioned, brought him to agree to its 
removal. Even the pomp of the papal 
chair could not long detain him from Ri- 
pailles. He soon quitted the triple crown, 
that he might repossess his beloved retreat. 

A HERMIT’S MEDITATION. 

In lonesome cave 
Of noise and interruption void. 

His thoughtful solitude 
A hermit thus enjoy’d: 

His choicest book 
The remnant of a human head 

The volume was, whence he 
This solemn lecture read:— 

“ Whoe’er thou wert. 

Partner of my retirement now. 

My nearest intimate. 

My best companion thou 1 

On thee to muse 
The busy living world I left; 

Of converse all but thine. 

And silent that, beieft. 

Wert thou the rich. 

The idol of a gazing crowd ? 

Wert thou the great. 

To whom obsequious thousands bow’d ? 

Was learning’s store 
E’er treasur’d up within this shell ? 

Did wisdom e’er within 
This empty hollow dwell ? 

Did youthful charms 
E’er redden on this ghastful face ? 

Did beauty’s bloom these cheeks. 

This forehead ever grace ? 

If on this brow 

E’er sat the scornful, haughty frown. 

Deceitful pride 1 where now 
Is that disdain ?-’tis gone. 

If cheerful mirth 
A gayness o’er this baldness cast. 

Delusive, fleeting joy I 
Where is it now ?-'tis past. 

To deck this scalp 
If tedious long-liv’d hours it cost. 

Vain, fruitless toil 1 where s non 
That labour seen ?-’tis lost. 


( 1 1 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


But painful sweat, 

The dear-earn’d price of daily bread. 
Was all, perhaps, that thee 
With hungry sorrows fed. 

Perhaps but tears. 

Surest relief of heart-sick woe. 

Thine only drink, from down 
These sockets us’d to flow. 

Oppress’d perhaps 
With aches and with aged cares, 

Down to the grave thou brought’st 
A few, and hoary, hairs: 

’Tis all perhaps ! 

No 1 marks, no token can I trace 
What, on this stage of life 
Thy rank or station was. 

Nameless, unknown 1 
Of all distinction stript and bare. 

In nakedness conceal’d. 

Oh ! who shall thee declare ? 

Nameless, unknown 1 
Yet fit companion thou for me. 

Who hear no human voice 
No' human visage see. 

From me, from thee. 

The glories of the world are gore ; 

Nor yet have either lost 
What we could call our own. 

What we are now. 

The great, the wise, the fair, the brave. 
Shall all hereafter be. 

All Hermits—in the grave.” 


CURIOUS ANECDOTES OF 
BIRMINGHAM MANUFACTURERS 
AND MANUFACTURES. 

Birmingham, says the late Mr. William 
Hutton, (the historian of this large and 
populous town,) Birmingham began with 
the productions of the anvil, and probably 
will end with them. The sons of the ham¬ 
mer were once her chief inhabitants; but 
that great crowd of artists is now lost in a 
greater. Genius seems to increase with 
multitude. Part of the riches, extension, 
and improvement of Birmingham, are 
'owing to the late John Taylor, Esq. who 
j possessed the singular power of perceiving 
things as they really were. The spring and 
consequence of action were open to his 
view. He rose from minute beginnings to 
shine in the commercial, as Shakspeare did 
m the poetical, and Newton in the philoso’- 
phic^t hemisphere. 


To this uncommon genius we owe in* 
gilt button, the japanned and gilt snuff¬ 
boxes, with the numerous race of enamels 
From the same fountain issued the painted 
snuff-box, at which one servant earned three 
pounds ten shillings per week, by painting 
them at a farthing each. In his shops were 
weekly manufactured,buttons to the amount 
of 800/., exclusive of other valuable produc¬ 
tions. One of the present nobility, of dis¬ 
tinguished taste, examining the works wit! 
the master, purchased some of the articles, 
among others, a toy of eighty guineas value, 
and while paying for them, observed with 
a smile, “ he plainly saw he could not re¬ 
side in Birmingham for less than two hun¬ 
dred pounds a day.” Mr. Taylor died in 
1775, at the age of sixty-four, after acquir¬ 
ing a fortune of 200,000/. 

The active powers of genius, the instiga¬ 
tion of profit, and the affinity of one calling 
to another, often induce the artist to change 
his occupation. There is nothing more 
common among us; even the divine and 
the lawyer are prone to this change. Thus 
the church throws her dead weight into the 
scale of commerce, and the law gives up 
the cause of contention: but there is no¬ 
thing more disgraceful, except thieving, in 
other places. “ I am told,” says an elderly 
gentleman, as he amused himself in a pitiful 
bookseller’s shop in a wretched market 
town, “that you area stocking-maker by 
trade !” The humble bookseller, half con¬ 
fused, and wholly ashamed, could not deny 
the charge. “ Ah,” cried the senior, whose 
features were modelled between the sneer ; 
and the smile, “ there is neither honour nor ! 
profit in changing the trade you were bred 
to. Do not attempt to sell books, but stay 
at home, and pursue your own business.” 
The dejected bookseller, scarcely one step 
higher than a “ walking stationer,” lived to 
acquire a large fortune. Had he followed 
the senior’s advice, he might, like a com¬ 
mon foot soldier, have starved upon eight- 
pence a day. This humble and dejected 
bookseller was Mr. Hutton himself. He 
says, toy trades first made their appearance 
in Birmingham in the beginning of Charles 
the Second’s reign, in an endless variety, 
attended with all their beauties and their 
graces. When he wrote, he ranked, as 
first in preeminence, the 

Button. 

This beautiful ornament, says Mr. Hut¬ 
ton, appears with infinite variation; and 
though the original date is rather uncertain, 
yet we well remember the long coats of our 
grandfathers covered with half a gross of 


712 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


high tops, and the cloaks of our grand¬ 
mothers ornamented with a horn button 
nearly the size of a crown piece, a watch, 
ir a John-apple, curiously wrought, as 
having passed through the Birmingham 
oress. 

Though, continues Mr. Hutton, the com¬ 
mon round button keeps on with the steady 
pace of the day, yet we sometimes see the 
oval, the square, the pea, the concave, and 
the pyramid, flash into existence. In some 
branches of traffic the wearer calls loudly 
for new fashions; but in this, the fashions 
tread upon each other, and crowd upon the 
wearer. The consumption of this article 
is astonishing: the value in 1781 was from 
three-pence a gross to one hundred and 
forty guineas. 

In 1818, the art of gilding buttons was 
arrived at such a degree of refinement in 
Birmingham, that three pennyworth of gold 
was made to cover a gross of buttons : these 
were sold at a price proportionably low. 
The experiment has been tried to produce 
gilt buttons without any gold ; but it was 
found not to answer, the manufacturer los¬ 
ing more in the consumption than he saved 
in the material. There seems, says Mr. 
llutton, to be hidden treasures couched 
within this magic circle, known only to a 
few, who extract prodigious fortunes out of 
this useful toy, whilst a far greater number 
submit to a statute of bankruptcy. Trade, 
like a restive horse, can rarely be managed ; 
for, where one is carried to the end of a 
successful journey, many are thrown oft' by 
the way. 

The next to which Mr. Hutton calls our 
attention, is the 

Buckle. 

Perhaps the shoe, in one form or other, 
Is nearly as ancient as the foot. It origin¬ 
ally appeared under the name of sandal; 
this was no other than a sole without an 
upper-leather. That fashion has since been 
inverted, and we have sometimes seen an 
upper-leather nearly without a sole. But 
whatever was the cut of the shoe, it always 
demanded a fastening. Under the house 
of Plantagenet, the shoe shot horizontally 
from the foot, like a Dutch skate, to an 
enormous length ; so that the extremity 
was fastened to the knee, sometimes with a 
silver chain, a silk lace, or even a pack¬ 
thread string, rather than avoid genteel 
taste. 

This thriving beak drew the attention oi 
the legislature, which determined to prune 
the exorbitant shoot; for, in 1465, we find 


an order of council, prohibiting the growth 
of the shoe toe beyond two inches, under 
the penalty of a dreadful curse from the 
priest-—and, what was worse, the payment 
of twenty shdlings to the king. 

This fashion, like every other, gave way 
to time; and, in its stead, the rose began 
to bud upon the foot, which, under the 
house of Tudor, opened in great perfection, j 
No shoe was fashionable without being 
fastened with a full blown rose. Ribbons 
of every colour, except white, the emblem I 
of the depressed house of York, were had 
in esteem ; but the red, like the house of 
Lancaster, held the preeminence Under 
the house of Stuart the rose withered, which 
gave rise to the shoestring. The beaux of 
that age ornamented their lower tier with 
double laces of silk, tagged with silver, and 
the extremities were beautified with a small 
fringe of the same metal. The inferior class 
wore laces of plain silk, linen, or even a 
thong of leather; which last is yet to be 
met with in the humble plains of rural life. 

The revolution was remarkable for the 
introduction of William, of liberty, and the 
minute buckle, not differing much in size 
and shape from the horse bean. 

This offspring of fancy, like the clouds, 
is ever changing. The fashion of to-day is 
thrown into the casting-pot to-morrow. 

The buckle seems to have undergone 
every figure, size, and shape of geometrical 
invention. It has passed through every 
form in Euclid. The large square buckle, 
plated with silver, was the ton of 17 81. 
The ladies also adopted the reigning taste; 
it was difficult to discover their beautiful 
little feet, covered with an enormous shield ! 
of buckle; and we wondered to see the 
active motion under the massive load. 

In 1812, the whole generation of fashions, 
in the buckle line, was extinct; a buckle 
was not to be found on a female foot, nor 
upon any foot except that of old age. 

Guns. 

King William was once lamenting, “that 
guns weie not manufactured in his domi-| 
nions, but that he was obliged to procure 
them from Holland, at a great expense, and 
with greater difficulty.” Sir Richard New- 
digate, one of the members for the county 
being present, told the king, “ that genius 
resided in Warwickshire, and thatj he 
thought his constituents would answer his 
majesty’s wishes.” The king was pleased 
with the remark, and the member posted 
to Birmingham. Upon application to a 
person in Digbeth, the pattern was exe- 


713 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


Cutea with precision, and, when presented 
■ lo the royal board, gave entire satisfaction. 
Orders were immediately issued for large 
.lumbers, which have been so frequently 
repeated, that they never lost their road ; 
and the ingenious artists were so amply 
rewarded, that they have rolled in their 
| carriages to this day. 

It seems that the word “ London” mark¬ 
ed upon guns is a better passport than the 
word “ Birminghamand the Birming¬ 
ham gun-makers had long been in the 
habit of marking their goods as being made 
in London. 

In 1813 some of the principal gun-makers 
of London brought a bill into the House of 
Commons to oblige every manufacturer of 
firearms to mark them with his real name 
and place of abode. The Birnnngham 
gun-makers took the alarm ; petitioned the 
house against the bill, and thirty-two gun- 
makers instantly subscribed six hundred 
and fifty pounds to defray the expense of 
opposing it. They represented that they 
made the component parts of the London 
guns, which differed from theirs only in 
being put together, and marked in the me¬ 
tropolis. 

Government authorized the gun-makers 
of Birmingham to erect a proof-house of 
their own, with wardens and a proof mas¬ 
ter ; and allowed them to decorate their 
guns with the ensigns of royalty. All fire¬ 
arms manufactured in Birmingham and its 
vicinity are subjected to the proof required 
by the Board of Ordnance : the expense is 
not to exceed one shilling each piece; and 
the neglect of proving is attended with a 
penalty not exceeding twenty pounds. 

Leather. 

Though there is little appearance of that 
necessary article in Birmingham, yet it was 
once a famous market for leather. Digbelh 
not only abounded with tanners, but large 
numbers of hides arrived weekly for sale, 
and here the whole country found a supply. 
When the weather would allow, they were 
ranged in columns in the High-street, and 
at other times deposited in the leather-hall, 
at the east end of New-street, appropriated 
for their reception. This market was of 
great antiquity, perhaps not less than seven 
hundred years, and continued till the be¬ 
ginning of the eighteenth century. Two 
officers are still annually chosen, who are 
named leather sealers, from a power given 
them by ancient charter to mark the vendible 
hides; but now the leather sealers have no 
duty, but that of taking an elegant dinner. 


Shops are erected on tan-vats, the leather - 
liall is gone to destruction, and in 1781 
there was only one solitary tanner in Bir¬ 
mingham. 

Steel. 

The manufacture of iron, in Birming¬ 
ham, is ancient beyond research; that of 
steel is of modern date. 

Pride is inseparable from the human 
character; the man without it, is the man' 
without breath. We trace it in various 
forms, through every degree of people; but 
like those objects about us, it is best dis¬ 
covered in our own sphere ; those above 
and those below us rather escape our no¬ 
tice ; envy attacks an equal. Pride induced 
the pope to look with contempt on the 
European princes, and it now induces them 
to return the compliment; it taught inso¬ 
lence to the Spaniard, selfishness to the 
Dutch ; it teaches the rival nations of France 
and England to contend for power. Pride 
induced a late high bailiff of Birmingham, 
at the proclamation of the Michaelmas fair, 
to hold his wand two feet higher than the 
usual rest, that he might dazzle the crowd 
with a beautiful glove hanging pendant, a 
ruffle curiously wrought, a ring set with 
brilliants, and a hand delicately white. 
Pride preserves a man from mean actions; 
it throws him upon meaner. It whets the 
sword for destruction; it urges the laudable 
acts of humanity. It is the universal hinge , 
on which we move; it glides with the gen¬ 
tle stream of usefulness; it overflows the 
mounds of reason, and swells into a de- 
structive flood. Like the sun, in his milder 
rays, it animates and draws us towards per¬ 
fection; but like him, in his fiercer beams, 
it scorches and destroys. 

Money is not the necessary attendant of 
pride, for it abounds nowhere more than ! 
in the lowest ranks. It adds a sprucer air 
to a Sunday dress, casts a look of disdain ' 
upon a bundle of rags ; it boasts the honour 
of a family, while poverty unites a sole and 
upper leather with a bandage of shop- 
thread. There are people who even pride 
themselves upon humility. 

This dangerous good, this necessary evil, 
supports the female character; without it, 
the brightest part of the creation would 
degenerate. It will be asked, “ What por¬ 
tion may be allowed ?” Prudence will an¬ 
swer, “ As much as you please, but not to 
disgust.” It is equally found in the senate- 
house and the button-shop. The scene oi 
action is the scene of pride. He who makes 
steel prides himself in carrying the art one 
step higher than he who makes iron. 


714 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


This art appeared at Birmingham in the 
seventeenth century, and was introduced 
by the family of Kettle. The name of 
Steelhouse-lane will convey to posterity the 
situation of the works; the commercial 
spirit of Birmingham will convey the pro¬ 
duce to the antipodes. 

From the warm but dismal climate of 
this town issues the button which shines on 
the breast, and the bayonet intended to 
pierce it; the lancet which bleeds the man, 
and the rowel the horse; the lock which 
preserves the beloved bottle, and the screw 
to uncork it; the needle, equally obedient 
to the thimble and the pole. 

Brass Works. 

The manufacture of brass was introduced 
into Birmingham by the family of Turner 
about 1740. They erected ose works at 
the south end of Coleshill-street; then near 
two hundred yards beyond the buildings, 

I but now the buildings extend half a mile 
beyond them. 

Under the black clouds which arose from 
! this corpulent tunnel, some of the trades 
collected their daily supply of brass, but 
the major part was drawn from the Mac¬ 
clesfield, Cheadle, and Bristol companies. 

“Causes are known by their effects;’' 
the fine feelings of the heart are easily read 
in the features of the face; the still opera¬ 
tions of the mind are discovered by the 
rougher operations of the hand. Every 
creature is fond of power, from that noble 
head of the creation man, who devours 
man, down to that insignificant mite who 
devours his cheese : every man strives to 
be free himself, and to shackle another. 
Where there is power of any kind, whether 
in the hands of a prince, a people, a body 
of men, or a private person, there is a pro¬ 
pensity to abuse it: abuse of power will 
everlastingly seek itself a remedy, and fre¬ 
quently find it, nay, even this remedy may 
| in time degenerate into abuse, and call 
loudly for another. 

Brass is an object of some magnitude in 
the trades of Birmingham, the consumption 
is said to be a thousand tons per annum. 
The manufacture of this useful article had 
long been in the hands of few and opulent 
men, who, instead of making the humble 
bow for favours received, acted with despo¬ 
tic sovereignty, established their own laws, 
chcse their customers, directed the price, 
and governed the market. In 1780 the 
article rose, either through caprice or ne¬ 
cessity, perhaps the former, from seventy- 
two pounds a ton to eighty-four pounds. 


The result was, an advance upon the goods 
manufactured, followed by a number ot 
counter-orders, and a stagnation of busi¬ 
ness. 

In 1781, a person, from affection to the 
user or resentment to the maker, perhaps 
the laiter, harangued the public in the 
weekly papers, censured the arbitrary mea¬ 
sures of the brazen sovereigns, showed 
their dangerous influence over the trades of 
the town, and the easy manner in which 
works of our own might be constructed.! 
Good often arises out of evil; this fiery 
match quickly kindled another furnace in 
Birmingham. Public meetings were ad¬ 
vertised, a committee appointed, and sub¬ 
scriptions opened to fill two hundred shares, 
of one hundred pounds each, which was 
deemed a sufficient capital; each proprietor j 
of a share to purchase one ton of brass 
annually. Works were immediately erected 
upon the banks of the canal, for the ad¬ 
vantage of water carriage, and the whole 
was conducted with the true spirit of Bir¬ 
mingham freedom. 

The old companies, which we may justly 
consider the directors of a South Sea bubble 
in miniature, sunk the price from eighty- 
four pounds to fifty-six pounds. Two in¬ 
ferences arise from this measure ; that their 
profits were once very high, or were no\> 
very low r ; and, that like some former mo- 
narchs in the abuse of power, they repented 
one day too late. 

Nails, 

The art of nail-making is one of the 
most ancient in Birmingham. It is not, 
however, so much a trade in, as of Bir¬ 
mingham, for there are but few nail-makers 
left in the town; the nailors are chiefly 
masters, and rather opulent The manu¬ 
facturers are so scattered round the country, 
that we cannot travel far in any direction 
out of the sound of the nail-hammer. 
Birmingham, like a powerful magnet, draws 
the produce of the anvil to herself. 

When I first approached Birmingham, 
says Mr. Hutton, from Walsall in 1741, I 
was surprised at the prodigious number of 
blacksmiths’ shops upon the road; and 
could not conceive how a country, though 
populous, could support so many people of 
the same occupation. In some of these 
shops I observed one or more females stript 
of their upper garment, and not overcharged 
with their lower, wielding the hammer with 
all the grace of the sex. The beauties of 
their face were rather eclipsed by the smut 
of the anvil. Struck with th* novels l 


715 































THE TABLE BOOK. 


inquired “ Whether the ladies in this coun¬ 
try shod horses V f but was answered, with 
a smile, “ They are nailers.” 

A fire without heat, a nailer of a fair 
complexion, or one who despises the tank¬ 
ard, are equally rare among them. His 
whole system of faith may be comprised in 
one article—That the slender mug, used in 
a public-house, “ is deceitful above all 
things, and desperately wicked.” 

| While the master reaps harvest of plenty, 
the workman submits to the scanty glean¬ 
ings of penury, a thin habit, an early old 
age, and a figure bending towards the earth. 
Plenty comes not near his dwelling, except 
of rags and of children. His hammer is 
worn into deep hollows, fitting the fingers 
of a dark hand, hard as the timber it wears. 
His face, like the moon, is often seen 
through a cloud. 

Bellows. 

Man first catches the profession; the 
profession afterwards moulds the man. In 
whatever profession we engage we assume 
’ts character, become apart of it, vindicate 
its honour, its eminence, its antiquity, or 
feel a wound through its sides. Though 
there maj be no more pride in a minister 
of state who opens a budget, than in a 
tinker who carries one, yet they equally 
contend for the honour of their trade. 

The bellows-maker proclaims the honour 
of his art by observing, he alone produces 
that instrument which commands the 
winds; his soft breeze, like that of the 
south, counteracts the chill blasts of winter; 
by his efforts, like those of the sun, the 
world receives light; he creates when he 
pleases, and gives breath when he creates, 
[n his caverns the winds sleep at pleasure, 
and by his “ orders ” they set Europe in 
dames. He farther pretends, that the an¬ 
tiquity of his occupation will appear from 
the plenty of elm, once in the neighbour¬ 
hood, but long cut up for his use ; that the 
leather-market in Birmingham, for many 
ages,furnished him with sides; and though 
the manufacture of iron is allowed to be 
extremely ancient, yet the smith could not 
procure his heat without a blast, nor could 
that blast be raised without the bellows. 
One inference will arise from these remarks, 
that bellows-making is one of the oldest 
trades in Birmingham. 

Thread. 

We who reside in the interior parts of 
,the kingdom may observe the first traces of 


a river when it issues from its fountain, 
current so extremely small, that if a bottl< 
of liquor, distilled through the urinary ves 
sels, were discharged into its course, i» ( 
would manifestly augment the water ana' 
quicken the stream: the reviving bottle, 
having added spirits to the man, would. 
seem to add spirits to the river. If we 
pursue this river, winding through one hun¬ 
dred and thirty miles, we shall observe it 
collect strength as it runs, expand its bor¬ 
ders, swell into consequence, employ mul¬ 
titudes of people, carry wealth in its bosom, 
and exactly resemble thread-making in 
Birmingham. If we represent to our ideas 
a man able to employ three or four people, 
himself in an apron one of the numbe., 
but who being unable to write his name, 
shows his attachment to the Christian re¬ 
ligion by signing the cross to receipts; 
whose method of book-keeping, like that 
of the publican, is a door and a lump oj 
chalk ; producing a book which none can 
peruse but himself; who having manufac¬ 
tured forty pounds weight of thread, ol 
divers colours, and rammed it into a pair 
of leathern bags, something larger than a 
pair of boots, which we might deem the 
arms of his trade empaled; slung them on 
a horse, and placed himself on the top by 
way of a crest ; visits an adjacent market, 
to starve with his goods at a stall, or retail 
them to the mercer, nor return without the 
money—we shall see a thread-maker ol 
1 652. If we pursue this occupation, wind¬ 
ing through the mazes of one hundred and 
thirty years, we shall see it enlarge its. 
boundaries, multiply its people, increase its 
consequence and wealth, till in 1782 we 
behold the master in possession of correct 
accounts, the apron thrown aside, the stall 
kicked over, the bags tossed into the garret, 
and the mercer overlooked in the grand 
prospect of exportation. We farther be¬ 
hold him take the lead in provincial con¬ 
cerns, step into his own carriage, and hold 
the king’s commission as a magistrate.* 


PRESERVATION OF FLOWERS. 

A few grains of salt dropped into tin 
water in which flowers are kept, tend- 
greatly to preserve them from fading, ana 
will keep them fresh and in bloom, doubh 
the period that pure water will. 


• Hutton’s History of Birmin^hauu, 


7U> 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Booh. 

LETTER FROM A VILLAGE. 

To Mr. Charles Pickworth. 

Lincolnshire, — June, 1815. 

Dear Charles, — You remember our 
neeting the other day—I shall.—It’s a 
long time since we ran riot, and got into 
mischief together — trundled our hoops, 

J gathered flowers in summer, and rolled in 
jthe snow in winter. There is a dim plea¬ 
sure in the remembrance of our late inter¬ 
view, and that of these isolated scenes of 
our childhood : they are as faint gleams of 
J sunshine in a gloomy day. I don’t like, 
however, to reflect upon being handwhip- 
ped, and put into the corner: the fears of 
ithat age are dreadful—I see my aunt’s 
frown now, and hear her snap at me. But 
then again, it was over her grounds that we 
chased the hours away as heedlessly as the 
I butterflies. The homeclose-yard and kitchen 
garden—how pleasant to remember them! 

I The buzzard, you know, guarded the fruit- 
garden, and kept us from the gooseberry - 
jtrees and strawberry-beds; but in the 
others what a thousand frolics have we 
sported in, and in what a thousand con¬ 
trivances exercised our infant minds. Every 
joy comes to my mind—I forget every 
hardship. The coachman!—what would 
lie not do for us! Bethink yourself—he 
had been in the family a quarter of a cen¬ 
tury. How proud he was of it; how fussy 
and fond of his favourite horses; how he 
used to pat them when out with the car¬ 
riage. You don’t forget that the old people 
continued the fashion of postilions very 
long—but there is no end to remembrance. 
—I’ll stop- 

You say in my behaviour the other day 
you saw the traces of my boyhood. You 
compliment me. Children are selfish ; they 
perhaps may have but little to call their 
young feelings forth; for feelings must be 
net half-way. I remember some young 
eelings with delight still. I fancy I have 
iot that ecstasy now that the mind was 
uned to then. Children have but tew 
riendships : the reason may be, that they 
iave few objects to engage them. Tins 
*bservation is rain—elder people have but 
ew friendships, and for the same reason, 
l had been more correct if I had said, they 
ire but little capable of a friendly disposi- 
ion. The former is a fact—this a specu- 
ation. You saw at the party wherein we 
ast met, how eager all the youngsters were 
'o have their gallop in what they considered 
heir proper turn round the large close. 


This is a fair sample of mankind in all their 
pursuits—of every age, old or young. I 
waved my turn for you ; and though I had 
a joyous idea of flying round the course, I 
had more pleasure in seeing you gratified. 
It is well I hit upon my old friend in my 
politeness ; the others would have laughed 
at me. The upper part of society profess 
more politeness than the lower; the human 
heart is the same in both. The upper 
classes have more forms, and the lower 
may say they are fools for their pains :— 
the upper bow slavishly to each other; the 
lower do not. With the former it is of 
service, but of none among the latter. For 
if among the ambitious and supercilious of 
mankind it were not a matter of pride to 
know and do this homage, one half of them 
would be turning up their noses, and toss¬ 
ing their heads at the other. When I see 
a great man bow, I always think he wants 
to creep into a greater man’s esteem.- 

Excuse this wandering. I like to gene¬ 
ralize mankind, and cast up the proper 
value of every thing around me—the use is 
immense: henc,e flows philosophy. I de¬ 
cide between grovelling and glorious am¬ 
bition ; and, clearing myself of the former, 
am eased of impediment in the pursuit of 
the latter. The consequence is, that I care 
nothing for wealth, provided I have com¬ 
petence ; that I can take up my abode with 
pleasure among poor people, and not turn 
squeamish at sight of a fustian jacket; that 
I like the humour of farm-houses, and 
would dine with a couple of vagabonds, 
without fear of infection, amply compen¬ 
sated by the observation of their vein , and 
looking upon the beauty of nature m the 
source of all pleasure, far and wide as she 
extends, in this hole and cabin, my own 
appropriate spot, my aim is to keep my 
health as the furtherance of a superior 
object. 

My maxim is —necessaries ; that is, out¬ 
ward comfort and health. Observe it. 

Your affectionate friend, 

c.o. 


For the Table Book. 

GRASSINGTON FEAST. 

Clock Dressings. 

During the continuance of “ Giassington 
Feast,” it is customary for the inhabitants 
to have convivial parties at one another’s 
houses: these are called clock dressings ; 
for the guests are invited to come and 
“ dress the clock.” Giassington feast was 


717 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 

once one of the largest and most celebrated ANECDOTE OF A MAGPIE. 


one in Craven, but it is fast dwindling 
away. This year the amusements were of 
a paltry description ; and the sack racers, 
bell racers, hasty-pudding eaters, and soap- 
ed-pig catchers, who used to afford in 
former times such an unceasing fund of 
merriment, seem all fled. Nothing told 
of olden time, except the presence of Frank 
King, the Skipton minstrel, who seems de¬ 
termined to be in at die death. 

T. Q. M. 


A FRAGMENT 

Found in a Skeleton Case at the 
Royal Academy, 

Supposed to have been written by one of 
the Studentsy and deposited there by him. 

SCELETOS. 

Behold this Ruin! ’twas a skull. 

Once of ethereal spirit full, 

This narrow cell was life’s retreat. 

This space was thought’s mysterious Meat. 

What beauteous pictures fill’d this spot! 

What dreams of pleasure long forgot I 
Nor Love, nor Joy, nor Hope, nor Fear, 

Has left one trace or record here. 

Beneath this mouldering canopy 
Once shone the bright and busy eye ! 

But start not at the dismal void, 

Tf social love that eye employ’d ; 

If with no lawless fire it gleam’d. 

But thro the dew of kindaess beam’d. 

The eye shall be for ever bright. 

When stars and suns have lost their light. 

Here in this silent cavern hung 
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue. 

If falsehood’s honey it disdain'd. 

And where it could not praise, was chain’d ; 

If bold in virtue’s cause—it spoke. 

Yet gentle concord never broke. 

That tunef.il tongue shall plead for thee. 

When Death unveils eternity. 

Say, did these fingers delve the mine. 

Or with its envied rubies shine ? 

To hew the rock, or wear the gem. 

Can nothing now avail to them : 

But if the page ef truth they sought. 

Or comfort to the mourner brought, 

These hands a richer mead shall claim 
Than all that waits on wealth and fame. 

Avails it whether bare or shod. 

These feet the path of duty trod ? 

If from the bowers of joy they fled 
To seek affliction’s humble bed. 

If grandeur’s guilty bribe they spurn’d, 

And home to virtue’s hope return’d. 

These teet with angel wings shall fly, 

And tread the palace of the sky.* 

• From the Morning Chronicle , Sept. 14, 1821. 


For the Table Book. 

A cobbler, who lived on indifferent terms 
with his wife in Kingsmead-street, Bath, 
somewhat like Nell and Jobson, kept a 
magpie, that learned his favourite ejacula¬ 
tory exclamation—“ What the plague art 
(h)at ? ” Whoever came to his shop, where 
the bulk of his business was carried on, the 
magpie was sure to use this exclamation ; 
but the bird was matched by the ghostly, 
bodily, and tall person of “ Hats to dress !” ; 
a well-known street perambulator and hat : 
improver, who, with that cry, daily passed 
the temple of Crispin. The magpie aspi¬ 
rating at with h, the crier of “ Hats to 
dress!” considered it a personal insult, and 
after long endurance, one morning put the 
bird into his bag, and walked away with 
his living plague. When he reached home, 

“ poor mag!” was daintily fed, and became 
a favourite with the dresser’s wife. It 
chanced, however, that the cobbler, who 
supplied the sole understanding of “ Hats 
to dress!” waited on him to be rebeavered 
for his own understanding. The magpie, 
hearing his old master’s voice, cried out, 

“ What the plague art (h)at .»*” “ Ha, ha, 
ha,” said the astonished and delighted cob¬ 
bler, “ come to fetch thee home, thou 
’scapegrace.” The hatter and the cobbler 
drank their explanation over a quart of ale; 
and with a new, old, hat on his head, the 
latter trudged through Stall-street, with his j 
magpie in his apron, crying, “ What the 
plague art (h)at F’ 


THE ARTIST. 

For the Table Book. 

He is a being of deep reflection,—one 
That studies nature with intensest eye; 
Watching the works of air, earth, sea, and sun. 
Their motion, altitude, their form, their dye, 
Cause and effect. The elements which run. 

Or stagnant arc, he traces to their source 
With vivid study, tilt his pencil makes 
A perfect likeness; or, by fancy’s force 
A new creation in his art he takes, 

And matches nature’s progress in kis course 
Towards glory. In th’ abstractions of tke mind. 
Harmony, passion, and identity, 

Hje genius, like the summer sun, is shrined, 

Till beauty and perfection he can see. 


718 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


CI)e <5iants 

IN THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW, 
AND IN GUILDHALL. 

In the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 9th of 
November, 1827, there was a remarkable 
variation from the customary route. Instead 
of the new chief magistrate and corporation 
embarking at Blackfriars, as of late years 
j has been usual, the procession took a direc¬ 
tion eastward, passed through the Poultry, 
Cornhill, Leadenhall-street, Billiter-lane, 
Mincing-lane, and from thence by Tower- 
street to the Tower Stairs, where they em¬ 
barked. This deviation is presumed to 
have been in compliment to the Tower 
ward, in which the lord mayor presides as 
alderman. The ancient lord mayors o 
London were accustomed to “ ride and go” 
on horseback, attended in like manner by 
I the aldermen, and others of the corporation, 
to the bottom of Queen-street, and there 
embark on board the barges for Westmin¬ 
ster. The present is the first instance of 
the lord mayor’s show by water having 
i proceeded from a more distant spot down 
the river. 

In addition to the “ men in armour,” 
and the length of the route by land, in the 
lord mayor’s show of this year, there was 
“the. far more attractive novelty of two 
colossal figures representing the well-known 
statues, Gog and Magog, (as they are call¬ 
ed,) of Guildhall. They were extremely 
| well contrived, and appeared to call forth 
more admiration and applause, than fell to 
the share of any of the other personages 
w ho formed part of the procession. What- 
| ever some fastidious critics may say as to 
j the taste of reviving in the present day some 
of the long-neglected civic pageants, we 
j think the appearance of these figures augurs 
well for the future conduct of the new lord 
mayor: some of his brother magistrates 
j would, we make no doubt, be well content 
if in the whole course, or at the close, of 
their official career, they could come in for 
a little of the plaudits which were yesterday 
bestowed on the two representatives of Gog 
and Magog.” {The Times , Nov. 10.) From 
the report of a spectator, it appears that the 
giants were constructed of wicker-work, 
gaily apparelled in the costume of their pro¬ 
totypes, and similarly armed : each walked 
along by means of a man withinside, who 
ever and anon turned the faces towards the 
throngs of company in the houses; and, 
as the figures were fourteen feet high, their 
features were on a level with the first- 


floor windows throughout the hole of then 
progress. 

In a work, which contains much inform¬ 
ation respecting the “ London Triumphs’ 
of the lord mayors, and the “ pageants” ot 
those processions in the olden time, there 
is a chapter devoted to a History of the 
Carvings called the “ Giants in Guildhall.” 
As the book is my own, and seems to be 
little known “ within the walls,” 1 pre¬ 
sume to render the account in a compressed 
form, as follows — 

The Giants in Guildhall 

From the time when I was astonished by 
the information, that “ every day, when the 
giants hear the clock strike twelve they 
come down to dinner,” I have had some¬ 
thing of curiosity towards them. How 
came they there, and what are they for ? In 
vain weie my examinations of Stow, Howell, 
Strype, Nooithouck, Maitland, Seymour, 
Pennant, and numberless other authors of 
books and tracts regarding London. They 
scarcely deign to mention them, and no 
one relates a syllable from whence we can 
possibly affirm that the giants of their day 
were the giants that now exist. 

To this remark there is a solitary excep¬ 
tion. Hatton, whose “ New View of Lon¬ 
don” bears the date of 1708, says in that 
work, “ This stately hall being much dam¬ 
nify’d by the unhappy conflagration of the 
city in 1666, was rebuilt anno 1669, and 
extremely well beautified and repaired both 
in and outside, which cost about two thou¬ 
sand five hundred pounds, and two new i 
figures of gigantick magnitude will be as be¬ 
fore.”* Presuming on the ephemeral inform¬ 
ation of his readers at the time he published 
Hatton obscured his information by a bre¬ 
vity, which leaves us to suppose that the 
giants were destroyed when Guildhall was 
“ much damnify’d” by the fire of London 
in 1666; and that from that period they 
had not been replaced. It is certain, how¬ 
ever, that there were giants in the year 
1699, when Ned Ward published his Lon¬ 
don Spy : for, describing a visit to Guild¬ 
hall, he says, “ We turned down King- 
street, and came to the place intended, 
which we entered with as great astonish¬ 
ment to see the giants, as the Morocco 
ambassador did London when he saw 
the snow fall. I asked my friend the 
meaning and design of setting up those 
two lubberly preposterous figures; for I 
suppose they had some peculiar end in it. 
Truly, says my friend, I am wholly igno» 

* Hatton’* New View of London, 1708 8\o. p. 607 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


rant of what they intended by them, unless 
they were set up to show the city what huge 
loobies their forefathers were, or else to 
fVight stubborn apprentices into obedience ; 
for the dread of appearing before two such 
■monstrous loggerheads, will sooner reform 
their manners, or mould them into a com¬ 
pliance with their masters’ will, than carry¬ 
ing them before my lord mayor or the 
chamberlain of London ; for some of them 
are as much frighted at the names of Gog 
and Magog , as little children are at the 
terrible sound of Raw-head and Bloody- 
bones.” Theie is no doubt that at that 
time the city giants were far more popular 
than now; for, in the same work, two pas¬ 
sengers through Baitholomew fair, who had 
slyly alighted from a coach without dis¬ 
charging it, are addressed by the coach¬ 
man with “ Pay me my fare, or by Gog 
and Magog you shall feel the smart of my 
whipcordan oath which in our time is 
obsolete, though in all probability it was 
common then, or it would not have been used 
by Ward in preference to his usual indecency. 

I Again ; as to giants being in Guildhall 
before Hatton wrote, and whether they 
were the present statues. On the 24th of 
April, 1685, there were “ wonderful and 
stupendous fireworks in honour of their 
majesties’ coronation, (James II. and his 
queen,) and for the high entertainment of 
their majesties, the nobility, and City of 
London, made on the Thames.’’* Among 
the devices of this exhibition, erected on a 
raft in the middle of the river, were two 
pyramids; between them was a figure of 
, the sun in polished brass, below it a great 
cross, and beneath that a crown, all stored 
with fireworks; and a little before the 
pyramids “ were placed the statues of the 
two giants of Guildhall, in lively colours 
and proportions facing Whitehall, the backs 
of which were all filled with fiery mate¬ 
rials ; and, from the first deluge of fire till 
i the end of the sport, which lasted near an 
hour, the two giants, the cross, and the 
sun, grew all in a light flame in the figures 
described, and burned without abatement 
of matter.” From this mention of “ statues 
; of the two giants of Guildhall,” it is to be 
inferred, that giants were in Guildhall four- 
i teen years before Ward’s book was pub- 
' lished, and that, probably, the firework- 
maker took them for his models, because 
their forms being familiar to the “ City of 
London ,” their appearance would be an 
attraction as well as a compliment to his 
civic audience. 

• See the “ Narrative,” by R. Low man, 1685, folio, 
half sheet, 1685. 

I ‘ 


Just before 1708, the date of Hatton s 
book, Guildhall had been repaired ; and 
Hatton says, “ In the middle of this front 
are depenciled in gold these words, Repa- 
rata et Ornata Thoma Rawlinson y Milit. 
Majore , An. Dom. m.dcc.vi.” From 
whence, and his observation, in the extract 
first quoted, that “ two new figures of gi- 
gantick magnitude will be as before ,” he 
intends his reader to understand that, as 
before that reparation there had been two 
giants, so, with the new adornment of the 
hall there would be two new giants. The 
proof of Hatton’s meaning is to be found 
in “ The Gigantick History of the two 
famous Giants in Guildhall, London, third 
edition, corrected. London, printed for 
Tho. Boreman, bookseller, near the Giants 
in Guildhall, and at the Boot and Crown, 
on Ludgate-hill, 1741.”—2 vols. 64rao. 
This very rare book states, that “ before the 
present giants inhabited Guildhall, there 
were two giants, made only of wicker-work 
and pasteboard, put together with great art 
and ingenuity : and those two terrible ori¬ 
ginal giants had the honour yearly to grace 
my lord mayor’s show, being carried in 
great triumph in the time of the pageants; 
and when that eminent annual service was 
over, remounted their old stations in Guild¬ 
hall—till, by reason of their very great age, 
old Time, with the help of a number of city 
rats and mice, had eaten up all their en¬ 
trails. The dissolution of the two old, 
weak, and feeble giants, gave birth to the 
two present substantial and majestic giants; 
who, by order, and at the city charge, were 
formed and fashioned. Captain Richard 
Saunders,* an eminent carver in King- 
street, Cheapside, was their father; who, 
after he had completely finished, clothed, 
and armed these his two sons, they were 
immediately advanced to those lofty sta¬ 
tions in Guildhall, which they have peace¬ 
ably enjoyed ever since the year 1708.” 
The title-page of the “ Gigantick History ” 
shows that the work was published within 
the Guildhall itself, when shops were per¬ 
mitted there; so that Boreman, the pub¬ 
lisher, had the best means that time and 
place could afford of obtaining true inform¬ 
ation, and for obvious reasons he was un¬ 
likely to state what was not correct. It is 
further related in this work, that u the first 
honour which the two ancient wicker-work 
giants were promoted to in the city, was at 
the restoration of king Charles II., when 
with great pomp and majesty they graced 

• “ --a citizen 

Of credit and renown, 

A trainband captain - —Coieptr 


720 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


ft triumphal arch, which was erected on 
that happy occasion at the end of King- 
street, in Cheapside.” This was before the 
fire of London, by which the hall was 
I “ much damnify’d,” but not burned down; 
for the conflagration was principally con¬ 
fined to the wooden roof; and, according 
to this account, the wicker-giants escaped, 
till their infirmities, and the labours of the 
j “ city rats/' rendered it necessary to super¬ 
sede them. 

That wicker was used in constructing 
figures for the London pageants is certain. 
Ilaywood, in his description of the page¬ 
ants in the show of the lord mayor Rayn- 
ton, in 1632,says, “The moddellor and com- 
i poser of these seuerall pieces, Maister Ge¬ 
rard Christmas, found these pageants and 
showes of wicker and paper, and reduc’t 
them to sollidity and substance.” 

To prove, however, the statement in the 
“ Gigantick History,” that the present 
giants were put up upon the reparation of 
the hall in 1706, an examination of the city 
archives became necessary; and as the 
history fortunately mentions captain Ri¬ 
chard Saunders as the carver, the name 
became a clue to successful inquiry. Ac¬ 
cordingly, on examination of the city ac¬ 
counts at the chamberlain’s office, under 
the head of “ Extraordinary Works,” for 
1707, I discovered among the sums “ paid 
for repairing of the Guildhall and chappell,” 
an entry in the following words :— 

To Richard Saunders, carver, seaventy 
pounds, by order of the co’mittee 
for repairing Guildhall, dated y* 

X th . of April, 1707, for work by 
him done - 70/. 

This entry of the payment confirms the 
relation of the gigantic historian; but 
Saunders’s bill, which doubtless contained 
the charges for the two giants, and all the 
city vouchers before 1786, deposited in the 
chamberlain’s office, were destroyed by a 
fire there in that year. 

Giants were part of the pageantry used 
in different cities of the kingdom. By an 
ordinance of the mayor, aldermen, and 
common-council of Chester,* for the set¬ 
ting of the watch on the eve of the festival 
of St. John the Baptist, in 1564, it was 
directed that there should be annually, ac¬ 
cording to ancient custom, a pageant, con¬ 
sisting of four giants, with animals, hobby¬ 
horses, and other figures, therein specified.-f 
In 1599, Henry Ha'rdman, Esq. the mayor 
of Chester in that year, from religious mo¬ 
tives, caused the giants in the Midsummer 

• Harl. MSS. 1358. + Ibid. S125. 


show “ to be broken, and not to goe the 
devil in his feathers ,” and he provided a 
man in complete armour to go in their 
stead ; but in 1601, John Ratclyfle, a beer- 
brewer, being mayor, set out the giants 
and the Midsummer show as usual. On 
the restoration of Charles II. new ones 
were ordered to be made, and the estimate 
for finding the materials and workmanship 
of the four great giants, as they were be¬ 
fore, was at five pounds a giant; and four / 
men to carry them at two shillings and six¬ 
pence each. The materials for making 
these Chester giants were deal-boards, 
nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of 
various sorts, buckram, size cloth, and old 
sheets for their bodies, sleeves, and shirts, 
which were to be coloured; also tinsel, 
tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of 
different kinds. A pair of old sheets were 
to cover the father und mother giants , and 
three yards of buckram were provided for 
the mother’s and daughter s hoods. There j 
is an entry in the Chester charges of one j 
shilling and fourpence “ for arsenic to put j 
into the paste to save the giants from being j 
eaten by the rats a precaution which, if 
adopted in the formation of the old wicker- 
giants of London, was not effectual, though 
how long they had ceased to exist before 
the reparation of the hall, and the carving 
of their successors, does not appear. One 
conjecture may perhaps be hazarded, that, 
as after the mayor of Chester had ordered 
the giants there to be destroyed, he pro¬ 
vided a man in armour as a substitute ; so 
perhaps the dissolution of the old London 
wicker-giants, and the lumbering incapacity 
of the new wooden ones for the duty of 
lord mayor’s show, occasioned the appear¬ 
ance of the men in armour in that proces¬ 
sion. 

Until the last reparation of Guildhall, in 
1815, the present giants stood with the old 
clock and a balcony of iron-work between 
them, over the stairs leading from the hall 
to the courts of law and the council cham¬ 
ber. When they were taken down in that 
year, and placed on the floor of the hall, I 
thoroughly examined them as they lay in 
that situation. They are made of wood,f 
and hollow within, and from the method of 
joining and gluing the interior, are evidently 
of late construction, and every way too 
substantially built for the purpose of being 
either carried or drawn, or any way ex¬ 
hibited in a pageant. On inspecting them 


• Strntt’s Sports, Pref. p. xxvi. 
t Noorthouck writing in 1773, (Hist, of London, 4to. 
p 590,) erroneously affirms that the giants are mad». 
of pasteboard. 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


at that period, I made minute inquiry of an 
old and respectable officer of Guildhall, 
with whom they were favourites, as to what 
particulars existed in the city archives con¬ 
cerning them; he assured me that he had 
nimself anxiously desired information on 
the same subject, and that after an investi¬ 
gation through the different offices, there 
was not a trace of the period when they 
commenced to be, nor the least record con¬ 
cerning them. This was subsequently con¬ 
firmed to me by gentlemen belonging to 
other departments. 

However stationary the present ponder¬ 
ous figures were destined to remain, there 
can scarcely be a question as to the frequent 
use of their wicker predecessors in the cor¬ 
poration shows. The giants were great 
favourites in the pageants. * Stow, in 
describing the ancient setting of the nightly 
watch in London on St John’s eve, relates 
that “ the mayor was surrounded by his 
footmen and torch-bearers, and followed 
by two henchmen on large horses : the 
mayor had, besides his giant , three page¬ 
ants; whereas the sheriffs had only two, 
besides their giants, each with their morris 
dance and one henchman.”f It is related, 
that, to make the people wonder, these giants 
were armed and marched as if they were 
alive, to the great diversion of the boys, 
who, peering under, found them stuffed 
with brown paper.J A character in Mar- 
ston’s “ Dutch Courtezan,” a comedy acted 
in 1606, says, “ Yet all will scarce make 
me so high as one of the gyant’s stilts that 
stalks before my lord mayor’s pageants ”§ 

During queen Elizabeth’s progress to her 
j coronation, Gogmagog and Corinaeus, two 
giants, were stationed at Temple-bar. It 
is not certain, yet it is probable, that these 
were the wicker-giants brought from Guild¬ 
hall for the occasion. In the reign before, 
j when queen Mary and Philip II. of Spain 
made their public entry, there was at Lon¬ 
don bridge a grand spectacle, with two 
images representing two giants, the one 


• Strutt, p. xxiii. 

Giants were introduced into the May-games. “ On 
the 26th of May, 1555, was a gay May-game at St. 
Martin’s-in-the-Fields, with giants and hobby-horses, 
drums and guns, morris-dancers, and other minstrels.” 
—(Strype’s Memorials.) Burton, in his “ Anatomy of 
Melancholy,” includes giants among: the ordinary do¬ 
mestic recreations of winter, 
f Strutt, p. 319. 
j Brand, i. p. 257. 

$ Stilts to increase the stature of the giants, and the 
introduction of the morris-dance, are instances of the 
I tfesire to gratify the fondness of our ancestors for 
! strange sights and festive amusements. A cock dancing 
I p's stilts to the music of a pipe and tabor is in Strutt’s 
Sport*), from a book of prayers written towards the 
•Leo of the thirteenth century. Harl. MSS. 6563. 


named Corinaeus, and the other Gogmagog 
holding between them certain Latin verses.* 
There is scarcely a likelihood that these 
were any other than the Guildhall giants, 
which on the occasion of a corporation re* 
joicing could be removed with the utmosf 
ease. 

Orator Henley, on the 21st of October, 
1730, availed himself of the anticipated 
civic festival for that year to deliver a lec- ; 
ture upon it, mentioning the giants , which j 
he announced by newspaper advertisement 
as follows:— 

At the Oratory, the corner of Lin- 
coln’s-Inn-Fields, near Clare-market, 
this Day, being Wednesday, at Six 
o’Clock in the Evening, will be a new 
Riding upon an old Cavalcade, en- 
tituled The City in its Glory; or, 
My Lord Mayor’s Shew: Explain¬ 
ing to all Capacities that wonderfu. 
Procession, so much envy’d in Foreign 
Parts, and nois’d at Paris: on my 
Lord Mayor’s Day; the fine Appear¬ 
ance and Splendor of the Companies 
of Trade; Bear and Chain; the Trum¬ 
pets, Drums, and Cries, intermix’d ; 
the qualifications of my L— ’s Horse, 
the whole Art and History of the City 
Ladies and Beaux at Gape-stare in 
the Balconies; the Airs, Dress, and 
Motions; the two giants walking 
out to keep Holiday; like Snails o’er 
a Cabbage, says an old Author, they 
all crept along; admir’d by their 
Wives, and huzza’d by the Throng. 

There is no stronger evidence of the in¬ 
difference to playfulness and wit at city 
elections, than the almost total silence on 
those occasions respecting such ample sub¬ 
jects for allusion and parallel as the giants 
in the hall. Almost the only instance of 
their application in this way is to be found 
in a handbill on occasion of a mayoralty 
election, dated Oct. 4th, 1816, addressed 
“ To the London Tavern Livery and their 
Spouses.” It states, that “ the day after 

Mr. Alderman-is elected lord mayor 

for the year ensuing, the following enter¬ 
tainments will be provided for your amuse¬ 
ment gratis, viz. 1. The two giants, at the 
bottom of the hall, will dance a minuet bj 

steam, attended by Mr. Alderman- 

in a new wig upon an elastic principle, 
gentleman having bought half of his old 
one for the purpose of making a new po 
ruke for the aforesaid giants.” This is the 
first humorous allusion to the giants afte! 
their removal to their present station. 

• Strutt’s Sports, Prof. p. xxriu 


722 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


It is imagined by the author of the “Gi- 
gantick History/’ that the Guildhall giants 
lepresent Corinaeus a Trojan, and Gogma- 
gog a Cornish giant, whose story is related 
at large in that work ; the author of which 
supposes, that as “ Corinaeus and Goerma- 
gog were two brave giants, who nicely 
valued their honour, and exerted their 
whole strength and force in defence of their 
liberty and country; so the city of London, 
by placing these their representatives in 
their Guildhall, emblematically declare, 
that they will, like mighty giants, defend 
the honour of their country and liberties of 
this their city, which excels all others, as 
much as those huge giants exceed in stature 
the common bulk of mankind/’ Each of 
these giants, as they now stand, measures 
upwards of fourteen feet in height: the 
young one is believed to be Corinaeus, and 
the old one Gogmagpg. 

Such being the chief particulars respect¬ 
ing these enormous carvings, the terror of 
the children, the wonder of the ’prentices, 
and the talk of the multitude, in former 
days, I close the subject, satisfied with 
having authenticated their origin. Trifling 
as this affair may seem, I pursued the in¬ 
quiry for upwards of sixteen years ; and 
though much of the time I spent in the 
search might have been better employed, I 
can assure those who are unacquainted with 
the nature of such investigations, that I 
had much pleasure in the pursuit, and when 
1 had achieved my purpose I felt more 
highly gratified, than I think I should had 
I attained to the dignity of being “ proud 
London’s proud lord mayor.” 

There are other memoranda respecting 
the giants and lord mayors’ shows in my 
volume on “ Ancient Mysteries,” from 
whence the present particulars are ex¬ 
tracted. 

* 


NORWICH GUILD. 

Mayor’s Feast, Temp. Elizabeth. 

The earls of Northumberland and Hunt¬ 
ingdon, the lords Thomas Howard and 
Willoughby, with many other noblemen 
' and knights, paid a visit to the duke of 
Norfolk, and were entertained, with their 
retinue, at the duke’s palace, in Norwich, 
in 1561. The guild happening at this time, 

| William Mingay, Esq., then mayor, invked 
them and their ladies to the feast, which 
they accepted, and expressed the greatest 
satisfaction at their generous and hospitable 
reception At the entertainment the duke 


and duchess of Norfolk sat first; then tne 
three earls of Northumberland, Hunting¬ 
don, and Surrey, lord Thomas Howard, 
lord Scroop and his lady, lord and lady 
Bartlet, lord Abergavenny, with so many 
other peers, knights, and ladies, that the 
hall could scarcely contain them and their 
retinue. * The mayor’s share of the ex¬ 
pense was one pound, twelve shillings, and 
ninepence. The feast makers, four in 
number, paying the rest. The mayor’s bill 
of fare was as follows:— 




£. 

«. 

d. 

Eight stone of beef, at 8d. a stone, and a 

sir- 



loin 

• 

- 0 

5 

8 

Two collars of brawn 

• 

• 0 

1 

0 

Four cheeses, at 4d. a cheese 


- 0 

1 

4 

Eight pints of butter 


0 

1 

6 

A hinder quarter of veal • 

• 

0 

0 

10 

A leg of mutton - 

• 

0 

0 

5 

A fore quarter of veal 

• 

0 

0 

5 

Loin of mutton and shoulder of veal 

0 

0 

9 

Breast and coat of mutton 

m 

0 

0 

7 

Six pullets 

• 

0 

i 

0 

Four couple of rabbits 


- 0 

1 

8 

Four brace of partridges - 

Vi 

0 

2 

0 

Two Guinea cocks 

• 

0 

1 

6 

Two couple of mallard 

• 

0 

] 

0 

Thirty-four eggs - 

• 

0 

0 

6 

Bushel of flour - 


- 0 

0 

6 

Peck of oatmeal - 

.e 

0 

0 

2 

Sixteen white bread-loaves 

• 

0 

0 

4 

Eighteen loaves of white wheat-bread 

- 0 

0 

9 

Three loaves of meslin bread 

- 

- 0 

0 

3 

Nutmegs, mace, cinnamon, and cloves 

• 0 

0 

3 

Four pounds of Barbary sugar 


- 0 

1 

0 

Sixteen oranges • 

- 

- 0 

0 

2 

A barrel of double strong beer 

- 

- 0 

2 

6 ; 

A barrel of table beer 


- 0 

1 

0 ! 

A quarter of wood 


- 0 

2 

2 i 

Two gallons of white wine and Canary 

- 0 

2 

0 1 

Fruit, almonds, sweet water, perfumes 

- 0 

0 

4 ! 

The cook’s wages 


- 0 

1 

2 


Total 


12 

9 


After dinner, Mr. John Martyn, a wealthy 
and honest man of Norwich, made the fol¬ 
lowing speech :—“ Maister Mayor of Nor¬ 
wich, and it please your worship, you have 
feasted us like a king. God bless the 
queen’s grace. We have fed plentifully 
and now, whilom I can speak plain Eng 
lish, I heartily thank you, maister Mayor. 
and so do we all. Answer, boys, answer. 
Your beer is pleasant and potent, and will 
soon catch us by the caput and stop our 
manners: and so huzza for the queen’s 
majesty’s grace, and all her bonny-brow’d 


• Five hundred can conveniently dine in this haiL 
I have seen seven hundred entertained on the guild 

day. 


723 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


dames of honour. * Huzza for maister 
Mayor, and our good dame Mayoress. His 
noble grace,f there he is, God bless him, 
and all this jolly company. To all our 
friends round county, who have a penny 
in their purse and an English heart in their 
bodies, to keep out Spanish dons, and pa¬ 
pists with their faggots to burn our whis¬ 
kers. Shove it about, twirl your cap-cases, 
handle your jugs, and huzza for maister 
Mayor, and his bretheren their worships." 

The honesty, freedom, loyalty, and good- 
humour of this speech would, at any time, 
entitle the orator to a patient hearing and 
an approving smile. 

The above is from Beatniffe’s Norfolk 
Tour. 

Norwich , G. B. 

September, 1827. 


(Sarrtrfe flaps. 

No. XLI. 

[Dedications to Fletcher’s “ Faithful Shep¬ 
herdess without date; presumed to be 
the First Edition.] 

1st. 

To that noble and true lover of learning , 

I Sir Walton Aston. 

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true. 

Tbis Play was never liked, except by few 
That brought their judgments with them ; for of late 
First the infection,}; then the common prate 
Of common people, have such customs got 
Either to silence Plays, or like them not: 

Under the last of which this Interlude 
Had fal’n, for ever press’d down by the rude 
That, like a torrent which the moist South feeds, 
Drowns both before him the ripe corn and weeds ; 

Had no't the saving sense of better men 
Redeem’d it from corruption. Dear Sir, then 
Among the better souls be you the best, 

In whom as in a center I take rest. 

And proper being ; from whose equal eye 
e«nd judgement nothing grows but purity. 

Nor do I flatter ; for, by all those dead 
flreat in the Muses, by Apollo’s head, 

Hs that adds auy thing to you, ’tis done 
Like his that lights a candle to the sun. 

Then be as you were ever, yourself still 
Ruled by your judgement, not by love or will. 


* This is familiar enough, and looks as if the fumes 
of the potent beverage had begun to attack the honest 
editor's caput. 

y The duke of Norfolk. 

I The Plague : in which times, the acting of Plays 
appears to have been discountenanced. 


And when I sing ag3in (as who -an tell 
My next devotion to that holy Well ?) 

Your goodness to the Muses shall be all 
Able to make a work Heroical. 

2np. 

To the Inheritor of all Worthiness , Sit 
William Scipwith. 

ODE. 

3 . 

If from servile hope or love 
I may prove 

But so happy to be thought for 
Such a one, whose greatest ease 
Is te please, 

Worthy Sir, I have all I sought for. 

2 . 

For no itch of greater name, 

Which some claim 
By their verses, do I show it 
To the world ; nor to protest, 

’ Tis the best; 

These are lean faults in a poet. 

3 . 

Nor to make it serve to feed 
At my need; 

Nor to gain acquaintance by it; 

Nor to ravish kind Atturneys 
In their journies ; 

Noi to read it after diet. 

4 . 

Far from me are all these aims; 

Frantic claims, 

To build weakness on and pity; 

Only to yourself, and such 
Whose true touch 
Makes all good, let me seem witty. 

3rd. 

To the perfect gentleman. Sir Rolen 
Townesend. 

If the greatest faults may crave 
Pardon, where contrition is, 

Noble Sir, I needs must have 
A long one for a long amiss. 

If you ask me how is this, 

Upon my faith I’ll tell you frankly; 

You love above my means to thank ye. 

Yet according to my talent. 

As sour fortune loves to use me, 

A poor Shepherd I have sent 
In home-spun gray, for to excuse me ; 

And may ail my hopes refuse me 
But, when better comes ashore. 

You shall have better, never more; 


724 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Till when, like onr desperate debtors. 

Or our three-piled sweet “ protesters,” 

I must please you in bare letters ; 

And so pay my debts, like jesters. 

Yet I oft have seen good feasters. 

Only for to please the pallet. 

Leave great meat, and chuse a sallet. 

Apologetical Preface, following these • 

To the Reader. 

If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge 
in this kind of Poem, lay down the Book ; or read this, 
which I would wish had been the Prologue. It is a 
Pastoral Tragic-Comedy; which the people seeing 
when it was played, having ever had a singular gift in 
defining, concluded to be a play of Country hired Shep¬ 
herds, in gray cloaks, with cur tailed dogs in strings, 
sometimes laughing together, sometimes killing one 
another; and, missing Whitsun Ales, cream, wassail, 
and Morris dances, began to be angry. In their error 
I would not have you fall, lest you incur their censure.* 
Understand, therefore, a Pastoral to be—a Representa¬ 
tion of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with their Ac¬ 
tions and Passions, which must be such as agree with 
their natures ; at least, not exceeding former fictions 
and vulgar traditions. They are not to be adorn’d 
with any art, hiit such improper ones as nature 
is said to bestow, as Singing and Poetry; or such 
as experience may teach them, as the virtues of 
ferbs and fountains; the ordinary course of the 
gun, moon, and stars; and such like. But you are 
ever to remember Shepherds to be such, as all the an* 

1 cient poets (and modern of understanding) have re¬ 
ceived them ; that is, the Owners of Flocks, ami not 
Hirelings.—A Tragic-comedy is not so called in re¬ 
spect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants 
deaths (which is enough to make it no Tragedy); yet 
brings some near to it (which is enough to make it no 
Comedy): which must be a Representation of Familiar 
People, with such kind of trouble as no life can oe 
without; so that a God is as lawful in this, as in a 
Tragedy; and mean People, as in a Comedy.—Thus 
much I hope will serve to justify my Poem, and make 
you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I 
do not know that I am in conscience bound. 

John Fletcher. 


From the “ Wars of Cyrus a Tragedy 
Author unknown, 1594.] 

Dumb Show exploded. 

Chorus (to the Audiinoe'). -Xenophon 

Warrants what we record of Panthea. 


• He damns the Town : the Town before damn’d 

k We can almost be not sorry for the ill dramatic suc¬ 
cess of this Play, which brought out such spirited 
apologies; in particular, the masterly definitions of 
Pastoral and Tragi-Comedy in this Preface. 


It 


It is writ in sad ami tragic terms. 

May move you teais; (hen you content ou 
That scorns to trouble yon again with tovs 
Or needless antics, imitations. 

Or shows, or new devises sprung o’ late; 

We have exiled them from our tragic stage, 
As trash of their tradition, that can bring 
Nor instance nor excuse : for what they do* 
Instead of mournful pla-nts our Chorus sings; 
Although it be against the upstart guise. 

Yet, warranted by grave antiquity, 

We will revive the which hath long been done 


[From the “ Married Beau,” a Comedy 
by John Crowne, 1694.] 

Wife tempted: she pleads religion. 

Lover. Our happy love may have a secret Churcn 
Under the Church, as Faith's was urtder Paul's, 
Where we may carry on our sweet devotion; 

And the Cathedral marriage keep its state, 

And all its decency and ceremonies. 


[From the “ Challenge for Beauty,” 
Tragi Comedy, by T. Hey wood, 1636.] 

Appeal for Innocence against a false at* 
eusation. 

Helena. Both have sworn : 

And, Princes, as yon hope to crown your heads 
With that perpetual wreath which shall last ever, 
Cast on a poor dejected innocent virgin 
Your eyes of grace and pity. What sin is it. 

Or who can be the patron to such evil ?— 

That a poor innocent maid, spotless in deed. 

And pure in thought, both without spleen and gall, 
That never injured creature, never had heart 
To think of wrong, or ponder injury; 

That such a one in her white innocence. 

Striving to live peculiar in the compass 
Of her own virtues ; notwithstanding these, 

Should be sought out by strangers, persecuted. 

Made infamous ev’n there where she was made 
For imitation ; hiss’d at in her country ; 

Abandon’d of her mother, kindred, friends; 

Depraved in foreign climes, scorn’d every where, 

And ev’n in princes’ courts reputed vile : 

O pity, pity this I 

C. L. 


• So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in 
this unique copy— 

Nor instance nor excuse for what they do. 

The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights 
do (or shew by action— the “ inexplicable dumb show* 
ol ShaVspeare—), our Chorus* relates, lhe follow litj 
lines have else no coherence. 


725 









































The Residence of John Ward, Esq. formerly of the late Right Hon. 

William Pitt. 


Mr. S. Young’s comfortable little inn, 
the Cross at Keston, or Keston Mark, is 
mentioned before as being at the north-east 
corner of the grounds belonging to Hol- 

wood. My friend W-and I, on a 

second visit to Mr. Young’s house, went 
irom thence, for the purpose of seeing the 
church and village of Keston, through which 


the main road runs to Westerham. We 
kept along to the entrance gate of Hoi- 
w< od, which we passed, having the park ; 
palings on our left, till we came to a well 
in the road, which derives its water from 
springs within Holwood, and stands on a 
swell of meadow land, called u the War 
Bank.” Further on, and out of the roa'V 


iLoigr anti Sbenttt at ijoltoooS, 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


726 


















































THE TABLE BOOK. 


*o the right, lies the village of Keston, a few 
houses embowered in a dell of trees ; with 
a stone church, which did not seem to 
nave been built more than a couple of 
centuries. A peep through the windows 
satisfied us that there was nothing worth 
ooking at within. We had heard of stone 
coffins having been found at the bottom of 
the War Bank, and we returned to that 
ipot; where, though the ground had been 
ploughed and was in pasture, we met with 
much stone rubbish in the soil, and some 
l arge pieces loose on the surface and in the 
ditches of the hedge. These appearances 
indicated a former structure there; and an 
old labourer, whom we fell in with, told us 
that when he was a boy, his grandfather 
used to talk of “ Keston old church” having 
stood in that spot, but becoming decayed, 
it was pulled down, and the church rebuilt 
in its present situation, with the materials 
of the ancient edifice. If this information 
was correct, the coffins which were dis¬ 
covered in that spot were more likely to 
have been dej osited there in ordinary burial, 
than to have contained, as most of the 
country people suppose, the bodies of per 
sons slain in battle on the War Bank. 
Besides, if that mound derives its name, as 
tradition reports, from a conflict there be¬ 
tween the Romans and the ancient Britons, 
it must be remembered that our rude ab¬ 
original ancestors were unaccustomed to 
that mode of sepulture, and that Caesar had 
work of more consequence to employ his 
soldiers on than such laborious construc¬ 
tions for the interment of his officers. One 
of these coffins is at Mr. Smith’s, near the 
well-head on the War Bank, and another 
is at lady Farnaby’s, at Wickham Court. 

The little village of Keston is, of itself, 
nothing ; but, looking over it from the road 
towards the weald of Kent, and particularly 
Surrey, there is a sweeping view of hill 
and dale, arable and pasture, intersected 
with woodlands. Its name is said to have 
been derived from Caesar’s (pronounced 
Kaesar’s) town; but it is quite as likely to 
have been a corruption of ** castrum,” a 
fortress or citadel. There is little doubt 
that the Romans maintained a military 
position on the heights adjoining Keston 
for a considerable time. The site they 
held was afterwards occupied by the late 
right honourable William Pitt; and respect¬ 
ing it, there was published in the yeai 1792 
the following 

Account of IIolwood. 

Holwood-hill, at present the seat of the 
right hon. Wiliam Pitt, is a most beautiful 


eminence, commanding (without the view 
of water) one of the most agreeable pro¬ 
spects in this country, or perhaps in this 
kingdom. 

The house is a very small, old, plastered 
brick building; but being on the edge of a 
celebrated fox-hunting country, it was for¬ 
merly the residence of various gentlemen 
who hunted with the old duke of Grafton. 

It afterwards came into the hands of the 
late Mr. Caicraft, the agent; and, small as 
it is, was used as a house of rendezvous by 
the heads of the great party at that time, 
where they privately formed their schemes 
of parliamentary manoeuvre, and partook 
of Mr. Caicraft and Mrs. Bellamy’s elegant 
entertainment. 

From Mr. Caicraft it came into the hands 
of the Burrell family; by them it was sold 
to captain Ross, and was purchased of him 

by-Burrow, Esq., (nephew of the late 

sir James Burrow,) who stuccoed the house, 
added greatly to the grounds by various ! 
purchases, grubbed and converted consi- 
deiable woods into beautiful pasture and 
pieces of water, and planted those orna- j 
mental shrubberies, which have rendered 
it so delightful and so justly admired a 
spot. 

-Randall, Esq., an eminent ship¬ 
builder, purchased it of Mr. Burrow, and 
he has since sold it to the right hon. Wil¬ 
liam Pitt, a native of (Hayes) the adjoining 
parish. 

Holwood is fourteen miles distant from 
London, in the parish of Keston, Kent; 
which parish evidently, either by Latin or 
Saxon derivation, takes its name from the 
camp, commonly called Julius Caesar’s 
Camp ; on the south entrenchment of which 
Mr. Pitt’s house stands, and sume part of j 
the pleasure-ground is within the same. 

This celebrated camp, till within these 1 
twenty years, was tolerably perfect: it con- | 
sisted of a circular double, and in some 
places treble entrenchment, enclosing about ! 
twenty-nine acres of land; into which there 
appeared to have been no original entrance 
but by the opening to the north-west, which 
descends to the spring called “ Caesar’s 
Spring.” This spring has long been con¬ 
verted into a most useful public cold bath; 
a dressing-house is built on the brink of it 
it is ornamented with beautiful trees, and 
from its romantic situation, forms a mos 
pleasing scene. 

However antiquarians (from the variety 
of fragments, coins, &c. discovered and 
ploughed up in the neighbourhood) mav 
have been induced to differ in conjecture 
as to the person who framed it, they ah 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


agree that this camp was originally a 
strong and considerable Roman station, 
though not of the larger sort; but rather 
from its commanding situation, and short 
distance from the Thames, a camp ofobser- 
j vation, or castra aestiva. At the same time, 
there is great reason to suppose it to have 
been since possessed by other invaders. 

The beautiful common of Keston to the 
south-west of the camp, from its oharming 
turf, shade, and views, has long been the 
promenade of the neighbouring company ; 
and parties of gentry from even so far as 
Greenwich, have long been accustomed to 
retire with music and provision to spend in 
this delightful spot the sultry summer’s day, 
drinking at Caesar’s Fountain, and making 
the stupendous Roman bulwarks resound 
with the strains of instruments and the voice 
of social glee. 

The above is some account of the conn 
try-seat of Mr. Pitt; but as an inhabitant 
of the capital may be desirous of knowing 
what works of taste, or of neighbouring 
utility, may have engaged the retirement of 
our illustrious prime minister, the follow¬ 
ing are the few improvements Holwood 
has yet undergone. 

Whether from a natural antipathy to the 
animal, or from too much of “ Fox” in 
other places, certain it is, the first order that 
was issued, was for the utter destruction of 
the “ fox earth,” being a lodgement in one 
s'de of the bulwarks, which the sagacious 
Reynards are supposed to have been in 
quiet possession ot ever since the Roman 
abdication. 

The house standing on a high hill, the 
gentlemen who have hitherto lived in it, 

! judging “ not much good was to be had 
from the North," had defended it on that 
quarter by large plantations of evergreens ; 
but the present possessor has cut down- 
these plantations, and seems determined 
“ to be open to every thing that comes from 
that delightful region.” 

The house itself has undergone no other 
alteration than the addition of a small 
eating-room covered with pantiles, and a 
curious new-invented variegated stucco, 
with which the whole has been done over : 
this stucco has now stood several winters, 
and only requires to be a little more known 
to be universally adopted.* 


While Holwood was in the occupation of 
Mr. Pitt he there seemed to enjoy the short 
cessations he could obtain from official 
duty. His chief delight in these spare 

• European Magazine, Dec. 1792. 


hours was planting; which, as he pursued j 
it only as opportunity enabled him, was ; 
without system of purchase or order ot 
arrangement, and consequently very expen¬ 
sive. After his death Holwood successively 
devolved into different hands, and the re¬ 
sidence and grounds were variously altered. 
At length the estate was purchased by John 
Ward, Esq. a merchant of London, who j 
pulled down the house, and erected the [ 
present edifice from a design by Mr. Burton, 
under whose direction the work was com¬ 
pleted in the spring of 1827. Its exterior 
is chaste, and the interior commodious and 
elegantly laid out. It stands on the summit 
of a noble ascent, well defended from ad- 
/erse winds by full-grown trees and young 
plantations. From the back front, a fine 
sweep of lawn descends into a wide spread¬ 
ing valley ; and the high and distant wood¬ 
lands of Knole, Seven Oaks, Tunbridge, 
and the hills of Sussex, form an extensive 
amphitheatre of forest scenery and downs, 
as far as the eye can reach. The home 
grounds are so disposed, that the domain 
seems to include the whole of the rich and 
beautiful country around. 

In the rear of Holwood Mr. Ward is 
forming a vineyard, which, if conducted 
with the judgment and circumspection that 
mark the commencement, may prove that 
the climate of England is suited to the open 
culture of the grape. Mr. Ward has im¬ 
ported ten sorts of vines, five black and 
five white, from different parts of the Rhine 
and Burgundy. They are planted on a 
slope towards the S.S.E. Difficulties and 
partial failures are to be expected in the 
outset of the experiment, and are to be 
overcome, in its progress, by enlarged ex¬ 
perience and information respecting the 
treatment of the plants in foreign countries. 
That the vine flourished here several cen¬ 
turies ago can be proved historically. There 
is likewise evidence of it in the old names 
of places still existing. For instance, in 
London, there is “ Vineyard-gardens,” 
Clerkenwell; and in Kent, there is a field 
near Rochester cathedral, which has been 
immemorially called “ the Vines.” Many 
examples of this nature might be adduced. 
But far stronger than presumptive testi¬ 
mony is the fact, that, in some parts of the 
weald of Kent, the vine grows wild in the 
hedges; a friend assures me of this from 
his own knowledge, he having often assisted 
when a boy in rooting up the wild vine on 
his father’s land. 

Mr. Ward’s alterations at Holwood are 
decisive and extensive. Besides the erection 
of a new and spacious residence, instead 


































I 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


of the old one, which was stnall and in¬ 
convenient, and ill suited to the com¬ 
manding character and extent of the 
grounds, he has greatly improved them ; 
and perfected a stately approach to the 
mansion. Immediately within the great 
entrance gates, from Iveston Common, is the 
elegant lodge represented by the engraving. 
For the purpose of making the drawing, we 
obtained seats just within the gates. While 
W. sketched it the silence was unbroken, 
save by the gentle rustle of the leaves in 
the warm afternoon air of summer, and the 
notes of the small birds preparing for their 
vesper song ; the rabbits were scudding 
from their burrows across the avenue, and 
the sun poured glowing beams from be¬ 
tween the branches of the magnificent trees, 
and dressed the varied foliage in a thousand 
beauteous liveries- 

Circumstances prevent this article from 
concluding, as had been purposed, with 
notices of Holwood-hill as a Roman en¬ 
campment, and of “ Caesar’s Spring,” in 
the declivity, beneath the gates of Holwood 
on Keston Common. An engraving of 
that ancient bourne, which Julius Caesar is 
said to have himself discovered nearly two 
thousand years ago, and thither directed 
his legions to slake their thirst, will pre¬ 
cede the remaining particulars in another 
sheet. 

* 


TIIE PLAGUE AT EYAM, 

AND THE REV. THOMAS STANLEY. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The publication of the paper, en¬ 
titled “ Catherine Mompesson’s Tomb,” on 
“ The Desolation of Eyam, and other 
Poems, by William and Mary Howitt,” at 
p. 482 of the Table Book , gives me an 
opportunity, with your good offices, of 
rescuing from a degree of oblivion the 
name and merits of an individual, who has 
unaccountably been almost generally over- 
.ooked, but who ought, at least, to be 
equally identified in any notice of the 
“ Plague at Eyam ” with Mr. Mompesson 
himself. 

The Rev. Thomas Stanley was instituted 
to the rectory of Eyam by the ruling 
powers in 1644, which he held till the 
‘‘ Act of Uniformity,” in 1662, threw him 


It appears that he continued to reside at 
Eyam after his ejectment, and the tradition 
ot the place at this day is, that he was sup* 
ported by the voluntary contributions of 
two-thirds of the inhabitants; this may 
have been the cause of some jealousy in 
those who might have been satisfied with 
his removal from the living. 

His comparative disinterestedness, with 
other circumstances worthy of notice, are 
recorded by his friend and fellow-sufferer 
Bagshaw, usually called “ the Apostle of 
the Peak he concludes a most interesting 
account of Mr. Stanley in these words :— 

“ When he could not serve his people pub- 
lick ly, some (yet alive) will testifie, how 
helpful he was to ’em in private; especially 
when the sickness (by way of eminency so 
called, I mean the Pestilence) prevailed in ! 
that town, he continuing with ’em, when, j 
as it is written, 2,59 persons of ripe age, 
and 58 children were cut off thereby, j 
When some, who might have been better 
employed, moved the then noble earl of 
Devonshire, lord lieutenant, to remove him 
out of the town ; I am told by the credible, 
that he said, i It was more reasonable that 
the whole country should, in more than 
words, testify their thankfulness to him, 
who, together with his care of the town, had 
taken such care as no one else did, to pre- I 
vent the infection of the towns adjacent.’ ” I 
Mr. Stanley died at Eyam 24th August, 
and was buried there on the 26th following, 1 
1670. I 

I have thus extracted what, as an act of 
justice, ought to have been published long 
since, and which, indeed, ought to accom¬ 
pany every memorial of the plague at 
Eyam : though I scarcely regret that it has 
waited for the extensive circulation the 
Table Book must give to it—if it is so for¬ 
tunate as to be considered a communication 
to your purpose. My authority is, u De 
Spiritualibus Pecci. Notes (or Notices) 
concerning the Work of God, and some of 
those who have been workers together with 
God in the High Peak of Derbyshire,” &c. 
12mo. 1702. (Sheffield.) 

Some farther account of Stanley may be ! 
seen in Calamy’s “ Nonconformist’s Me¬ 
morial,” and Hunter’s “ History of Hallam- 
shire,” but both follow Bagshaw. 

I exceedingly regret that “ William and 
Mary Howitt’’ were unacquainted with Mi. 
Stanley’s services at Eyam. 

I am, sir, 

Your obedient and humble servant, 

M N. 


Nov. 9 1827. 


729 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

THE REIGN OF DEATH. 

! And I saw, and beheld a white horse: and he that sat 
on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto 
him : and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. 

Revelations , vi. 3. 


In nightly vision, on my bed, I saw 
A form unearthly, on a pale horse sat, 

Riding triumphant o’er a prostrate world. 

Around his brows he wore a crown of gold. 

And in his bony hand he grasp’d a bow. 

Which scatter’d arrows of destruction round. 

His form was meagre—shadowy—indistinct— 

Clothed with the faint lineaments of man. 

He pass’d me swifter than the winged wind— 

Or lightning from the cloud—or ghostly vision. 

From his eye he shot devouring lightnings. 

And his dilated nostril pour’d a stream 
Of noisome, pestilential vapour. 

Where’er he trod all vegetation ceas’d. 

And the spring flow’rs hung, with’ring, on 1 heir stalks. 

He passed by a city, whose huge walls. 

And towers, and battlements, and palaces. 

Cover’d the plain, aspiring to the skies : 

As he pass’d, he smil’d—and straight it fell— 

Wall, tower, and battlement, and glittering spire. 
Palace, and prison, crumbling into dust; 

And nought of this fair city did remain, 

But one large heap of wild, confused ruin. 

The rivers ceas’d to flow, and stood congeal’d. 

The sea did cease its roaring, and its waves 

Lay still upon the shore- 

No tide did ebb or flow, but all was bound 
In a calm, leaden slumber. The proud ships. 

Which hitherto had travers’d o’er the deep, 

Were now becalmed with this dead’ning stillness:— 
The sails hang motionless—straight sunk the mast 
O’er the huge bulwarks, and the yielding planks 
Dropt silently into the noiseless deep :— 

No ripple on the wave was left to show 
Where, erst, the ship had stood, but all was blank 
And motionless. 

Birds in the air, upon the joyous wing. 

Fell, lifeless, as the shadowy monster pass’d 
And hostile armies, drawn in warlike lines, 

Ceas’d their tumultuous conflict in his sight— 
Conqueror and conquer’d yielding ’neath the pow er 
Of the unknown destroyer I Nations fell; 

And thrones, and principalities, and powers.— 

Kings, with their glitt’ring crowns, lay on the earth, 
And at their sides, their menials. 

Beauty and beggary together lay; 

Youth, innocence, and age, and crime, together. 

I saw a murderer, in a darksome wood. 

Wielding a dagger o’er a beauteous bosom, 
Threat’ning quick destruction to his victim :— 

The shadow pass’d—the leaves grew sere and dropp’d_ 

The forest crumbled into ashes, and 

The steel dissolv’d within th’ assassin’s hand— 


His face grew wan and bloodless—his eyes stood 
Fix’d, and glazed—he stiffen’d, and he fell— 

And o’er his prostrate body sunk his victim I 
I still pursued the conqueror with my eyo— 

The earth grew desart as he rode along— 

The sun turn’d bloody in the stagnant air— 

The universe itself was one vast ruin- 

Then, stopp’d the Fiend. By him all mortal things 
Had been destroyed ; yet was he unsated; 

And his vengeful eyes still flash’d destruction.— 
Thus, alone, he stood ; and reign’d—sole monarch— 
All supreme— The Kino of Desolation I 

Oct. 14, 1827. O. N. Y. 


Dt'Scobmeg 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS 
No. XIII. 

Thunder—Lightning—Aurora Borea¬ 
lis — Earthquakes — Ebbing and 
Flowing of the Sea—the Loadstone 
and Amber —Electricity—Rivers. 

Some of the moderns have assigned 
the cause of Thunder to inflamed exhala¬ 
tions, rending the clouds wherein they are ; 
confined ; others, to the shock between two | 
or more clouds, when those that are higher j 
and more condensed fall upon those that 
are lower, with so much force as suddenly 
to expel the intermediate air, which vigor-' 
ously expanding itself, in order to occupy 
its former space, puts all the exterior air in 
commotion, producing those reiterated claps 
which we call thunder. This is the ex¬ 
planation of Descartes, and had but few 
followers ; the former had more, being that 
of the Newtonians. For a third theory,! 
which makes the matter productive of thun¬ 
der the same with that of electricity, its 
author, Dr. Franklin, is in no part indebted 
to the ancients. 

The notion of Descartes entirely belongs 
to Aristotle, who says, that “ thunder is 
caused by a dry exhalation, which, falling 
upon a humid cloud, and violently endea¬ 
vouring to force a passage for itself, pro¬ 
duces the peals which we hear.” Anaxa¬ 
goras refers it to the same cause. 

All the other passages, which occur in 
such abundance among the ancients, re- i 
specting thunder, contain in them the rea¬ 
sonings of the Newtonians, sometimes com¬ 
bining the notions of Descartes. 

Leucippus, and the Eleatic sect, held 


730 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


that “ thunder proceeded from a fiery ex¬ 
halation, which, enclosed in a cloud, burst 
it asunder, and forced its way through.” 

I Democritus asserts, that it is the effect of a 
mingled collection of various volatile parti- 
i cles, which impel downwards the cloud 
j which contains them, till, by the rapidity 
of their motion, they set themselves and it 
on fire. 

Seneca ascribes it to a dry sulphureous 
exhalation arising out of the earth, which 
, he calls the aliment of lightning; and 
; which, becoming more and more subtilized 
' in its ascent, at last takes fire in the air, 
and produces a violent eruption. 

According to the stoics, thunder was 
occasioned by the shock of clouds; and 
| lightning was the combustion of the volatile 
i parts of the cloud, set on fire by the shock. 

I Chrysippus taught, that lightning was the 
I result of clouds being set on fire by winds, 

! which dashed them one against another; 

; and that thunder was the noise produced 
I by that rencontre: he added, that these 
effects were coincident; our perception of 
the lightning before the thunder-clap being 
entirely owing to our sight’s being quicker 
than our hearing. 

In short, Aristophanes, in his comedy of 
j the “ Clouds,” introducing Socrates as 
! satisfying the curiosity of one of his dis- 
' ciples as to the cause of thunder, makes 
him assign it to the action of the com- 
1 pressed air in a cloud, which dilating itself 
j bursts it, and, violently agitating the exterior 
air, sets itself on fire, and by the rapidity 
of its progress occasions all that noise. 

1 The Aurora Borealis was also observed 
by the ancients, as may be seen in Aris¬ 
totle, Pliny, Seneca, and other writers, who 
conjectured differently its cause. 

The Cartesians, Newtonians, and other 
able moderns, ascribe Earthquakes to the 
earth’s being filled with cavities of a vast 
extent, containing in them an immense 
quantity of thick exhalations, resembling 
the smoke of an extinguished candle, which 
being easily inflammable, and by their agi¬ 
tation catching fire, rarefy and heat the 
central and condensed air of the cavern to 
such a degree, that finding no vent, it 
bursts its enclosements; and, in doing 
this, shakes the surrounding earth all 
around with dreadful percussions, producing 
all the other effects which naturally follow. 

Aristotle and Seneca assigned these 
i dreadful events to the same cause. The 
former says, that they were occasioned by 
the efforts of the internal air in dislodging 
itself from the bowels of the earth ; and he 
observes, that on the approach of an earth¬ 


quake the V* ather is generally serpne, be¬ 
cause that sort of air which occasions com- ! 
motions in the atmosphere, is at that time 
pent up in the entrails of the earth. 

Seneca is so precise, we might take him 
for a naturalist of the present times. Il« 
supposes that the earth hides in its bosom 
many subterraneous fires, which uniting 
their flames, necessarily put into fervid 
motion the congregated vapours of its cells, 
which finding no immediate outlet, exert , 
their utmost powers, till they force a way ! 
through whatever opposes them. He says 
also, that if the vapours be too weak to 
burst the barriers which retain them, all 
their efforts end in weak shocks, and hol¬ 
low murmurs, without any fatal conse¬ 
quence. 

Of all the solutions of the Ebbing and 
Flowing of the <Sea, the most simple and 
ingenious, though afterwards found by 
observation to be inadequate, is that o. 
Descartes, who supposes a vortex of subtile 
matter, of an elliptic form, to invest our 
globe, and compress it on all sides. The 
moon, according to this philosopher, is 
immerged in this elliptic vortex, and when 
at its greatest elongation from the earth, it 
makes less impression upon the circum¬ 
ambient ethereal matter; but when it comes 
to the narrowest part of the ellipse, gives 
such an impulse to the atmosphere, as 
puts the whole ocean in agitation. He 
supports his system by t’his remark, that 
the ebbing and flowing of the sea generally 
coincides with the irregularity of the moon’s 
course. 

The opinion of Kepler and Newton is 
more conformable to observation, and is 
founded on this hypothesis—that the moon 
attracts the waters of the sea, diminishing 
the weight of those parts of it over whose 
zenith it comes, and increasing the weight 
of the collateral parts, so that the parts 
directly opposite to the moon, and under 
it in the same hemisphere, must become 
more elevated than the rest. According 
to this system, the action of the sun con¬ 
curs with that of the moon, in occasioning 
the tides; which are higher or lower re¬ 
spectively, according to the situation o 
those two luminaries, which, when in con¬ 
junction, act in concert, raising the tides to 
the greatest height; and when in opposi¬ 
tion, produce nearly the same effect, in 
swelling the waters of the opposite hemi¬ 
spheres; but when in quadrature, suspend 
each other’s force, so as to act only by the 
difference of their powders; and thus the 
tides vary, according to the different posi¬ 
tions of the sun and moon 


731 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


The Cartesian method of solution has 
been indicated by Pytheas Massiliensis, 
who observes, that the tides, in their in¬ 
crease and decrease, follow the irregular 
course of the moon; and by Seleucus of 
Erythrea, the mathematician, who ascribing 
to the earth a rotation about its axis, im¬ 
putes the cause of tides to the activity of 
the earth’s vortex, in conjunction with that 
of the moon. 

Pliny’s account has more affinity to that 
of sir Isaac Newton. The great naturalist 
of the ancients maintained, that “ the sun 
and moon had a reciprocal share in causing 
the tides and after a course of observa¬ 
tions for many years, he remarked, that 
“ the moon acted most forcibly upon the 
waters when it was nearest to the earth ; 
but that the effect was not immediately 
perceived by us, but at such an interval as 
may well take place between the action of 
celestial causes, and the discernible result 
of them on earth.” He remarked also, 
that the waters, which are naturally inert, 
do not swell up immediately upon the con¬ 
junction of the sun and moon ; but having 
gradually admitted the impulse, and begun 
to raise themselves, continue in that eleva¬ 
tion, even after the conjunction is over. 

There are few things which have more 
engaged the attention of naturalists, and 
with less success, than the wonderful pro¬ 
perties of the Loadstone. Almost all have 
agreed in affirming that there are corpus¬ 
cles of a peculiar form and energy that 
continually circulate around and through 
the loadstone, and that a vortex of the same 
matter circulates around and through the 
earth. Upon these suppositions Descartes 
and others have advanced, that the load¬ 
stone has two poles similar to those of the 
earth ; and that the magnetic matter which 
issues at one of the poles, and circulates 
around to enter at the other, occasions that 
impulse which brings iron to the loadstone, 
whose small corpuscles have an analogy to 
the pores of iron, fitting them to lay hold 
of it, but not of other bodies, 
i All this the ancients had said before. 
The impulsive force which joins iron to 
the loadstone, and other things to Amber , 
was known to Plato; though he would not 
call it attraction, as allowing no such cause 
in nature. This philosopher called the 
magnet the stone of Hercules, because it 
subdued iron, which conquers every thing. 

Descartes's idea of his explanation was 
doubtless derived from Lucretius, who ad¬ 
mitted, that there was a “ vortex of cor¬ 
puscles, or magnetic matter, which, conti¬ 
nually circulating around the loadstone. 


repelled the intervening air betwixt itself 
and the iron. The air thus repelled, the 
intervening space became a vacuum; and 
the iron, finding no resistance, approached 
with an impulsive force, pushed on by the 
air behind it.” 

Plutarch likewise is of the same opinion. 
He says, that “ amber attracts none of those 
things that are brought to it, any more than 
the loadstone, but emits a matter, which 
reflects the circumambient air, and thereby 
forms a void. The expelled air puts in 
motion the air before it, which making a 
circle, returns to the void space, driving 
before it, towards the loadstone, the iron 
which it meets in its way.” He then pro¬ 
poses a difficulty, to wit, “ why the vortex 
which circulates around the loadstone does 
not make its way to wood or stone, as well 
as iron ?” He answers, like Descartes, that 
“ the pores of iron have an analogy to the 
particles of the vortex circulating about the 
loadstone, which yields them such access 
as they can find in no other bodies, whose 
pores are differently formed.” 

Certain authors report, that the proper¬ 
ties of the loadstone, paiticularly its tend¬ 
ency towards the north pole, enabled the 
ancients to undertake long voyages; and 
they pretend, that the Egyptians, Phoeni¬ 
cians, and Carthaginians, employed the 
compass to guide them in their naval ex¬ 
cursions; though afterwards they lost the 
use of it, just as they did of dying purple,* 
and of embroidering, and of composing 
bricks, and a cement able to resist the force 
of all weathers ; arts, without all doubt, for¬ 
merly well known to them. Pineda and 
Kircher affirm likewise, that Solomon knew 
the use of the compass, and that his sub¬ 
jects steered their course by it in sailing to 
the land of Ophir. There is also a passage 
of Plautusf produced, wherein it is alleged 
he speaks of the compass. There is not 
however a single passage in the ancients 
that directly supports these pretensions.]; | 


* We may with exactness determine what the true 
colour was of the purple of the ancients, by attending 
to two passages of Pliny, wherein he says, that the 
whole aim of the Tyrians and Phoenicians, in bringing 
their purple to the utmost perfection, was to render it 
in colour as like as possible to the oriental amethyst. 
Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. ix.c. 38 & 41, et lib. xxxvii.c. 9. 

+ Hiic secundus ventus nunc est; cape modi) Vorso. 
nam, 

Stasime; cape Vorsonarr., recipe te ad Herum. 
t With respect to what was known to the ancients, 
and of which we still are ignorant, recourse maybe 
had to Pancirolus de rebus Deperditis, particularly to i 
his first book, chap. i. 35, 36, 39, respecting the colour! 
of purple, the ductility of glass and the effects of the j 
ancient music. See especially Dion. Cassius’s History, 
in Tiber, lib. Ivii. p. 617- E. Plin lib. xxxvi. c 26, 
&c. Isidor. de Origimb. lib. xvi. c. 15, respecting the 
ductility of glass. 


732 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


It is scarcely credible, that the real cause 
of Electricity was known to the ancients, 
and yet there are indications of it in the 
work of Timaeus Locrensis, concerning the 
soul of the world. 

I The moderns are also divided in their 
sentiments, as to how it happens that 
Rivers , continually flowing into the sea, do 
not swell the mass of waters, so as to make 
it overflow its banks. One of the solutions 
of this difficulty is, that rivers return again 
to their source by subterraneous passages 
or canals ; and that there is, between the 
sea and the springs of rivers, a circulation 
analogous to that of blood in the human 
body. This solution, however, is the same 
as Seneca’s, who accounts for their not 
overflowing the bed of the ocean, by imagin¬ 
ing secret passages, which reconduct them 
to their springs; and because, at their 
springs, they retain nothing of that brack¬ 
ishness which they carried with them from 
the sea, he supposes they are filtrated in 
their circuit through winding paths, and 
layers of every soil, so that they must needs 
return to their source as pure and sweet as 
they departed thence. 


FILEY, YORKSHIRE. 

Haddock Legend, and Herring 
Fishery. 

For the Table Book. 

At Filey a singular range of rock, said 
to resemble the celebrated mole of Tan- 
giers, extends from the cliff a considerable 
way into the sea, and is called Filey bridge. 
It is covered by the sea at high tide, but 
may be traversed for upwards of a quarter 
of a mile at low water. From the farther 
end a distant, but, in fine weather, a dis¬ 
tinct view may be had of Scarborough and 
the Castle on the one hand, and of Flam- 
borough-head and the Lighthouse, with an 
extensive stretch of lofty chalk-stone cliff, 

I on the other. When the wind is from the 
north-east the waves break over it majestic¬ 
ally, and may be seen rising up in foamy 
spray to a great distance, producing an 
imposing and awful appearance. From 
its singularity there is no wonder that the 
credulous, the superstitious, and the vulgar, 
who have always had a propensity to attach 
something of the marvellous to whatever is 
extraordinary, should have made this ridge 
an object from which to form a story. 

Perhaps, Mr. Editor, you, as well as 
many of the readers of the Table Book, 
may have seen the haddock at different 
I 


times, and observed the black marks on its 
sides. But do you know, sir, how the 
haddock came by these said marks? The 
legendary tale of Filey says, that the devil 
in one of his mischievous pranks deter¬ 
mined to build Filey bridge for the destruc¬ 
tion of ships and sailors, and the annoyance 
of fishermen, but that in the progress of 
his work he accidentally let fall his hammer 
into the sea, and being in haste to snatch 
it back caught a haddock, and thereby 
made the imprint, which the whole species 
retains to this day. 

The village of Filey is seated in a small 
and beautiful bay. The settled inhabitants 
depend chiefly on the fishery, which is 
carried on with success to a considerable 
extent, although of late years a few good 
houses have been built, and several respect¬ 
able families have resorted thither during 
the season, for the purpose of sea-bathing, 
for which the beach is well adapted. The 
church is in the form of a cross, with a 
steeple in the middle, and bears some re¬ 
semblance to an ancient cathedral in mi- j 
niature; it stands at a distance from the 
village, being divided by a deep ravine, ' 
which forms the boundary of partition be- ; 
tween the North and East Ridings of York¬ 
shire ; the church consequently stands in 
the former, and the village in the latter of 
the two Ridings. 

T. C 

Bridlington, Sept. 27, 1827. 

Since the foregoing was written I have 
been at Filey, and was there informed that 
in the month of September, yearly, about 
ninety men, sometimes accompanied by 
their wives and children, leave this village 
for the herring fishery at Yarmouth, Pre¬ 
viously to their setting out for the fishing 
station they send a piece of sea-beef on 
shore from each boat to such of their friends 
at the public-houses as they wish “ weel 
teea this occasions “ a bit of a supper,” 
at which those who are going away and 
those who stay meet to enjoy good cheer, 
heightened with mutual good-will. 

October 11, 1827. T. C. 


PISCATORIA. 

Lucan, the Roman poet, makes a beauti¬ 
ful digression to paint the happy life of a 
fisherman. In plain prose it will read in 
this manner :— 

News (says he) was brought to Caesar, at 
a late hour, that Pompey was up in arms in ! 
Calabria, ready to dispute with him the 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


sovereignty of the world; perplexed in 
mind, he knew not for a while what steps 
best to pursue, when, stealing from the 
arms of his Calphornia, ne cast his mantle 
about him, and through the gloom of mid¬ 
night hastened alone to the mouth of the 
Tiber, and coming to the cabin of Amilcas 
the fisherman, struck thrice with his arm 
upon the door of the slumberer. “ Arise, 
Amilcas/' said Caesar, in a subdued tone. 
The fisherman and his family, without care, 
were reposing on their beds of sheepskins. 
Amilcas knew the voice of Caesar, and 
threw open his wicket to receive his master. 
“ Come away, Amilcas," cried the em¬ 
peror, “ launch your boat with all speed, 
and bear me to Calabria; Pompey is there 
in arms against me while I am absent; 
hasten then, and ask what thou wilt of 
Caesar." The night was dark, and the 
elements were at war with each other; but 
by the strength, courage, and judgment of 
the boatman, Ceesar was soon landed on 
the shore of Calabria.—“ And now, Amil¬ 
cas,” rejoined the mighty chief, “ make thy 
demand.” “ Grant me then,” replied the 
fisherman, “ that I may return the way I 
came to my peaceful family; for at day¬ 
break should they not see me spreading nay 
nets upon the beach, as they are wont, 
their faithful bosoms will be rent with 
sorrow."—“ Go,” replied the Roman chief, 
“ thou humble, modest man, and never let 
it be forgotten that Caesar is thy friend." 


INCREDIBLE LIARS 

The French papers in the autumn of 
1821 mention, that a man named Desjar¬ 
dins was tried, on his own confession, as 
an accomplice with Louvel, the assassin of 
the duke de Bern. But, on his defence, 
Desjardins contended that his confession 
ought not to be believed, because he was 
so notorious for falsehood, that nobody in 
the world would give credit to a word he 
said. In support of this, he produced a 
host of witnesses, his friends and relatives, 
who all swore that the excessive bad cha¬ 
racter he had given of himself was true, 
and he was declared “ not guilty." 

This case parallels with a similar in¬ 
stance some years before in Ireland. A 
man was charged with highway robbery. 
In the course of the trial the prisoner 
roared out from the dock that he was 
guilty ; but the jury pronounced him by 
i their verdict “ not guilty." The astonished 
j ; udge exclaimed, “ Good God, gentlemen, 
did you not hear the man himself declare 


that he was guilty ?" The foreman said, 
“ We did, my lord, and that was the very 
reason we acquitted him, for we knew the 
fellow to be so notorious a liar that he 
never told a word of truth in his life." 


For the Table Book . 

HEBREW MELODY, 

A Portuguese Hymn. 

How blest is the mortal who never reposes 

In seat of the scorner, nor roams o’er the ground. 

Where Pleasure is strewing her thorn-covered roses. 
And waving her gay silken banners around. 

Who worships his Maker when evening is throwing 
Her somberest shadows o’er mountain and lea; 

And kneels in devotion when daylight is glowing. 

And gliding the waves of the dark rolling sea. 

He shall be like a tree on the calm river waving. 
That riseth all glorious all lovely to view, 

Whose deeply fix’d root the pure waters are laving, 
Whose boughs are enriched with the kindliest dew. 

Not so the ungodly ! his fate shall resemble 
The chaff by autumnal winds wafted away ; 

And when life’s fading lamp in its socket shall tremble 
Shall look to the judgment with fear and dismay ! 

T. Q. M. 

Ivy Cottage , Grassington in Craven, 
October 21, 1827. 


FACTITIA. 

For the Table Book. 

“ Where is my Thermometer?" 

In a certain town a certain military gen¬ 
tleman regulates his dress by a thermome¬ 
ter, which is constantly suspended at the 
back door of his house. Some wicked wag 
once stole the instrument, and left in its 
place the following lines 

When — ■ ■ n to Tartarus got, 

That huge and warm gasometer 1 
M Good lord !” quoth he, “ how wondrous hot 1 
O, where is my thermometer 1” 

Degradation of a Degree. 

“ Why,” said our friend T. Q. M. to 
Sally Listen, an old inhabitant of Wensley- 
dale, “why do you call Mr. — ■ , 

doctor, when he has no title to such an 
appellation ? he is only a quack !"—“Why," 
said Sally, “ I'll call him naught else. 
What mun a body mister sic chaps as him 
for ? Doctors good enough for sic blacks !" 


731 




















Source of tl)f itabensbournc. 

On Keston Heath wells up the Ravensbourne, 

A crystal rillet, scarce a palm in width, 

Till creeping to a bed, outspread by art, 

It sheets itself across, reposing there : 

Thence, through a thicket, sinuous it flows. 

And crossing meads, and footpaths, gath’ring tribute, 
Due to its elder birth, from younger branches, 
Wanders, in Hayes and Bromley, Beckenham vale. 
And straggling Lewisham, to where Deptford Bridge 
Uprises in obeisance to its flood, 

Whence, with large increase it rolls on, to swell 
The master current of the “ mighty heart ” 

Of England. 


Before I had seen Keston I heard, at 
West Wickhavn, that it had been the site of 
a Roman camp, and that a Roman bath was 
still there. It was from curiosity towards 
this piece of antiquity that I first visited 
the spot, in company with my friend W—. 
The qountry people, whom we met on our 
way, spoke of it as the “ Old Bath,” and 
the “ Cold Bath/’ and as a water of great 
irtue, formerly bathed in, and still resorted 
(O, by persons afflicted with weak or sprained 
ambs, which by dipping in this bath became 
cured. 

Our walk from Wickham was remarkably 
oleasant; we passed noble oaks of many 


centuries’ growth, and descended from tne 
broad open highway into an old road on 
our left, a ravine, or intrenchment per¬ 
chance, clothed with tendril plants and 
blossoming briars, festooning and arching 
over wild flowers growing amid the verdure 
of its high banks. Here we paced up hill, 
till we reached an open, lofty tract of heath- 
land, in a rude, uncultivated, picturesque 
state, with a few houses in distant parts, 
surrounded by thriving plantations. On 
our left were the woodlands of the pleasant 
village of Hayes, remarkable for having 
been the seat of the great earl of Chatham, 
and the birthplace of his well-remembered 


3 B 


735 




















THE TABLE BOOK. 


;' ton . on our right were the heights of IIol- 
wood, and fine forest scenery. Near a 
; cluster of cottages immediately before us 
there was a mill, with its sails going; these 
we scarcely glanced at, but made our way 
to an old alehouse, the sign of the Fox, 
where an ancient labourer, sitting at the 
door, directed us to “ the Bath.” We found 
it in a romantic little bottom, immediately 
under the gates of Holwood. 

The delightful landscape, from the open¬ 
ing of this dell towards London and beyond 
it, so much engaged our attention, that for 
a while we forgot the “ Bath/' on the brink 
of which we were standing. There is no 
I appearance of its having been a bathing- 
place, and certainly it has not the least 
I character of a Roman bath. It is simply a 
j well of fine pellucid water, which gently 
i overflowing threads a small winding chan- 
i nel in the herbage, and suddenly expands, 
till it seems bounded by an embankment 
i and line of trees. This is the road to the 
pleasant inn “ Keston Cross.” In the dis¬ 
tance are the Kentish and Essex hills, with 
! the dome of the metropolitan cathedral. 

I Presuming that information respecting the 
| spring might be obtained at Holwood we 
reascended, and inquired of several labour¬ 
ers employed in levelling and gravelling 
the avenue; but we derived nothing satis¬ 
factory till a Keston man, working at a 
distance, came up, and told ns that it was 
the source of the Ravensbourne. 

I had formerly heard and read of a tra¬ 
dition respecting this spring, and now that 
I unexpectedly found myself upon its mar¬ 
gin, recollection of the story heightened the 
interest of the scene. The legend runs, 
that when Caesar was encamped here his 
troops were in great need of water, and 
none could be found in the vicinity. Ob- 
: serving, however, that a raven frequently 
alighted near the camp, and conjecturing 
! that it was for the purpose of quenching its 
j thirst, he ordered the coming of the bird to 
be watched for, and the spot to be particu¬ 
larly noted ; this was done, and the result 
was as he anticipated. The object of the 
raven’s resort was this little spring; from 
thence Caesar derived a supply of water 
for the Roman legions, and from the cir¬ 
cumstance of its discovery the spring was 
called the Raven’s bourne, or the Raven’s 
brook. From the lodge at Holwood, W. 
obtained the loan of a chair, and taking his 
seat on the brink of the well, sketched the 
view represented in his engraving of it above. 

If the account df Holwood* in 179.J be 


correct, this spring, there called “ Caesar’s 
Spring,” was then a public cold bath, orna¬ 
mented with trees, and a dressing-house on 
the brink. Hasted, in 1778,* gives a view 
of the Roman intrenchments on Holwood 
Hill, and figures the ancient road to the 
spring of the Ravensbourne, as running 
down to it from where Holwood gates now 
stand : he also figures the spring with twelve 
trees planted round it. Now, however, 
there is not a vestige of tree or building, but 
there are in the ground the stumps of a 
poled fencing, which was standing within 
recollection. On further examination I 
found the well bricked round, but the 
bricks at the top edge had decayed, or been 
thrown in; and the interior brickwork is 
lined with hair moss and other water-weeds. 
On the side opposite to that whereon a 
man is represented in the engraving, I 
traced the remains of steps for descending 
into the well as a bath. Its circle is about 
nine feet in diameter. At what time it 
commenced, or ceased, to be used as a bath, 
is uncertain. 

Here, then, about twelve miles from 
London, in a delightful country,is aspring, 
rendered venerable by immemorial tradi¬ 
tion and our ancient annals; and which, 
during eighteen centuries, from the time of 
its alleged discovery by Caesar, has remain- 
ed open to general use. Sorry therefore 
am j to add, that there are rumours of a 
wish to enclose this public relic of by¬ 
gone ages. I invite public attention to the 
place and to the report. Even at this sea-j 
son the lover of natural scenery will find 
charms at the source of the Ravensbourne,' 
and be able to imagine the beauty of the 
surrounding country in summer. Had I a 
right of common on Keston Heath, rather 
than assist in a base “ homage,” to colour- 
ably admit the enclosure of “ Caesar’s 
Spring,” I would surrender my own right, 
and renounce community and neighbour-j 
hood with the heartless hirelings, who would ; 
defraud themselves and the public of the! 
chief attraction to Keston Common. At 1 
so small a distance from London I know of 
nothing so remarkable in history as this 
spring. On no pretence ought the public 
to be deprived of it. There are rights ot 
nature as well as of property: when the 1 
claims of the lattei are urged too pertina-^ 
ciously against the former, it is time to cry 1 
out; and if middle men do not interfere to* 
prevent the oppression, they will, in their 
turn, cry aloud when there will be none to 
h*rlp them. 


•In col. 626 


History of Kent, folio, vol. i. 129. 




















































r 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


(gaiTtrft pags. 

No. XLII. 

, From “Thyestes,” a Tragedy, by John 
Crowne, 1681.] 

Atreus, having recovered his Wife, and 
Kingdom, from his brother Thyestes, who 
had usurped both, and sent him into banish¬ 
ment, describes his offending Queen. 

Atreus (solus). -still she lives ; 

Tis true, in heavy sorrow: so she ought, 

If she offended as I fear she has. 

Her hardships, though, she owes to her own choice. 

I have often offer’d her my useless couch ; 

'‘‘or what is it to me ? I never sleep * 

But for her bed she uses the hard floor. 

My table is spread for her; I never eat: 

And she’ll take nothing but what feeds her grief. 

Philisthenes, the Son of Thyestes, at a 
stolen interview with Antigone, the daugh¬ 
ter of Atreus, is surprised by the King's 
Spies: upon which misfortune Antigone 
swoonirtg, is found by Peneus. 

Antigone. Peneus, an ancient retainer to 
the Court of Mycenae. 

reneus. Ha ! what is she that sleeps in open air ? 
Indeed the place is far from any path. 

But what conducts to melancholy thoughts ; 

But those are beaten roads about this Court. 

Her habit calls her, Noble Grecian Maid ; 

But her sleep says, she is a stranger here. 

All birds of night build in this Court, but Sleep , 

And Sleep Is here made wild with loud complaints 
And flies away from all. 1 wonder how 
This maid has brought it to her lure so tame. 

Antigone , (waking from her swoon). Oh my Phil.s- 
tlienes! 

reneus. She wakes to moan; 

Aye, that’s the proper language of this place! 

Antigone. My dear, my poor Philisthenes I 
I know’tis sol oh horror 1 death 1 hell! oh— 

Peneus. I know her now; ’tis fair Antigone, 

The daughter and the darling of the King. 

This is the lot of all this family.* 

Beauteous Antigone, thou know’st me well; 

am old Peneus, one who threescore years 
.las loved and serv’d thy wretched family. 

Impart thy sorrows to me ; I perhaps 
In my wide circle of experience 
May find some counsel that may do thee good. 
Antigone. O good old man 1 how long have you been 
here ? 

Peneus. I came but now. 

Antigone. O did you see this way 
Poor young Philisthenes? you know him well. 

Peneus. Thy uncle’s son, Thyestes’ eldest son 
Antigone. The same, the same— _ 

• The descendants of Tantalus. 


Peneus. No; all the Gods forbid 
I should meet him sc near thy father’s Court. 

Antigone. O he was here one cursed minute past. 
Peneus. What brought him hither? 

Antigone. Love to wretched me. 

Our warring fathers never ventured more 
For bitter hate than we for innocent love. 

Here but a minute past the dear youth lay, 

Here in this brambly cave lay in my arms ; 

And now he is seized ! O miserable me—( tears her 
hair.) 

Peneus. Why dost thou rend that beauteous orna¬ 
ment ? 

In what has it offended ? hold thy hands 

Antigone. O father, go and plead for the poor youth; 
No one dares speak to the fierce King but you— 
Peneus. And no one near speaks more in vain than I; 
He spurns me from his presence like a dog. 

Antigone. Oh, then— 

Peneus. She faints, she swoons, I frighten’d her, 

Oh I spake indiscretely. Daughter, child, 

Antigone, I’ll go, indeed I’ll go. 

Antigone. There is no help for me in heav’n or earth. 
Peneus. There is, there is; despair not, sorrowful 
maid. 

All will be well. I’m going to the King, 

And will with pow’rful reasons bind his hands; 

And something in me says I shall prevail. 

But to whose care shall I leave thee the while ?— 

For oh 1 1 dare not trust thee to thy grief. 

Antigone. I’ll be disposed of, father, as you please. 
Till I receive the blest or dreadful doom. 

Peneus. Then come, dear daughter, lean upon my 
arm. 

Which old and weak is stronger yet than thine; 

Thy youth hath known more sorrow than my age. 

I never hear of grief, but when I bn here ; 

But one day’s diet here of sighs and tears 
Returns me elder home by many years. 

• Atreus, to entrap his brother Thyestes ; 
who has lived a concealed life, lurking in 
woods, to elude his vengeance ; sends Phi¬ 
listhenes and old Peneus to him with offers 
of reconciliation, and an invitation to Court, 
to be present at the nuptials of Antigone 
with Philisthenes. 

Thyestes. Philisthenes. Peneus . 

Thy. Welcome to my arms, 

My hope, my comfort 1 Time has roil’d about 
Several months since I have seen thy face, 

And in its progress has done wond’rous things. 

Phil. Strange things indeed to chase you to this sad 
Dismal abode ; nay, and to age, I think : 

I see that winter thrusting itself forth 
Long, long before its time, in silver hairs. 

Thy. My fault, my son ; I would be great and high . 
Snow lies in summer on some mountain tops. 

Ah, Son 1 I’m sorry for thy noble youth, 

Thou hast so bad a father; I’m afraid. 

Fortune will quarrel with thee for my sake. 

Thou wilt derive unhappiness from me, 

Like an hereditary ill disease. 


737 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


Phil. Sir, I was born, when you were innocent 
And all the ill you have contracted since. 

You have wrought out by painful penitence ; 

For healthy joy returns to us again; 

Nay, a more vigorous joy than e’er we had. 

Like one recover’d from a sad disease. 

Nature for damage pays him double cost. 

And gives him fairer flesh than e’er he had. 

Thyestes is won from his retirement by 
the joint representations of Pkilisthenes and 
Peneus, of the apparent good faith , and re¬ 
turning kindness of his brother ; and visits 
Myeence :—his confidence ; his returning 
misgivings. 

Thyestes. Pkilisthenes. Peneus. 

Thy. C wondrous pleasure to a banish’d man, 

I feel my loved long look’d-for native soil 

And oh ! my weary eyes, that all the day 

Had from some mountain travell’d toward this place, 

Now rest themselves upon the royal towers 

Of that great palace where I had my birth. 

O sacred towers, sacred in your height, 

Mingling with clouds, the villas of the Gods 
Whither for sacred pleasures they retire. 

Sacred because you are the work of Gods ; 

Your lofty looks boast your divine descent: 

And the proud city which lies at your feet. 

And would give place to nothing but to you. 

Owns her original is short of yours. 

And now a thousand objects more ride fast 
On morning beams, and meet my eyes in throngs; 

And see, all Argos meets me with loud shouts 1 
Phil. O joyful sound ! 

Thy. But with them Atreus too— 

Phil. What ails my father, that he stops, and 
shakes. 

And now retires ? 

Thy. Return with me, my son. 

And old friend Peneus, to the honest beasts. 

And faithful desart, and well-seated caves ; 

Trees shelter man, by whom they often die, 

And never seek revenge : no villainy 
Lies in the prospect of an humble cave. 

Pen. Talk you of villainy, of foes, and 
Thy. I talk of Atreus. 

Pen. What are these to him ? 

Thy. Nearer than I am, for they are himself. 

Pen. Gods drive these impious thoughts out of your 
•mind. 

Thy. The Gods for all our safety put them there.— 
Return, return with me. 

Pen. Against our oaths 
I caunot stem the vengeance of the Gods. 

Thy. Here are no Gods: they’ve left this dire abode. 

/ n. True race of Tantalus ! who parent-like 
e doom’d in midst of plenty to be starved, 
ifis hell and yours differ alone in this 
When he would catch at joys, they fly from him ; 

When glories catch at you, you fly from them. 

Thy. A fit comparison ; our joys and his 
lying shadows, which to trust is hell. 



The day of the pretended Nuptials.-- 
Atreus feigns a returning love for his 
Queen. 

JErope. O this is too much joy for me to bear: 

You build new palaces on broken walls. 

Atreus. Come, let our new-born pleasures breathe 
sweet air; 

This room’s too vile a cabinet for gold. 

Then leave for ever. Love, this doleful place. 

And leave behind thee all thy sorrows here ; 

And dress thyself as this great day requires. 

’Twill be thy daughter’s nuptials; and 1 dreain’d, 

The Sun himself would be asham’d to come, 

Aud be a guest in his old tarnish’d robe ; 

But leave my Court,* to enlighten all the globe — 

Peneus to Atreus, dissuading him from 
his horrid purpose. 

Pen. Fear you not men or Gods? 

Atr. The fear of Gods ne’er came in Pelops’ House 
Pen. Think you there are no Gods ? 

Atr. I find all things 

So false, I am sure of nothing but of wrongs.— 

Atreus. Thyestes. 

A Table, and a Banquet. 

Atr. Come, brother, sit. 

Thy. May not Philisthenes 
Sit with us. Sir ? 

Atr. He waits upon the Bride. 

A deeper bowl. This to the Bridegroom’s health. 

Thy. This to the Gods for this most joyful day.— 
Now to the Bridegroom’s health. 

Atr. This day shall be 
To Argos an eternal festival. 

Thy. Fortune and I to day both try our strengths. 

I have quite tired her left hand Misery ; 

She now relieves it with her right-hand Joy, 

Which she lays on me with her utmost force ; 

But both shall be too weak for my strong spirit. 

Atr. (aside). So, now my engines of delight have 
screw’d 

The monster to the top of arrogance; 

And now he’s ready for his deadly fall. 

Thy. O these extremes of misery and joy 
Measure the vast extent of a man’s soul. 

My spirit reaches Fortune’s East and West. 

She has oft set and ris’n here; yet cannot get 
Out of the vast dominion of my mind.— 

Ho 1 my proud vaunting has a sudden check ; 

See, from my head my crown of roses falls ; 

My hair, tho’ almost drown’d beneath sweet oils. 

With strange and sudden horrors starts upright: 
Something I know not what bi’ds me not eat ; 

And what I have devour’df within me groans ; 

I fain would tear my breast to set it free;— 

And I have catch’d the eager thirst of tears, 

Which all weak spirits have in misery. 

I, who m banishment ne’er wept, weep now. 

* A h-iivt of the dreadful banquet which he meditates, 
at which the Sun is said to have turned away his 
horses. 

+ The mangled limbs of his son Philisthen»s, which 
Atreus has set before him. 


738 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


Atr. Brother, regard it not, ’tis fancy all. 

Misery, like night, is haunted with ill spirits, 

4nd spirits lt«ive not easily their haunts ; 

Tis said, sometimes they’ll impudently stanu 
A flight of beams from the forlorn of day. 

And scorn the crowing of the sprightly cocks 
Brother, ’tis morning with our pleasure yet. 

Nor has the sprightly wine crow’d oft enough. 

See in great flagons at full length it sleeps. 

And lets these melancholy thoughts break in 
Upon our weaker pleasures. Rouse the wine. 

And bid him chase these fancies hence for shame. 

Fill up that reverend unvanquish’d Bowl, 

Who many a giant in his time has fallen. 

And many a monster; Hercules not more. 

Thy. If he descends into my groaning breast. 

Like Hercules, he will descend to hell— 

Atr. And he will vanquish all the monsters there. 
Brother, your courage with this Hero try; 

He o’er our House has reign’d two hundred years. 

And he’s the only king shall rule you here. 

Thy. What ails me, I cannot heave it to my lips i 
Atr. What, is the bowl too heavy ? 

Thy. No; my heart. 

Atr. The wine will lighten it. 

Thy. The wine will not 
Come near my lips. 

Atr. Why should they be so strange ? 

They are near a-kin. 

Thy. A-kin ? 

Atr. As possible ; father and son not nearer. 

Thy. What do you mean ? 

Atr. Does not good wine beget good blood ? 

Thy. ’Tis true. 

Atr. Your lips then and the wine may be a-kin. 

Off with your kindred wine ; leave not a drop 
To die alone, bewilder’d in that bowl. 

Help him to heave it to his head ; that’s well. 

(Thycstes drinks. A clap of thunder. The lights 
go out.) 

Thy. What pond’rous crimes pull heav’n upon our 
heads ? 

Nature is choak’d with some vast villainy. 

And all her face is black. 

Atr. Some lights, some lights. 

Thy. The sky is stunn’d, and reels ’twixt night and 
day; 

Old Chaos is return’d. 

Atr. It is to see 

A young One born, more dreadful than herself; 

That promises great comfort to her age, 

4nd to restore her empire. 

Thy. What do you mean ? 

Atr. Confusion 1 have in thy bowels made. 

Thy. Dire thoughts, like Furies, break into my mind 
With flaming brands, and shew me what he means. 
Where is Philisthenes ? 

Atr. Ask thy own bowels: 

Thou heard’st them groan; perhaps they now will 
speak. 

Thy. Thou hast not, Tyrant— what I dare not ask ? 
Atr. L kill’d thy Son, and thou hast drunk his blood. 

C. L. 


For the Table Booh 

THEATRALIA. 

Tom Durfey 

Once got fifty guineas (according to tra¬ 
dition) for singing a single song to queen 
Anne in ridicule of “ the princess Sophia, 
electress and duchess dowager of Hanover/’ 
(as she is called in the oath of allegiance,) 
naturally no great favourite with the then 
reigning monarch. The only lines of this 
satirical production that have come down 
to us are the following; and, until now 
only the two first of the stanza have been 
preserved by Durfey’s biographers :— 

“ The crown’s far too weighty 
For shoulders of eighty ; 

She could not sustain such a trophy ; 

Her hand, too, already 
Has grown so unsteady 
She can’t hold a sceptre; 

So Providence kept her 

Away.—Poor old Dowager Sophy.” 

“ Merry Tom ” had sung before the king 
in the former reign, and Charles II., as is 
well known, was very fond of his company. 

Listok’s Marriage. 

The following got into circulation just 
after Mr. Liston was united to Miss Tyrer 
but never was published :— 

i.iston has married Fanny Tyrer: 

He must, like all the town, admire her, 

A pretty actress, charming voice 1 
But some, astonish’d at his choice 
Of one, compar’d with him, so small 
She scarcely seem’d a wife at all. 

Express’d their wonder, his reply 
Show’d that he had “ good reason why.”— 

“ We needs must when the devil drives ; 

And since all married men say, wives 
Are of created things the worst, 

I was resolv’d I would be curst 
With one as small as I could get her 
The smaller, as I thought, the better. 

I need not fear to lay my fist on. 

Whene’er ’tis needed, Mrs. Liston: 

And since, * like heathen Jew or Canb, 

I like a rib, but not a spare-rib , 

I got one broad as she is long— 

Go and do better, if I’m wrong.” 

Charles Jennens, Esq. 

One of the most singular characters ol 
his day was Charles Jennens, Esq., a sort 
of literary Bubb Doddington. Being born 
to a good estate, from his boyhood he was 
ridiculously fond of show and pomp, and 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


his style of writing was of a piece with his Surrey theatre. It may be his or it may 
style of living. It has been said, that he not, but whichever way the fact be, it can 
put together the words of Handel’s “ Mes- do him no harm to publish it. The point 
siah:” that he had something to do with is in the Greek Anthology, though we do 
'.hem is true; but he had a secretary of the not suppose that Mr. E. went there for it. 
name of Pooley, a poor clergyman, who 

executed the nrincmal part of the woik,, 1 he best Wine. 


and, till now, has obtained no part of the 
credit. Charles Je^neos, Esq took it into 
his head, (perhaps ,..e _ost rational notion 
he had ever indulged,) t'.iat the majority of 
Shakspeare’s commentators were mere 
twaddling antiquaries, without taste or 
talent; but he adopted an unfortunate way 
of proving it: he himself published an 
edition of Hamlet , Lear , Othello , and one 
or two more tragedies. He was of course 
laughed at for his attempt, and George 
Steevens tried to show a little of the wit, 
for which his friends gave him credit, and 
of the ill-nature for which he deserved it. 
Jennens published a pamphlet in reply, the 
greater part his own writing, which for 
years was his delight and solace: his poor 
secretary used to have the task of reading 
it from beginning to end, whenever his 
patron called for it, on giving an entertain¬ 
ment to his friends. Jennens commented, 
explained, and enforced, as he proceeded. 
In some of the biographical accounts of 
this personage it is asserted gravely, that 
for some time after the appearance of this 
tract he carefully looked over the news¬ 
papers every day, to learn if the success 
and severity of his attack had not com¬ 
pelled l)r. Johnson, Malone, Steevens, or 
Warburton, to hang themselves. This 
depends upon the following epigram, writ¬ 
ten at the time, and now only existing in 
MS., but which obtained a wide circula¬ 
tion, and is attributed, perhaps correctly, 
to Steevens, The only objection to this 
supposition is, that if it had been Steevens’s 
it is strange how his vanity could keep it 
out of the public prints, though after all it 
possesses but little merit:— 


“ After Mister Charles Jennens produc’d his Defence , 
He saw all the papers at Martyr’s, 

To learn if the critioe had had the good sense 
To hang themselves in their own garters. 

He thought they could never out-live it. The sot 
Is ready to hang himself, ’cause they have not." 

When we called Jennens a literary Bubb 
Doddington, we ought to have remembered 
that Doddington had talents, but Jennens 
had none. 

Elliston’s Epigram. 

The following has beeu handed about as 
trora the pen of Mr. Elliston, now of the 


“ What wine do you esteem the first, 

And like above the rest ?” 

Ask’d Tom—said Dick—“ My own is worst. 

My friend’s is always best.” 

Sir John Hill 

Was a Polish knight and an English phy¬ 
sician, more celebrated by Garrick’s epi¬ 
grams than by his own dramatic composi¬ 
tions, consisting of two farces, The Maidens 
Whim and The Rout. He wrote books 
enough on all subjects “ to build his own 
papyral monument,” if the grocers and 
trunk-makers had not committed such 
havoc among them, even before his death. 
That event was produced by taking his 
own remedy for the gout, and it is thus 
commemorated. 

On the Death of Doctor Hill. 

“ Poor Doctor Hill is dead !”—“ Good lack 1 
Of what disorder An attack 
Of gout.’—“ Indeed 1 I thought that he 
Had found a wondrous remedy.”— 

“ Why so he had, and when he tried 
He found it true— the Doctor ilied /’* 


GOUT. \ 

The contest among medical men for the I 
most proper mode of curing this complaint j 
cannot but produce a smile, when we re- j 
collect that the afflicted have recourse to , 
various and opposite remedies with sue- i 
cess. 

We have heard of a man who would find 
his pains alleviated by drinking a wine¬ 
glass full of verjuice, while a table-spoonful 
of wine would torture him almost to dis¬ 
traction. 

There were two counsellors, some years 
ago, who generally cured themselves in a 
very pleasant manner; one, who was ac¬ 
customed to drink water constantly, would 
cure himself by drinking wine ; and the 
other, who invariably took his bottle or 
more of wine a day, was constantly cured 
by the use of water. 

Others, by living on a milk diet only, 
have entirely cured themselves. 

Some years ago there was a man in Italy 
who was particularly successful in the cura 


740 






















THE TABLE BOOK. 


of the gout: his mode was to make his 
patients sweat profusely, by obliging them 
to go up and down stairs, though with 
1 much pain to themselves. 

A quack in France acquired great repu¬ 
tation for the cure of this malady, by the 
use of a medicine he called “ Tincture of 
the Moon,” of which he administered some 
drops every morning in a basin of broth. 
It was never used by any but the richest 
persons; for the price of a bottle full, not 
larger than a common sized smelling bott’e, 
was eighty louis d’ors. Furetiere mentions 
this quack, and says he possessed many 
valuable secrets. He adds, that the sur¬ 
prising cures, to which he was witness, by 
the “ Tincture of the Moon,” astonished all 
the faculty at Paris. The operation of this 
medicine was insensible. 


stories! 

OF THE 

Crabcn Dales. 

No. II* 


He had been in Yorkshire dales. 

Amid the winding scars ; 

Where deep and low the hamlets lie 
Beneath a little patch of sky. 

And little patch of stars.— Wordsworth. 


Thf Legend of the Troleer’s Gill. 

On the steep fell’s height shone the fair moonlight, 
And its beams illum’d the dale. 

And a silvery sheen cloth’d the forest green, 

Which sigh’d to the moaning gale. 

From Burnsal’s tower the midnight hour 
Had toll’d, and its echo was still. 

And the elfin band, from faerie land. 

Was unon Elboton hill. 

’Twas silent all. save the waters’ fall, 

That with never ceasing din. 

Roar and rush, and foam and gush, 

In Loupscar’s troubled linn. 

From his cot he stept, while the household slept,, 
And he carroll’d with boist’rous glee, 

But he ne hied to the green hill’s side. 

The faerie train to see. 

He went not to roam with his own dear ma l 
Along by a pine-clad scar. 

Nor sing a lay to his ladye love, 

’Neath the light of the polar star. 

• For No. I M see the “ Banquet of the Dead.” 


The Trailer, I ween, was a fearless wight 
And, as legends tell, could hear 
The night winds rave, in the Knave Knoll cave,* 
Withouten a sign of fear. 

And whither now are his footsteps bent ? 

And where is the Trailer bound ? 

To the horrid gill of the limestone hill. 

To call on the Spectre Hound! 

And on did he pass, o’er the dew-bent grass, 

While the sweetest perfumes fell. 

From the blossoming of the trees which spring 
.’n the depth of that lonely dell. 

Now before his eyes did the dark gill rise, 

No moon-ray pierced its gloom, 

And his steps around did the waters sound 
Like a voice from a haunted tomb 

And there as he stept, a shuddering crept 
O’er his frame, scarce known to fear, 

For he once did dream, that the sprite of the stream 
Had loudly called— Forbear 1 

An aged yew in the rough cliffs grew, 

A nd under its sombre shade 
Did the Troller rest, and with charms unblest. 

He a magic circle made. 

Then thrice did he turn where the streamers onrn.l 
And thrice did he kiss the ground. 

And with solemn tone, in that gill so lone, 

Ho call’d on the Spectre Hound 1 

And a burning brand he clasp’d in his hand, 

And he nam’d a potent spell, 

That, for Christian ear it were sin to hear, 

And a sin for a bard to tell.J 

And a whirlwind swept by. and stormy grew the sky, 
And the torrent louder roar’d. 

While a hellish flame, o’er the Trailer’s stalwart frame 
From each cleft of the gill was pour’d. 

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring, 

And its wild bark thrill’d around— 

Its eyes had the glow of the fires below— 

’Twas the form of the Spectre Hound ! 

* * * 

When on Rylstonne’s height glow’d the morning light. 
And, borne on the mountain air. 

The Priorie$ bell did the peasants tell 
’Twas the chanting of matin prayer, 

By peasant men, where the horrid glen 
Doth its rugged jaws expand, 

A corse was found, where a dark yew frown’d, 

And marks were imprest on the dead man s breast 
But they seem'd not by mortal hand. 

• * * 


* A cave near Thorp. 

+ The Northern Lights. These beautiful roetev* 
ave been very vivid and frequent of late. 

X These two lines are from a Herman ballad. 

$ Bolton Priorie. 


741 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


,'n the evening calm a funeral ,saim 
Slowly stole o’er the woodland scene— 

The harebells wave on a new-made grave 
In “ Burnsall’s church-yfcid green. * 

That funeral psalm in the vexing calm. 

Which echo’d the dell around. 

Was his, o’er whose grave blue harebells wave. 
Who call’d on the Speu.re Hound ! 


The above balKd is founded on a tra¬ 
dition, very common amongst the moun¬ 
tains of Craver The spectre hound is 
Bargest. Of thrt mysterious personage I 
am able io give i very particular account, 
having only a few days ago seen Billy 

; B-y, who h*d once a full view of it. 

I give the narrative in his own words ; it 
! would detract from its merit to alter the 
! anguage. 

Billy B——’s Adventure. 

1 You see, sir, as how I’d been a clock- 
dressing at Gurston [Grassington], and I’d 
staid rather lat, and may be gitten a lile 
sup o’ spirit, but I war far from being 
drunk, and knowed every thing that passed. 
It war about 11 o’clock when I left, and it 
; war at back end o’t’ year, and a most ad¬ 
mirable [beautiful] neet it war. The moon 
war varra breet, and I nivver seed Ryl- 
stone-fell plainer in a’ my life. Now, you 
: see, sir, I war passin down t’ mill loine, 

! and I heerd summut come past me—brush, 

! brush, brush, wi’ chains rattling a’ the 
| while; but I seed nothing, md thowt I to 
| mysel, now this is a most mortal queer 
thing. And I then stuid still, and luik’d 
about me, but I seed nothing at aw, nobbut 
the two stane wa’s on each side o’t’ mill 
loine. Then I heerd again this brush, 
j brush, brush, wi’ the chains; for you see, 
sir, when I stuid still it stopped ; and then, 
thowt I, this mun be a Bargest, that sae 
vnuch is said about: and I hurried on to¬ 
wards t’ wood brig, for they say as how this 
Bargest cannot cross a waiter; but lord, 
' sir, when I gat o’er t’ brig, I heerd this 
same thing again ; so it mud either hev 
crossed t’ watter, or gane round by V spring 
heed! [About thirty miles!] And then I 
| necam a valliant man, for I war a bit freet- 
en’d afore; and thinks I, I’ll turn and hev 
| a peep at this thing ; so I went up Greet 
i Bank towards Linton, and heerd this brush, 
6rush, brush, wi* the chains a’ the way, 
Dut I seed nothing; then it ceased all of a 
sudden. So I turned back to go hame, but 
I*d hardly reach’d t’ door, when I heerd 


again this brush, brush, brush, and the 
chains going down towards t’ Holin House, 
and I followed it, and the moon there shone 
varra breet, and I seed its tail! Then, 
thowt I, thou owd thing! I can say lse 
seen thee now, so I’ll away hame. When | 
I gat to t’ door, there war a girt thing like 
a sheep, but it war larger, ligging across C 
threshold of t’ door,'and it war woolly I 
like ; and says I, ‘ git up,’ and it wouldnt 
git up—then says I, ‘ stir thysel,’ and it 
wouldn’t stir itsel! And I grew valliant, 
and I rais’d t’ stick to baste it wi’, and then 
it luik’d at me, and sich oies! [eyes] they 
did glower, and war as big as saucers, and 
like a cruelled ball; first there war a red 
ring, then a blue one, then a white one ; 
and these rings grew less and less till they 
cam to a dot ! Now I war nane feer’d on it, 
tho’ it girn’d at me fearfully, and I kept on 
saying ‘ git up,’ and ‘ stir thysel,’ and t’ I 
wife heerd as how I war at t’ door, and she 

# ' I 

cam to oppen it; and then this thing gat 
up and walked off, for it war mare Jeer'd 
o' t ’ wife than it war o’ me ! and I told t’ 
wife, and she said it war Bargest; but I 
nivver seed it since, and that’s a true 
story ! ” 

In the glossary to the Rev. Mr. Carr’s 
“ Horse Momenta Cravenae,” I find the 
following—“ Bargest , a sprite that haunts 
towns and populous places. Belg. birg, 
and geest, a ghost.” I really am not a 
little amused at Mr. Carr’s derivation, 
which is most erroneous. Bargest is not a 
toivn ghost, nor is it a haunter “ of towns 
and populous places for, on-the contrary, 
it is said in general to frequent small vil¬ 
lages and hills. Hence the derivation may 
be berg, Germ, a hill , and geist, a ghost; 
i. e. a hill ghost: but the real derivation 
appears to me to be bar , Germ, a bear , and 
geist , a ghost; i. e. a bear ghost, from its 
appearing in the form of a bear or large 
dog, as Billy B-’s narrative shows.* 

The appearance of the spectre hound is 
said to precede a death; which tradition 
will be more fully illustrated in my next 
legend, “ The Wise Woman of Littondale.” 
Like most other spirits Bargest is supposed 
to be unable to cross a water; and in case 
any of my Craven leaders should ever 
chance to meet with his ghostship, it may 
be as well to say, that unless they give him 
the wall he will tear them to pieces, or 
otherwise illtreat them, as he did one John 
Lambert, who, refusing to let him have the 

* That bears were common in Craven in ancient 
times is evident from one of our villages being called 
Barden, i. e the bear’s den. I consider this circua 
stance in favour of my derivation.—T. Q. M,* 


742 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


wall, was so punished for his want of man¬ 
ners, that he died in a few days. 

This superstition has in one instance been 
productive of good. A few years ago an 
inhabitant of Threshfield kept a huge he- 
goat, which the wags of the village would 
sometimes turn into the lanes, in the night¬ 
time, with a chain about his neck, to 
frighten the farmers on their return from 
Ketllewell market. They once determined 
to terrify a badgei, or miller, as he returned 
from the market, by driving the animal 
with the chains, 8tc. into the lane through 
which the man of meal was to pass. About 
ten o’clock the miller, on entering Thresh¬ 
field with his cart, espies the goat; and 
hearing the chains, overwhelmed with ter¬ 
ror, he conjectures it to be Bargest, that 
was sent to take him away for his dishonest 
dealings; the miller stops his cart, and 
kneeling down in it, thus prayed, to the 
great amusement of the young rogues be¬ 
hind the wall:—“ Good L/jrd, don’t let the 
devil take me this time, and I’ll nevei 
cheat any more; do let me get safe home, 
and I’ll never raise my meal again so extra¬ 
vagantly as I have done of late.” He did 
get safe home, and was as good as his word 
till he discovered the trick, when he returned 
to his old malpractices; exemplifying the 
old epigram— 

“ The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, 

The devil got well, the devil a monk was he.” 

In the second verse of the legend of “ The 
Troller’s Gill,” it is said, 

And the elfin band from faerie land 
Was upon Elboton hill. 

Elboton is the largest of five or six very 
romantic green hills, that seem to have been 
formed by some tremendous convulsion of 
nature, at the foot of that fine chain of fells, 
which extends from Rylstone to Burnsall, 
and is said to have been, from “ time where¬ 
of the memory of man runneth not to the 
contrary,” the haunt of faeries; numbers 
of these pretty little creatures having been 
seen there by several men of honour and 
veracity in this neighbourhood, one of 
whom has hud a faery in his hand ! The 
elfin train has been visible in many parts 
of our district, but I know of no place they 
frequent more than Elboton. One of these 
diminutive beings, called Hob, is reputed 
to be a watchful preserver of the farmer’s 
property, and a most industrious workman. 
At Close-house, near Skipton in Craven, 
Hob used to do as much work in one night 
as twenty human workmen could in the 
same time; and, as I have been informed 
oy an individual, who resided there about 


twenty years ago, Hob was accustomed tc 
house the hay, stack the corn, and chum 
the butter, as well as perform several other 
offices, which tended materially to lessen 
the labour of the husbandman and the 
dairy maid The occupier of Close-house 
at that time, thinking to make Hob some 
return for his kindness and assiduity, laid 
out a new red cloak for him, which so 
offended the good faery, that he ceased his 
labours, and left the place. On the spot 
where the cloak was left, the following 
stanza was found, 

Hob red coat. Hob Ted hood, 

Hob do you no harm, but no more good.* 

Loupscar, alluded to in the third verse, is 
a place in the Wharfe near Burnsall, where 
the river is pent in with rocks, and boils 
along in a confined channel, and then dis¬ 
charges itself into a pool of tremendous 
depth, forming, as Dr. Whitaker says in 
his history, “ a scene more dreadful than 
pleasing.” The channel of the Wharfe is in 
general craggy, and the river abounds with 
similar vortices to Loupscar; the two most 
celebrated of which are the Gastrills above 
Grassington, and the Strid, in Bolton 
woods. The latter will be recognised by 
the poetical reader, as the fatal gulf where 
the Boy of Egremond was drowned, whose 
story Rogers bas versified with such exqui¬ 
site pathos. 

“ The Troller’s Gill” is in Skyram pas¬ 
tures, beyond Appletreewick. 1 visited it 
a few days ago, when the torrent was con. 
sideiably swollen by the recent heavy rains 
amongst the mountains. The roar of the 
water, the terrific grandeur of the over- ! 
hanging crags, and its loneliness, united to 
heighten the terrors of the place. To an 
inhabitant of London, the scene of the 
wolf’s glen, in the Drury version of “ Der 
Ereischiitz,” may give some faint idea of it. 
Dr. Whitaker thought Troller’s Gill “want¬ 
ed the deep horror of Gordale,” near Mai 
ham. There is certainly more sublimity 
and grandeur about Gordale ; but as to 
horror, I think it nothing to “ the Troller’ 
Gill.” This, however, is a matter of taste. 

The last verses allude to the beautifu. 
and ancient custom, still universally preva¬ 
lent throughout our district, of chanting a 
solemn dirge at funerals, till the corpse 
reaches the church-yard gateway. I know 
of nothing more affecting to a stranger than 
to meet, at evening, a funeral train proceed. 
ing along one of our romantic vallies, while 
the neighbouring rocks are resonant with 

* Mr. Story, of Hargrave, has written a beautiful 
Craven fatry tale, called Fitz Harold. 


r - : - 

743 * 


J 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


the loud dirge sung by.- the friends of the 
departed. Long may this custom continue ! 
Too many of our old customs fall into mis¬ 
use by the ridicule thrown on them by 
dissenters, as being popish, &c.; but I am 
happy to say, that in Craven the dissenters 
are great encouragers of funeral dirges. In 
Mrs, Heman’s sacred melody, “ Last Rites,’ 7 
this stanza alludes to the practice 

By the chanted psalm that tills 
Reverently the ancient hills. 

Learn, that from his harvests done, 

Peasants bear a brother on 
To his last repose 1 

Graaington in Craven , T. Q. M. 

Nov. 6, 1827. 


The Second SteRTES of 

! 

WIIIMS AND ODDITIES, 

With Forty Original Designs, 

BY THOMAS HOOD. 

“ What demon bath possessed thee, that thou wilt 
never forsake that impertinent custom of punning; ?” 

Scribkrus. 

If I might be allowed to answer the 
question instead of Mr. Hood, I should 
say, that it is the same demon which pro¬ 
vokes me to rush directly through his new 
volume in preference to half a dozen works, 
which order of time and propriety en¬ 
title to previous notice. This book de¬ 
tains me from my purposes, as a new print 
in a shop-window does a boy on his way 
to school; and, like him, at the risk of 
being found fault with for not minding my 
task, I would talk of the attractive novelty 
to wights of the same humour. It comes 
like good news, which nobody is ignorant 
of, and every body tells to every body, and 
sets business at a stand-still. It puts clean 
out of my head all thought of another en¬ 
graving for the present sheet, though I 
know, good reader, that already “ I owe 
you one'’—perhaps two:—never mind! 
you shall have “ all in good timeif you 
don’t, I’ll give you leave to eat me. With 
such a tender, the most untender will, or 
ought to be, as content as “ the blacks of 
Niger at its infant rill,” seated at their 
“ white bait,'’ the thirty-eighth cut —in Mr. 
Hood’s book, very near “ the end,”-—a very 
inviting one to Shylock-kind of people, 
who have not 

“-seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cook’d, 

And then made free of negro corporations.”—p. ]49, 


Mr. Hood begins—to be modest—with 
pleading guilty to what ’he calls “ some 
verbal misdemeanours,” and then, leaving 
“ his defence to Dean Swift, and the oilier 
great European and oriental /wndits,” puts 
himself upon his country. But by whom 
is he arraigned, save a few highwaymen in 
the “ march of intellect,” who sagely affirm, 
that “ a man who would make a pun would 
pick a pocket !”—a saying devised by some 
wag, to the use and behoof of these dol¬ 
drums, who never hear a good thing, but 
they button up their pockets and features, 
and walk off with nothing about them of 
likeness to humanity but the biforked form. 
For capital likenesses of such persons, turn 
to the story of “ Tim Turpin,” and look 
first, to pay due honour, at the engravings 
of “ the Judges of a-size,” and then at 
“Jurors — not con-jurors.” Portraits of 
this order could not have been drawn by 
any other than a close and accurate observer 
of character. Indeed, that Mr. Hood is 
eminently, qualified in this respect, he has 
before abundantly testified ; especially by 
“ The Progress of Cant,” a print that must 
occupy a distinguished place in a history 
of Character and Caricature, whenever such 
a work shall be written.* In this new 
series of “ Whims and Oddities,” he pre¬ 
sents a sketch, called “ Infant Genius —a 
little boy delighted with having rudely 
traced an uncouth figure; such a “ draw¬ 
ing ” as excites a good mistaken mother 
to declare, “ the little fellow has quite a 
genius, arid will be very clever if he only 
has encouragement—and thus many a 
child’s talent for fine-drawing—which, at 
the tailoring trade, might have secured the 
means of living—has been misencouraged 
to the making up of fifth-rate artists with a 
starvation income. The engraving of the 
“Infant Genius ” illustrates the following 
poem. 

The Progress of Art. 

O happy time !—Art’s early days 1 
When o’er each deed, with sweet self-praise, 
Narcissus-like I hung ! 

When great Rembrandt but little seem d. 

And such old masters all were deem’d 
As nothing to the young! 


• A “ History of the Art of Caricaturing, by J. f 
Malcolm, h .S.A., 1813,” 4to., is by no means wnat iU 
title purports. Mr. Malcolm was a very worthy man. 
and a diligent comniler of facts on other subjects ; but, 
in the work alluded to, he utterly failed, from want ol 
knowledge and discrimination. He confounds charac 
ter with caricature, and was otherwise inadequate to 
the task he undertook. 


744 










THE TABLE BOOK, 


Some scratchy strok ps— abrupt and few 
So easily and swift I drew. 

Suffic’d for my design ; 

My sketchy, superficial hand. 

Drew solids at a dash—and spann’d 
A surface with a line. 

Not long my eye was thus content 
But grew more critical—my bent 
Essay’d a higher walk ; 

I copied leaden eyes in lead— 
Rhuematic hands in white and red, 

And gouty feet—in chalk. 

Anon my studious art for days 
Kept making faces—happy phrase. 

For faces such as mine ! 

Accomplish’d in the details then 
1 left the minor parts of men. 

And drew the form divine. 


6ut colours came!—like morning light. 
With gorgeous hues displacing night. 

Or spring’s enliven'd scene: 

At once the sable shades withdrew ; 

My skies got very, very blue; 

My trees extremely green. 

And wash’d t>y my cosmetic brush, 

How beauty’s cheek began to blush ; 

With locks of auburn stain— 

(Not Goldsmith’s Auburn)—nut-brown bair, 
That made her loveliest of the fair ; 

Not “ loveliest of the plain !*’ 

Her lips were of vermilion hue ; 

Love in her eyes, and Prussian bine, 

Set all my heart in flame !— 

A young Pygmalion, I adored 
The maids 1 made—but time was stor’d 
With evil—and it came l 


Old gods and heroes—Trojan—Greek, 
Figures—long after the antique, 

Great Ajax justly fear’d ; 

Heotors of whom at night I dreamt, 

And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt 
Bird-nesters to his beard. 

A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, 

A Pallas, that outstar’d her owl, 

A Vulcan—very lame ; 

A Dian stuck about with stars. 

With my right hand 1 uiui 
(One Williams did the same.) 

But tir’d of this dry work at last, 
Crayon and chalk aside I cast, 

And gave my brush a drink 1 
Dipping—“ as when a painter dips 
In gloom of earthquake and eclipse — 
That is—in Indian ink. 

Oh then, what black Mont Blancs arose. 
Crested with soot, and not with snows ; 

What clouds of dingy hue I 
In spite of what the bard has penn’tJ, 
l fear the distance did not “ lend 
Enchantment to the view.” 

Not Radcliffe’s brush did e’er design 
Black Forests, half so black as mine, 

Or lakes so like a pall; 

The Chinese cake dispers’d a ray 
Of darkness, like the light of Day 
And Martin over all. 

Yet urchin pride sustain'd me still, 

1 gaz’d on ail wiih right good-will, 

And spread the dingy tint; 

“ No ho’y Luke helped me to paint. 

The Devil surely, not a saint. 

Had any finger in’t f* 


Perspective dawn’d—and soon I saw 
My houses stand against its law ; 

And “ keeping” all unkept 1 
My beauties were no longer things 
For love and fond imaginings ; 

But horrors to be wept 1 

Ah ! why did knowledge ope my eyes 
Why did I get more artist-wise f 
It only serves to hint, 

What grave defects and wants are mine; 

That I’m no Hilton in design— 

In nature no Dewint! 

Thrice happy time !—Art’s early days 1 
When o’er each deed with sweet self-praise, 
Narcissus-like I hung I 
When great Rembrandt but little seem’d, 

And such old masters all were deem’d 
As nothing to the young 1 

In verification of the old saying, u Once ' 
a man, twice a child,” Mr. Hood tells Oi 
“ A School for Adults,”—and gives a pic¬ 
ture of aged men, baldheaded and wigged, 
whose education had been neglected, study¬ 
ing their A, B, C. A letter from one ot 
them at a preparatory school is exceedingly 
amusing. The article is preceded by a 
dramatic scene. 

Servant. Hew well yon saw 
Yonr father to school to-day, knowing how apt 
He is to play the truant. 

Son. But is he not 

et gone to school ? 

Servant. Stand by, and yon shall see. 

Enter three old men , with satchels, singing. 

All three. Domine, domine, duster. 

Three knaves in a cluster. 

Son. O this is gallant pastime. Nay, come m 
Is ‘'his your school ? was that vour lessen, ha ? 


745 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


itt Old Man. Pray, now, good son, indeed, indeed— 

Son. Indeed 

You shall to school. Away with him; and take 
l'heir wagships with him, the whole cluster of them. 

2 d Old Man. You shan’t send us, now, so you shan’t— 

3d Old Man. We be none of your father, so we be’nt.— 
Son. 

Away with ’em, I say ; and tell their school-mistress 
What truants they are, and bid her pay ’em soundly. 

All three. Oh ! oh ! oh ! 

Lady. Alas ! will nobody beg pardon for 
The poor old boys ? 

Traveller. Do men of such fair years here go to school ? 

Native. They would die dunces else 
These were great scholars in their youth; but when 
Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes, 

And so decays, that, if they live until 
Threescore, their sons send ’em to school again; 

They’d die as speechless else as new-born children. 

Traveller. ’Tis a wise nation, and the piety 
Of the young men most rare and commendable : 

Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to beg 
Their liberty this day. 

Son. ’Tis granted. 

Hold up your heads; and thank the gentleman. 

Like scholars, with your heels now. 

Ail three. Gratias ! gratias! gratias ! [ Exit, singing.] 
“ The Antipodes,” by R. Drome. 

No reader of the first series of the 
“ Whims and Oddities’' can have forgotten 
“ The Spoiled Chdd ” of “ My Aunt Sha¬ 
kerly,’' or the unhappy lady herself; and 
now we are informed that “ towards the 
close of her life, my aunt Shakerly increased 
rapidly in bulk: she kept adding growth 
unto her growth, 

“ Giving a sum of mo-re to that which had too much,” 

till the result was worthy of a Smithfield 
premium. It was not the triumph, how¬ 
ever, of any systematic diet for the promo¬ 
tion of fat,—(except oyster-eating there is 
; no human system of s/aW-feeding,)—on the 
contrary, she lived abstemiously, diluting 
| her food with pickle-acids, and keeping 
frequent fasts in order to reduce her com¬ 
pass ; but they failed of this desirable 
effect. Nature had planned an original 
tendency in her organization that was not 
to be overcome :—she would have fattened 
on sour krout. 

'* My uncle, on the other hand, decreased 
daily; originally a little man, he became 
lean, shrunken, wizened. There was a pre¬ 
disposition in his constitution that made 
him spare, and kept him so:—he would 
have fallen off even on brewer's grains. 

“ It was the common joke of the neigh¬ 
bourhood to designate my aunt, my uncle, 
and the infant Shakerly, as ‘ Wholesale, 
Retail, and For Exportation;' and, in 
truth, they were not inapt impersonations 


of that popular inscription,—my aunt a 
giantess, my uncle a pigmy, and the child 
being ‘ carried abroad.’ ”—This is the com¬ 
mencement of an article entitled “ The 
Decline of Mrs. Shakerly.” 

A story of ‘‘ the Absentee,” and of the 
“ absent tea,” on a friend's visit to him, is 
painfully whimsical. Akin to it is an en¬ 
graving of a person who had retired to rest 
coming down stairs in his shirt, and shorts, 
and great alarm, with a chamber-light in 
his hand, and the top of his nightcap in a 
smothering blaze, exclaiming 

“ Don't you smell Fire ?" 

Run !—run for St. Clement’s engine ! 

For the pawnbroker’s all in a blaze. 

And the pledges are frying and singing— 

Oh I how the poor pawners will craze I 
Now where can the turncock be drinking ? 

Was there ever so thirsty an elf?— 

But he still may tope on, for I’m thinking 
That the plugs are as dry as himself. 

The engines!—I hear them come rumbling : 

There’s the Phoenix ’ the Globe I and the Su* I 
What a row there will be, and a grumbling. 

When the water don’t start for a run ! 

See! there they come racing and tearing. 

All the street with loud voices is fill’d ; 

Oh ! it’s only the firemen a-swearing 
At a man they’ve run over and kill’d ! 

How sweetly the sparks fly away now. 

And twinkle like stars in the sky ; 

It’s a wonder the engines don’t play now 
But I never saw water so shy ! 

Why there isn’t enough for a snipe, 

And the fire it is fiercer, alas I 
Oh ! instead of the New River pipe, 

They have gone—that they have—to the gas! 

Only look at the poor little P-’s 

On the roof—is there any thing sadder ? 

My dears, keep fast hold, if you please. 

And they won’t be an hour with the ladder I 
But if any one’s hot in their feet. 

And in very great haste to be sav’d, 

Here’s a nice easy bit in the street. 

That M‘Adam has lately unpav’d! 

There is some one—I see a dark shape 
At that window, the hottest of ail,— 

My good woman, why don’t you escape ? 

Never think of your bonnet and shawl: 

If your dress ls’nt perfect, what is it 
For once in a way to your hurt ? 

When your husband is paying a visit 
There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirtl 

Only see how she throws out her chaney ! 

Her basins, and teapots, and all 
The most brittle of her goods—or any. 

But they all break in breaiung their fall: 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Snch things are not surely the best 
From a two-story window to throw— 

She might save a good iron bound chest. 

For (here’s plenty of people below ! 

O dear 1 what a beautiful flash ! 

How it shone thio’ the window and door • 

We shall soon hear a scream and a crash, 

When the woman falls thro’ with the floor 
There 1 there ! what a volley of name. 

And then suddenly all is obscur’d!— 

Well—I’m glad in my heart that I came ;— 

■ But I hope the poor man is insur’d ! 

There are ballads in the “ New Series ” 
that rival “ Sally Brown and Ben the Car¬ 
penter” in the former volume. Of this class 
are “ Mary’s Ghost;” the story of “ Tim 
Turpin,” mentioned before; and another of 
“ Jack Hall,” showing, how Jack was an 
undertaker’s mute—how Jack sometimes 
drove the hearse—how Jack was in league 
with resurrection-men, and stole the bodies 
he buried—how Death met Jack in St. 
Pancras burying-ground, and shook hands 
with him—how Death invited Jack home 
to supper—how Jack preferred going to 
the Cheshire Cheese, and Death didn’t— 
how Jack was brought to Death’s door, 
and what he saw there—how Jack was 
' obliged to go in, and Death introduced him 
to his friends as “ Mr. Hall the body- 
snatcher”—how Jack got off without bid¬ 
ding them good night—how Jack was in¬ 
disposed—how twelve doctors came to visit 
Jack without taking fees—how Jack got 
worse, and how he confessed he had sold 
his own body twelve different times to the 
twelve doctors—how the twelve doctors did 
not know Jack was so bad—how the twelve 
doctors disputed in Jack’s room which 
should have his body till twelve o’clock— 
how Jack then departed, the twelve doctors 
couldn’t tell how— and how, as Jack’s body 
could not be found, the twelve doctors de¬ 
parted, and not one of them was satisfied. 

In the forementioned ballads there are 
many “ verbal misdemeanours,” at which 
the author cautiously hints in his preface 
with some tokens of deprecation :—“ Let 
me suggest,” he says, “ that a pun is some¬ 
what like a cherry : though there may be a 
slight outward indication of partition—of 
duplicity of meaning—yet no gentleman 
need make two bites at it against his own 
pleasure. To accommodate certain readers, 
notwithstanding, I have refrained from 
putting the majority in italics.” He is 
equally sinful and considerate in his prose: 
as, for instance, in the following character, 
which fairly claims a place with those of 
bishop Earle, sir Thomas Overbury, and 
even Butler. 


“A Ballad Sinc-lr 

Is a town-crier for the advertising of lost j 
tunes. Hunger hath made him a wind in¬ 
strument ; his want is vocal, and not he. 
His voice had gone a-begging before he 
took it up and applied it to the same trade 
it was too strong to hawk mackerel, bu. 
was just soft enough for Robin Adair. His 
business is to make popular songs unpopu- 
^ ar »—he gives the air, like a weathercock, 
with many variations. As for a key, he has I 
but one—a latch-key—for all manner of 
tunes; and as they are to pass current ! 
amongst the lower sorts of people, he 
makes his notes like a country banker’s, as 
thick as he can. His tones have a copper 
sound, for he sounds for copper; and for 
the musical divisions he hath no regard, but 
sings on, like a kettle, without taking any 
heed of the bars. Before beginning he 
clears his pipe with gin; and he is always 
hoarse from the thorough draft in his throat. 
He hath but one shake, and that is in win¬ 
ter. His voice sounds fiat, from flatulence ; 
and he fetches breath, like a drowning 
kitten, whenever he can. Notwithstanding 
all this his music gains ground, for it walks 
with him from end to end of the street. 

“ He is your only performer that requires 
not many entreaties for a song; for he will 
chant, without asking, to a street cur or a 
parish post. His only backwardness is to 
a stave after dinner, seeing that he never 
dines; for he sings for bread, and though 
corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. 
As for his country, he is an Englishman, 
that by his birthright may sing whether he 
can or not. To conclude, he is reckoned 
passable in the city, but is not so good off 
the stones.” 

An incurable joker subjects himself to the 
inconvenience of not being believed, though 
he speak the truth; and therefore the fol¬ 
lowing declaration of the author of “ Whims 
and Oddities” is questionable. He says :— 

tl A Mad Dog 

Is none of my bugbears. Of the bite of 
dogs, large ones especially, I have a rea¬ 
sonable dread ; but as to any participation 
in the canine frenzy, I am somewhat scep¬ 
tical. The notion savours of the same 
fanciful superstition that invested the sub¬ 
jects of Dr. Jenner with a pair of horns 
Such was affirmed to be the effect of the 
vaccine matter—and I shall believe what 
I have heard of the canine virus, when ] 
see a rabid gentleman, or gentlewoman, 
with flap ears, dew-claws, and a brush- 
tail !- 


747 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


“ I put no faith in the vulgar stories of 
human beings betaking themselves, through 
a dog-bite, to dog-habits : and consider the 
smotherings and drownings, that have ori¬ 
ginated in that fancy, as cruel as the murders 
for witchcraft. Are we, for a few yelpings, 
to stifle all the disciples of Loyola—Jesuits* 
bark—or plunge unto death all the conva¬ 
lescents who may take to bark and wine? 

“ As for the hydrophobia, or loathing of 
i water, I have it mildly myself. My head 
' turns invariably at thin washy potations. 
With a dog, indeed, the case is different— 
he is a water-drinker; and when he takes 
to grape-juice, or the stronger cordials, may 
be dangerous. But I have never seen one 
with a bottle—except at his tail. 

I “ There are other dogs who are born to 
haunt the liquid element, to dive and swim 
| —and for such to shun the lake or the pond 
• would look suspicious. A Newfoundlander, 
standing up from a shower at a door-way, 
or a spaniel with a parapluie, might be in¬ 
nocently destroyed, liut when does such 
a cur occur V* 

( Mr. Hood answers the question himself 
by “ hydrophobia” of his own creation, 
namely, an engraving of a dog, on whom 
he makes “ each particular hair to stand an 
end ;” and whom he represents walking 
biped-fashion; *he hath for his shield, as 
Randle Holme would say, an umbrella vert, 
charged with the stick thereof, as a bend or. 

I “ The career of this animal,” says Mr. 
Hood, “ is but a type of his victim’s—sup¬ 
pose some bank clerk. lie was not bitten, 
but only splashed on the hand by the mad 
foam or dog-spray : a recent flea-bite gives 
entrance to the virus, and in less than three 
years it gets possession. Then the tragedy 
begins. The unhappy gentleman first 
j evinces uneasiness at being called on for 
| his New River rates, lie answers the cbl- 
lector snappishly, and when summoned to 
pay for his supply of water, tells the com- 
j missioners, doggedly, that they may cut it 
off. From that time he gets worse. He 
refuses slops—turns up a pug nose at pump 
; water—and at last, on a washing-day, after 
, flying at the laundress, rushes out, ripe for 
! hunting, to the street. A twilight remem¬ 
brance leads him to the house of his intend¬ 
ed. He fastens on her hand—next worries 
his mother—takes a bit apiece out of his 
( brothers and sisters—runs a-muck, ‘ giving 
tongue,’ all through the suburbs — and 
I finally, is smothered by a pair of bed- 
beaters in Moorfields. 

I “ According to popular theory the mis¬ 
chief ends not here. The dog’s master— 
the trainer, the friends, human and canir* 


—the bank clerks—the laundresses—sweet¬ 
heart—mother and sisters—the two bed- 
beaters—all inherit the rabies, and run 
about to bite others.” | 

But, is not this drollery on hydrophobia 
feigned ? Is it not true that a certain boot¬ 
maker receives orders every July from the 
author of “ Whims and Oddities,” for boots 
to reach above the calf, of calf so inordi¬ 
nately stout as to be capable of resisting 
the teeth of a dog, however viciously rabid, 
and with underleathers of winter thickness, 
for the purpose of kicking all dogs withal, j 
in the canicular days ? These queries are not 
urged upon Mr. Ii. with the tongue of scan¬ 
dal ; of that, indeed, he has no fear, for he 
dreads no tongue, but (to use his quota- 1 
tion from Lord Duberly) the “ vermicular 
tongue.” This little exposure of bis pre¬ 
vailing weakness he has provoked, by 
affecting to discredit what his sole shakes 
at every summer. 

The “ New Series of Whims and Oddi¬ 
ties” abounds with drolleries. Its author’s 
“ Forty Designs” are all ludicrous ; and, 
that they have been engraven with fidelity 
there can be little doubt, from his compli¬ 
ment to the engraver. “ My hope persuades 
me,” he says, “ that my illustrations cannot 
have degenerated, so ably have I been 
seconded by Mr. Edward Willis; who, 
like the humane Walter, has befriended my 
offspring in the wood.”* Though the en¬ 
gravings are indescribably expressive, yet 
a few may be hinted at, viz. 

“ Speak up, sir J” a youth on his knees, 
vehemently declaring his love, yet in a 
tone not sufficiently loud, to a female on a 
sofa, who doth “ incline her ear" with a 
trumpet, to assist the auricle. 

“ In and out Pensioners,” exemplifying 
the “ Suaviter in modo ” and “ Fortiter 
in re. 




“ The spare bed,” uncommonly spare. 

“ Why don’t you get up behind ?” ad¬ 
dressed by a donkey-rider—who does not 
sit before—to a boy on the ground. 

“ Banditti,” street minstrels. 

“ Dust O !” Death collecting his dust— 
critically speaking, this might be object¬ 
ed to. 

“ Crane-iologya crane, with its bill 
calliper-wise, speculating on a scull, and 
ascertaining its developements. 

“ A Retrospective Review very literaV 

“ She is all heart;” a very hearty body. 

“ The last visit,;” quacks. 


• This passage is quoted here from kind feeling, and 
friendly wishes, towards the worthy person mentioned 
in it. 


748 

















THE TABLE BOOK 


“ The Angel of Death ;” one of them— 
very fine. 

“ Joiners ; n Vicar and Moses. 

“ Drill and Broadcastnature and art. 

“ lligh-born and Low-born ;” odd dif 
ferences. 

“ Lawk ! I’ve forgot the brandy!” abo¬ 
minably provoking—only look ! 

“ Comparative Physiology” is “ a wan¬ 
dering camel-driver and exhibitor, parad- 
j ; ng, for a few pence, the creature’s outland- 
lish hump, yet burthened himself with a 
bunch of flesh between the shoulders.”— 

“ Oh would some power the giftie gi* «s 
To see oursel’s as others see us 1” 

Mr. Hood’s talents are as versatile as his 
imagination is excursive: and it would be 
difficult to decide, whether he excels in tlie 
ludicrous or the grave. He depicts a 
pathetic scene with infinitely delicate and 
discriminative touches, and his powers are 
1 evidently equal to a high order of poetical 
grandeur. II is “Sally Holt and the Death 
of John Hayloft,” is an exquisite specimen 
of natural feeling. 

“ Nature, unkind to Sally Holt as to 
Dogberry, denied to her that knowledge of 
reading and writing, which comes to some 
by instinct. A strong principle of religion 
j made it a darling point with her to learn to 
read, that she might study in her Bible : 
but in spite of all the help of my cousin, 
and as ardent a desire for learning as ever 
dwelt in scholar, poor Sally never mastered 
j beyond A-B-ab. Her mind, simple as her 
heart, was unequal to any more difficult 
combinations. Writing was worse to her 
than conjuring. My cousin was her ama- 
nuensis : and from the vague, unaccount¬ 
able mistrust of ignorance, the inditer took 
j the pains always to compare the verbal 
! message with the transcript, by counting 
the number of the words. 

“ I would give up all the tender epistles 
uf Mrs. Arthur Brooke, to have read one of 
Sally’s epistles; but they were amatory, 
and therefore kept sacred : for plain as she 
was, Sally Holt had a lover. 

“ There is an unpretending plainness in 
some faces that has its charm —an unaffect- 
j | ed ugliness, a thousand times more bewitch¬ 
ing than those would-be pretty looks that 
neither satisfy the critical sense, nor leave 
the matter of beauty at once to the imagi¬ 
nation. We like better to make a new face 
than to mend an old one. Sally had not 
1 one good feature, except those which John 
Hayloft made for her in his dreams ; and to 
judge from one token, her partial fancy was 
squally answerable for his charms. One 


precious lock—no, not a lock, but rather a 
remnant of very short, very coarse, very 
yellow hair, the clippings of a military crop, 
for John was a corporal—-stood the fore¬ 
most item amongst her treasures. To her 
they were curls, golden, Ilyperian, and, 
cherished long after the parent-head wasi 
laid low, with many more, on the bloody 
plain of Salamanca. 

“ I remember vividly at this moment the 
ecstasy of her grief at the receipt of the j 
fatal news. She was standing near the 
dresser with a dish, just cleaned, in her dex¬ 
ter hand Ninety-nine women in a hundred 
would have dropped the dish. Many would 
have flung themselves after it on the floor; 
but Sally put it up, orderly, on the shelf. 
The fall of John Hayloft could not induce 
the fall of the crockery. She felt the blow 
notwithstanding; and as soon as she had 
emptied her hands, began to give way to 
her emotions in herown manner. Affliction 
vents itself in various modes, with different 
temperaments : some rage, others compose 
themselves like monuments. Some weep, 
some sleep, some prose about death, and 
others poetize on it. Many take to a bottle, 
or to a rqpe. Some go to Margate, or 
Bath. 

“ Sally did nothing of these kinds. She 
neither snivelled, travelled, sickened, mad¬ 
dened, nor ranted, nor canted, nor hung, 
nor fuddled herself—she only rocked her¬ 
self upon the kitchen chair ! 

“ I he action was not adequate to her re¬ 
lief. She got up—took a fresh chair—then 
another—-and another—and another,—till 
she had rocked on all the chairs in the 
kitchen. 

“ The thing was tickling to both sympa 
thies. It was pathetical to behold her grief, 
but ludicrous that she knew no better how 
to grieve. 

“An American might have thought that 
she was in the act of enjoyment, but for an 
intermitting O dear! O dear! Passion 
could not Wring more from her in the way 
of exclamation than the tooth-ache. Her 
lamentations were always the same, even 
in tone. By and by she pulled out the 
hair—the cropped, yellow, stunted, scrubby 
hair; then she fell to rocking—then O dear 1 
O dear f —and then Da Capo. 

“ It was an odd sort of elegy ; and yet, 
simple as it was, I thought it worth a thou¬ 
sand of lord Littelton’s ! 

“‘Heyday, Sally! what is the matter?’ 
was a very natural inquiry from my aunt, 
vdien she came down into the kitchen ; and 
if she did not make it with her tongue, at 

ast it was asked very intelligibly by bet 


74-9 














































THE TABLE BOOK. 


eyes. Now Sally had but one way of ad¬ 
dressing her mistress, and she used it hero. 
It was the same with which she would have 
asked for a holiday, except that the waters 
stood in her eyes. 

“ ‘ If you please, ma’am/ said she, rising 
up from her chair, and dropping her old 
curtsey, ‘ if you please, ma’am, it’s John 
Hayloft is deadand then she began rock¬ 
ing again, as if grief was a baby that wanted 
ing to sleep.”- 

he many “stories of storm-ships and 
haunted vessels, of spectre shallops, and 
supernatural Dutch-doggers — the adven¬ 
tures of Solway sailors, with Mahound in 
his bottomless barges, and the careerings of 


the phantom-ship up and down the Hud¬ 
son,” suggest to Mr. Hood a story entitled 
“ The Demon-Ship.” This he illustrates 
by an engraving called “ The Flymg- 
Dutchman,” representing the aerial ascent 
of a native of the Low Countries, by virtue 
of a reversal of the personal gravity, which, 
particularly in a Hollander, has been com¬ 
monly understood to have a tendency 
downwards. Be this as it may, Mr. Hood s 
tale is illustrated by the tail-piece referred 
to. The story itself commences with * 
highly wrought description of a sea-storm, 
of uncommon merit, which will be the last 
extract from his interesting volume that can 
be ventured, viz.:— 



’Twas off the Wash—the sun went down—the sea look’d black and grim, 


For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim; 
Titanic shades ! enormous gloom !—as if the solid night 
Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light! 

It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, 

With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky ! 

Down went my helm—close reef’d—the tack held freely in my hand— 
With ballast snug—I put about, and scudded for the land. 

Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee—my little boat flew fast, 

But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. 

Lord ! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! 

What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail! 


What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind . 
Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. 
Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, 

But where it sank another rose and gallop’d in its place; 

As black as night—they turn to white, and cast against the cloud 
A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn’d a sailor’s shroud :— 

Still flew my boat; alas ! alas ! her course was nearly run ! 

Behold yon fatal billow rise—ten billows heap’d in one! 

With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast, 

As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last! 

Still on rt came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave ; 

It seem’d as though some cloud had turn’d its hugeness to a wave ! 
Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face— 

I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base 
I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine ! 

Another pulse—and down it rush’d—an avalanche of brine . 

Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home ; 

Tire waters clos’d—and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d beiow the foam! 


750 


















THE TABLE BOOH. 





J¥lr. (Slfttium’d Cigar JBt'ban. 


King Street, Covent Garden. 

Our readers, whom, between ourselves, 
and without flattery, we take to be as social 
| a set of persons as can be, people of an 
impartial humanity, and able to relish 
whatever concerneth a common good, whe- 
:her a child's story or a man’s pinch of 
snuff, (for snuff comes after knowledge,) 
doubtless recollect the famous tale of the 
Barmecide and his imaginary dinner in the 
Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. We hereby 
invite them to an imaginary cigar and cup 
of coffee with us in a spot scarcely less 
oriental—to wit, our friend Gliddon's Divan 
in King-street. Not that our fictitious en¬ 
joyment is to serve them instead of the real 
one. Quite the contrary ; our object being 
to advance the good of all parties,—of our 
readers, inasmuch as they are good fellows 
I in their snuffs,—of our friend, who can 
supply them in a manner different from 
anv bod*' else,—and of ourselves, because 


3 c 


the subject is a pleasant one, and brings us 
all together agreeably. Those who have 
the greatest relish for things real, have also 
the best taste of them in imagination. We 
confess, that for our private eating (for a 
cigar, with coffee, may truly be said to be 
meat and drink to us) we prefer a bower 
with a single friend ; but for public smok¬ 
ing, that is to say, for smoking with a 
greater number of persons, or in a coffee- 
room, especially now that the winter is 
coming on, and people cannot sit in bowers 
without boots, commend us to the warmth, 
and 1 »xury, and conspiracy of comforts, in 
the G-gar Divan. 

In general, the room is occupied by in¬ 
dividuals, or groups of individuals, sitting 
..part at their respective li'tle mahogany 
tables, and smoking, reading, or talking 
w’ith one another in a considerate undet 
tone, in order that nobody may be dis- 


751 

















































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


tuibed. But on the present occasion we 
will have the room to ourselves, and talk as 
*e please. In the East it is common to see 
dirty streets and poor looking houses, and 
on being admitted into the interior of one 
of them, to find yourself in a beautiful 
room, noble with drapery, and splendid 
with fountains and gilded trellices. We do 
not mean to compare King-street with a 
street in Bagdad or Constantinople. We 
j have too much respect for that eminent 
I thoroughfare, clean in general, and classical 
always; where you cannot turn, but you 
meet recollections of the Dry dens and 
Uogarths. The hotel next door to the 
Divan is still the same as in Hogarth’s pic¬ 
ture of the Frosty Morning; and looking 
the other way, you see Dryden coming out 
of Hose Alley to spend his evening at the 
club in Russell-street. But there is mud 
and fog enough this weather to render the 
contrast between i^ny thoroughfare and a 
carpeted interior considerable; and making 
due allowance for the palace of an effendi 
and the premises of a tradesman, a person’s 
surprise would hardly be greater, certainly 
his comfort not so great, in passing from 
the squalidness of a Turkish street into the 
gorgeous but suspicious wealth of the apart¬ 
ment of a pasha, as in slipping out of the 
mud, and dirt, and mist, and cold, and 
shudder, and blinking misery of an out-of- 
door November evening in London, into 
the oriental and carpeted warmth of Mr. 
Gliddon’s Divan. It is pleasant to think, 
what a number of elegant and cheerful 
places lurk behind shops, and in places 
where nobody would expect them. Mr. 
Gliddon’s shop is a very respectable one; 
but nobody would look for the saloon be¬ 
yond it; and it seems in good oriental 
keeping, and a proper sesame, when on 
j touching a door in the wall, you find your¬ 
self in a room like an eastern tent, the 
Jiapery festooned up around you, and views 
exhibited on all sides of mosques, and 
minarets, and palaces rising out of the 
water. 

But here we are inside ourselves. What 
do you think of it ? 

B. This is a tent indeed, exactly as you 
have described it. It seems pitched in the 
middle of the Ganges or Tigris; for most 
of the views are in the midst of water. 

J. Yes; we might fancy ourselves a 
party of British merchants, who had pur¬ 
chased a little island in an Eastern gulf' 
and built themselves a tent on it to smoke 
in. The scenes, though they have a pano¬ 
ramic effect, are really not panoramic daubs. 
This noble edifice on the left, touched in 


that delicate manner with silver, (or is it 
rather not gold ?) unites the reality of arclu- 
tecture built by mortal hands, with the 
fairy lustre of a palace raised by enchant¬ 
ment. One has a mind to sail to it, and 
get an adventure. 

E. And this on the left. What a fine 
sombre effect that mountain with a build¬ 
ing on it has in the background; — how- 
dark yet aerial! You would have a very 
solemn adventure there,—nothing under a 
speaking stone-gentleman, or the loss of 
your right eye. 

O. Well, this snug little corner for me, 
under the bamboos ; two gigantic walking- 
sticks in leaf! A cup of coffee served by 
a pretty Hindoo would do very well here; 
and there is a temple to be religious in, 
when convenient. ’Tis pleasant to have 
all one’s luxuries together. 

T. If there is any fault, it is in the 
scene at the bottom of the room, which is 
perhaps too full of scattered objects. But 
all is remarkably well done; and as the ; 
newspapers have observed, as oriental as 
any thing in the paintings of Daniel or 
Hodges. 

C. Are you sure we are not all Mussul- 
men ? I begin to think I am a Turk 
under the influence of opium, who take 
my tuiban for a hat, and fancy I’m speak¬ 
ing English. We shall have the sultan 
upon us presently. 

L. With old Ibrahim to give us the 
bastinado. I have no fair Persian at hand 
to offer him; and, if I had, wouldn’t do 
it. But here’s - ■ — ; he shall have 

him. 

O. (grinding with uiughter.) What, in 
woman’s clothes, to beguile him, and play 
the lute ? 

L. No; as a fair dealer; no less a pro- I 
digy, especially for a bookseller. You 
should save your head every day by a new 
joke; and we would have another new 
Arabian Nights, or the Adventures of Sul¬ 
tan Mahmoud and the Fair Dealer. Y r ou ■ 
should be Scheherezade turned into a man. I 
Every morning, the prince’s jester should 
say to you, “ Brother Scratch-his-head, if 
you are awake, favour his Majesty with a 
handsome come-off.” 

E. I carmot help thinking we are the 
Calenders, got into the house full of ladies ; 
and that we shall have to repent, and rub 
our faces with ashes, crying out, “ This I 
is the reward of our debauchery : This is 
the reward of taking too many cups of 
coffee : This is the reward of excessive girl 
and tobacco.” 

L. But, alas! in that ease we should 











have the repentance without the lady, 
i which is unfair. No ladies, I believe, are 
admitted here, Mr. Gliddon ? 

| Mr. G. No, sir; it has been often ob¬ 
served to me, by way of hint, that it was 
a pity ladies were not admitted into Eng¬ 
lish coffee-houses, as they are on the con¬ 
tinent; but this is a smoking as well as a 
coffee-room. Ladies do not smoke in Eng¬ 
land, as they do in the East; and then, as 
extremes meet, and the most respectable 
creatures in the world render a place, it 
seems, not respectable, I was to take care 
how I risked my character, and made my 
Divan too comfortable. 

O. And we call ourselves a gallant 
nation! We also go to the theatres to sit 
and hear ourselves complimented on our 
j liberal treatment of women, and suffer 
them all the while to enjoy the standing- 
room ! 

C. Women are best away, after all. We 
should be making love, while they ought to 
be making the coffee. 

L. Women and smoking Would not do 
together, unless we smoked perfumes, and 
saw their eyes through a cloud of fragrance, 
like Venus in her ambrosial mist. This 
room, 1 confess, being full of oriental 
scenes, reminds one of other things oriental 
—of love and a lute. I could very well 
fancy myself Noureddin, sitting here with 
my fair Persian, eating peaches, and send¬ 
ing forth one of the songs of Ilafiz over 
those listening waters. 

J. The next time Mr. Gliddon indulges 
as with a new specimen of his magnifi¬ 
cence, he must give us animate instead of 
inanimate scenes, and treat us with a series 
of subjects out of the Arabian Nights— 
lovers, genii, and elegant festivities. 

Mr. G. Gentlemen, here is a little fes¬ 
tivity at hand, not, I hope, altogether 
; inelegant. Your coffee and cigars are 
ready. 

C. Ah, this is the substantial picturesque. 
I was beginning to long for something 
oriental to eat, elegant or not; an East¬ 
dumpling for instance. 

H. I wonder whether they have any puns 
in the East. 

J. To be sure they have. The elegancies 
of some of their writers consist of a sort 
of serious punning, like the conceits of 
our old prosers; such as, a man was “ de¬ 
serted for his deserts;” or u graceless, 
though full of gracefulness, was his grace, 
and in great disgrace.” 

C. But I mean proper puns; puns 
worthy of a Pundit. 

L. You have it. It is part of their daily 


expenditure. How can there be men and 
not puns ? 

To pun is human; to forgive it, fine. 

//. There’s an instance in Blue Beard; 
in a pun set to music by Kelly; 

Fatima, Fatima, See-limbs here 1 

C. Good. I think I see Kelly, who used 
to stick his arms out, as if he were request¬ 
ing you to see his limbs ; and Mrs. Bland, 
whom he used to sing it to—a proper 
little Fatima. Come ; 1 feel all the beauty 
of the room, now that one is “ having 
something.” This is really very Grand, 
Signior; though to complete us, I think we 
ought to have some Sublime Port. 

Mr. G. Excuse me: whining is not al¬ 
lowed to a true Mussulman. 

C. Some snuff, however. 

Mr. G. The best to be had. 

IV. Take some of mine ; I have cropped 
the flower of the shop. 

J. You sneeze, C. I thought you too 
old a snuff-taker for that. 

C. The air of the water always makes 
me sneeze It’s the Persian gulf here. 

H r . This is a right pinch, friend C. 
I’ll help you at another, as you’ve helped 
me. 

C. Snuff’s a capital thing. I cannot 
help thinking there is something providen¬ 
tial in snuff. If you observe, different re¬ 
freshments come up among nations at dif¬ 
ferent eras of the world. In the Eliza¬ 
bethan age, it was beef-steaks. Then tea 
and coffee came up; and people being 
irritable sometimes, perhaps with the new 
light let in upon them by the growth of 
the press, snuff was sent us to “ support 
uneasy thoughts.” During the Assyiian 
monarchy, cherry-brandy may have been 
the thing. I have no doubt Semiramis took 
it; unless we suppose it too matronly a 
drink for So-Mere-a-Miss. 

(Here the whole Assyrian monarchy is 
run down in a series of puns.) 

H. Gentlemen, we shall make the Tour 
of Babel before we have done. 

L. Talking of the refreshments of dif¬ 
ferent ages, it is curious to see how we 
identify smoking with the Eastern nations; 
whereas it is a very modern thing among 
them, and was taught them from the west 
One wonders what the Turks and Persians 
did before they took to smoking; just as 
the ladies and gentlemen of these nervous 
times wonder how their ancestors existed I 
without tea for breakfast. 

J. Coffee is a modern thing too in the 
East, though the usual accompaniment of 


rj K *) 

7 i)o 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


their tobacco. “ Coffee without Tobacco, ’ 
i quoth the Persian, as our friend’s learned 
placard informs us, “ is like meat without 
salt.”* But coffee is of Eastern growth. 
It is a species of jasmin. I remember, in 
a novel I read once, the heroine was de¬ 
scribed in grand terms, as “ presiding at 
the hysonian altar that is to say, making 
tea. This lady might have asked her lover, 
whether before his hysonian recreation, he 
would not “ orientalize in a cup of jessa¬ 
mine.” 

JF. I met with a little story in a book 
yesterday, which I must tell you, not be¬ 
cause it is quite new or very applicable, 


* A quotation from a prospectus published by Mr. 
Gliddon. As this prospectus is written in the “ style 
social,” and contains some particulars of his establish¬ 
ment, which our article has not. noticed, we lay a few 
passages from it before our readers :— 

41 The recreation of smoking, which was introduced 
into this country in an age of great men, by one of 
the greatest and most accomplished men of that or any 
other age, was for a long time considered an elegance, 
and a mark of good-breeding. Its very success gra¬ 
dually got it an ill name by rendering it too common 
and popular ; and something became necessary to give 
it a new turn in its favour,—to alter the association of 
ideas connected with it, and awaken its natural friends 
to a due sense of its merits. Two circumstances com¬ 
bined to effect this desirable change. One was the 
discovery of a new mode of smoking by means of roll¬ 
ing up the fragrant leaf itself, and making it perform 
the office of its own pipe; the other was the long 
military experience in our late wars, which have ren¬ 
dered us so renowned ; and which, by throwing the 
most gallant of our gentry upon the hasty and humble 
recreations eagerly snatched at by all campaigners, 
opened their eyes to the difference between real and 
imaginary good breeding, and made them see that 
what comforted the heart of man under such grave 
circumstances, must have qualities in it that deserved 
to be rescued from an ill name. Thus arose the cigar, 
and with it a reputation that has been continually in¬ 
creasing. There is no rank in society into which it 
has not made its way, not excepting the very highest. 
If James the First, an uncouth prince, unworthy of his 
clever, though mistaken race, and who hated the gal¬ 
lant introducer of tobacco, did not think it beneath his 
princely indignation to write in abuse of it, George th« 
Fourth, who has unquestionably a better taste for some 
of the best things in the world, has not thought it be¬ 
neath his princely refinement to give the cigar his 
countenance. 

44 The art of smoking is a contemplative art; and 
being naturally allied to other arts meditative, hath 
an attachment to a book and a newspaper. Books 
and newspapers are accordingly found at the Cigar 
Divan; the latter consisting of the principal daily 
papers, and the former of a profuse collection of 
THE MOST ENTERTAINING PERIODICALS. The situation 
of the house is unexceptionable, being at an equal dis¬ 
tance from the city and the west end , and in the imme¬ 
diate neighbourhood of the great theatres. W riters of the 
most opposite parties have conspired to speak in the 
nighest terms of the establishment, on their own per- 
mnal knowledge; and should any authority be wanting 
to induce a reader of this paper to taste all the piquant 
advantages of fragrance, and fine drinks, and warmth, 
and quiet, and literature, which they have done the 
proprietor the honour to expatiate on, he may find it, 
if a man of wit and the town, in the person of Fielding ; 
f a philosopher, in that of Hobbes ; if a divine, in that 
jf Aldrich ; and if a soldier, seaman, patriot, statesman, 

I ir cavalier, in the all-accomplished person of sir Wal- 

j ter Raleigh.”—See also an article in the New Monthly 

j Magazine, for January, 1SH6. 

II _-_-_ 


but because it is Eastern, and made me 
laugh. I don’t know whether it is in the 
jest-books; but I never saw it before. A 
fellow was going home through one of the 
streets of Bagdad with a forbidden bottle 
of wine under his cloak, when the cadi 
stopped him. “ What have you got there, 
fellow ?” The fellow, who had contrived 
to plant himself against a wall, said, “ No¬ 
thing, sir.” “ Put out your hand, sir.” 
The right hand was put out; there was 
nothing in it. “ Your left, sir.” The left 
was put out, equally innocent. “ You see, 
sir,” said the fellow, “ I have nothing.” 
“ Come away from the wall,” said the 
cadi. “ No, sir,” returned he, “ it ivill 
break.” 

H. Good. That is really dramatic. It 
reminds me that I must be off to the play. 

J. And I. 

C. And I. 

O. And I. We’ll make a party of it 
and finish our evening worthily with Shak- 
speare; one of the greatest of men, and 
most good-natured of punsters. 

L. By the by, Mr. Gliddon, your room 
is not so large as in the lithographic print 
they have made of it; but it is more East¬ 
ern and picturesque. 

JF. We’ll have a more faithful print tc 
accompany this conversation, for I am re¬ 
solved to be treacherous for this night only, 
and publish it. It is not a proper specimen 
of what my friends could say ; but it is not 
unlike something of what they do; and 
sociality, on all sides, will make the best 
of it. 


LAURENCE-KIRK SNUFF-BOXES. 

James Sandy, the inventor of these 
pocket-utensils, lived a few years ago at 
Alyth, a town on the river Isla, in Perth¬ 
shire, North Britain. The genius and ec¬ 
centricity of character which distinguished 
him have been rarely surpassed. Deprived 
at an early age of the use of his legs, he 
contrived, by dint of ingenuity, not only 
to pass his time agreeably, but to render 
himself an useful member of society. 

Sandy soon displayed a taste for me¬ 
chanical pursuits; and contrived, as a 
workshop for his operations, a sort of cir¬ 
cular bed, the sides of which being raised 
about eighteen inches above the clothes, 
were employed as a platform for turning- 
lathes, table-vices, and cases for tools of all 
kinds. His talent for practical mechanics 
was universal, lie was skilled in all sorts 
of turning, and constructed several venr 


754 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


curious lathes, as well as clocks and musical 
instruments of every description, which 
were no less admired for the sweetness of 
their tone than the elegance of their work¬ 
manship. He excelled, too, in the con¬ 
struction of optical instruments, and made 
some reflecting telescopes, the specula of 
which were not inferior to those finished 
by the most eminent London artists. He 
likewise suggested some important im¬ 
provements in the machinery for spinning 

I flax; and, as before stated, he was the first 
who made the wooden-jointed snuff-boxes, 
generally called Laurence-Kirk boxes, some 
of which, fabricated by this self-taught ar¬ 
tist, were purchased and sent as presents 
to the royal family. 

I To his other endowments he added an 
accurate knowledge of drawing and en¬ 
graving, and in both these arts produced 
specimens of great merit. 

I For upwards of fifty years Sandy quitted 
his bed only three times, and on these oc¬ 
casions his house was either inundated with 
water, or threatened with danger from fire. 
His unbounded curiosity prompted him to 
hatch different kinds of birds’ eggs by the 
natural warmth of his body, and he reared 
his various broods with all the tenderness 
of a parent. On visiting him it was no 
unusual thing to see singing birds of differ¬ 
ent species, to which he may be said to 
have given birth, perched on his head, and 
warbling the artificial notes he had taught 
them. 

Naturally possessed of a good constitu¬ 
tion, and an active, cheerful turn of mind, 
his house was the general coffee-room of 
the village, where the affairs of church and 
state were freely discussed. In conse¬ 
quence of long confinement his countenance 
had rather a sickly cast, but it was remark¬ 
ably expressive, particularly when he was 
surrounded by his country friends. This 
singular man had acquired by his ingenuity 
and industry an honourable independence, 
and died possessed of considerable pro¬ 
perty. About three weeks before his death 
he married. 


INN-YARDS. 

For the Table Book. 

It was a November morning—sullen and 
lowering. A dense fog left the houses but 
half distinguishable on either side the way, 
as I passed through Holborn to the Sara¬ 
cen’s Head, Snow-hill, where I had taken 
my place the preceding evening in the- 


coach, in order to pay a long-promised visit 

to my friend and schoolfellow T-. My 

feelings were any thing but enviable. They 
were in a state of seasonable and almost 
intolerable irritation, resulting from all suc¬ 
cessive evils of a shivering and early resig¬ 
nation of enveloping bed-clothes, a hurried 
dressing, (productive of an utter failure in 
the arrangement of the bow of my neck¬ 
cloth,) a trembling hand that caused a gash 
in my chin with a blunt razor, (all my 
others had been officiously packed up by 
Mrs. Sally,) a breakfast swallowed stand¬ 
ing, (which I abominate, as it stands to 
reason it must be unwholesome,) tea that 
seemed “ as if it never would grow cool,” 
though poured out in the saucer, and sun¬ 
dry admonitory twitchings of the bit of 
court-plaster on my sliced chin, threaten¬ 
ing the total discomfiture of my habilimen¬ 
tary economy. All these things tended but 
little towards rendering my frame of mind 
peculiarly equable, while hurrying forward 
towards the point of destination, gulping 
down fresh (no not fresh) mouthfuls of the 
thick yellow atmosphere, at each extorted 
exclamation of disgust and impatience. 

At last I arrived in the inn-yard, fully 
prepared for an expected look of surprise, 
and accompanying exclamation of—“ The 

—-coach, sir! why, Lord bless you, 

sir, it’s off long ago ; it leaves here at seven 
precisely, and it’s now nearly half past.” 
Conceive then what was my agreeable 
astonishment when I learned that the real 
time was only half past six ! I found that, 
owing to my anxious fears lest I should be 
too late, I had neglected to perceive that 
my watch had gained half an hour in the 
course of the night; and the shame I now 
felt at having thus suffered my irritability to 
get the better of me, led me to reflect upon 
the patient gentleness of the mild and 
amiable Fanny, (my friend’s wife,) who is 
indeed a perfect specimen of a delightful 
woman. In her are joined those two qua¬ 
lities so rarely united (yet, which, when 
they are so, form a gem)—a truly feminine 
and gentle heart, and a strong and well- 
informed mind. It is truly delightful to 
see her blend the domestic duties of a 
housewife, (the fulfilment of which is ever 
graceful in a female,) and the affectionate 
attentions of a mother and wife, with lite¬ 
rary information and attainments. 

I was called off' from this pleasing sub¬ 
ject of reflection by a view of the scene 
before me. The coach, a handsome, well- 
built vehicle, stood on one side of the yard 
in all the brilliancy of a highly-varnished 
claret ground, and btrnishe 


755 


















THE TABLE BOOK. 


The four beautiful, spirited animals belong¬ 
ing to it, with their glossy' bright skins 
covered with cloths till the moment of 
“ putting to,” were then led forth by a fel¬ 
low in corduroy breeches, laying in massive 
rolls on his large muscular limbs, and ter¬ 
minating in a pair of dull and never-shining 
top-boots—a waistcoat which had been of 
red plush, spotted with black; but the 
glories of its gules and sable were well 
nigh effaced by the long line of successive 
cross-quarterings of grease and mud—a 
face hard and liny, that looked impenetra» 
ble, and certainly conveyed no idea to my 
mind of a “ Robin Ostler,” who “ never 
joy’d since the price of oats rose,” much 
less could it have ever been “ the death of 
him.” He came forward with that slouch¬ 
ing gait and hoarse rasping voice, so well 
personified by the admirable and all-ob¬ 
serving Matthews. 

Then the coachman appeared—well but¬ 
toned up to the throat in an enormous box- 
! coat of a whitish drab colour, fastened with 
immense mother-o’-pearl buttons—a yellow 
silk handkerchief round his neck, reaching 
lust under the nether lip, and covering the 
tips of his ears—a hat with brims, like the 
walls of Babylon—and an air of affected 
nonchalance , which tells you, that you are 
expected to look upon him in a very dif¬ 
ferent light from the attentive “ coachee ” 
of some few years back. He is now a 
complete fine gentleman ; for as the gen¬ 
tleman affects the coachman, why should 
not the coachman affect the gentleman ? 
They are now not to be known apart. 

! The “ luggage” is then brought forth and 
“ loaded”—and all the passengers installed 
in their different places. The last direc¬ 
tions are given. “ More last words,” and 
a paper of biscuits is handed in at the 
coach-window to the little boy who is going 

to -, under the special care of the 

coachman, and, as his mamma delightedly 
observes, is already become a favourite 
with the “ kind-looking lady ” opposite to 
him. The small parcel “ to be left at Mr. 
K—>’s at the small white cottage” is snugly 
slipt into the coach-pocket—and the final 
“all right” is given from the impatient 
passengers “ behind.” How different is 
the quiet and orderly manner in which a 
vehicle is thus despatched to go hundreds 
of miles, from the dire bustle and utter 
“ confusion of tongues” attendant upon the 

departure of a French diligence.- 

Imagine a spacious yard, paved with 
stones shaped like enormous “ sugared al¬ 
monds,” jutting out in all directions to the 
utter annoyance of the five poor animals, 


or rather skeletons, in rope harness, which 
are about to be yoked to an uncouth ma- ! 
chine, looking the complete antipodes of 
rapidity of motion—of a colour perfectly 
indescribable, but something approaching 
to a dingy red, intermixed with a rusty, 
dusty black—straw peeping out in every 
direction; whether from roof, or sides, or ( 
entangled among the broken, rickety steps, 
which project in awful forewarning of 
grazed shins and sprained ancles. The 
Conducteur in his dark blue jacket turned 
up with scarlet—leather breeches shining 
with the perpetual friction of the saddle— 
boots, like brewing vats—a hat, very nearly 
a “ perfect cone,” with a rim, set in the 
middle of a regular copse-wood of coal 
black hair, surmounting a face whose dark 
complexion, fiercely sparkling eyes, and , 
stiff' mustachios, help to give force to the 
excessive tension of muscle in his counte- : 
nance, which is actually convulsed with ire, 
as he sends forth volleys of nacres and mor- 
bleus at the maudit entete on the roof, who 
persists in loading the different articles in ! 
exact opposition to all the passionate re- 1 
monstrances and directions of poor Mon¬ 
sieur la Conducteur. Femmes de chambres 
shrieking at the very top of their voices— 

“ Garqons of fifty ” equally vociferous in ! 
bawling “ On vient ! on vient /” though no ! 
one calls— Commissionaires insisting upon 
the necessity of passports to incredulous 
Englishmen, with an incessant “ Mats que 
diuble done , Monsieur /”—Hordes of beggars 
shouting forth their humble petitions of 
“ Pour rumour du bon Dieu un petit Hard , 
Monsieur." “ Ah ! Seigneur , qu est-ce que 
j'ai J'ait de mes clefs /” screams the land- j 
lady. “ Sacrd nom de tonnerre ! tais-toi, ' 1 
done," growls the landlord, in a voice like 
the thunder he invokes. 

At last the ponderous vehicle is set in 1 
motion amid the deafening clamour of the 
surrounding group, and the hideous, un¬ 
relentingly, eternal cracking of the Con¬ 
ducteur's detested fouet l 

M. H. 


For the Table Book. 

THE TURNPIKE MAN. 

“ Good and bad of all sorts.” 

As the “ Commissioners” rely on the 
trust reposed in the “ Pikeman,” I imagine 
him to be worthy of being shown in the j 
most favourable colours. Like a good 
sexton, he must attend to his toll—like a 1 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


salesman, know his head of cattle—like a 
lottery prize-seeker, be acquainted with his 
number —like Fielding’s Minos, in his 
“ Journey from this world to the next,” 

! s,mt llis g ut e against those who are brought 
up improperly to the bar. A modern Gil¬ 
pin should scarcely risk a ride unwittingly 
through his demesne. 

In the “ dead waste and middle of the 
night/ when sleep steals over him wearily, 
how many calls of the coachman, the chaise 
driver, the stanhope gentleman, the impor¬ 
tant bagman, and the drover, is he obliged 
I to obey! The imperative “Pike!” — 
“Gate!”—“Ilallo!”—are like so many 
| knells rung in his ear. The clock is a 
friend to most men in the various occu¬ 
pations of life; the shadow on the grass 
warns the shepherd and hind to retire to 
rest; the dial gives the gardener leave 
to quit his vegetable and floral world in 
J safety till the succeeding morning; but the 
j pikernan finds no solace in the instructive 
progress of his Dutch-clock, or in the more 
highly favoured one with a window before its 
pulselike-pendulum, (as the person with a 
window in his breast,) or in the weather 
betokening “ man and woman,” who, like 
an unhappy couple, never go out together. 

Who that has looked upon the pikeman’s 
contracted span—his little white-painted* 
hut, like a showman’s figured canvass—but 
shrewdly guesses that the best portions of 
his sunside of comforts are on the outside? 
What a Jack in the Box !* He seems in 
his room like a singing-bird in a cage. His 
cat and dog are his companions, save when 
the newsman, postman, or any man, in 
short, arrives. Munden’s “ Crack” is not 
to be seen at every turnpike gate. A mag¬ 
pie, or blackbird, often hangs and whistles, 
like himself, in stationary captivity. Yet 
he is a man of some information. The 
waggoner, the duellist, the huckster, and 
the Gretna folks, in pursuit of romantic 
j happiness, sometimes make him useful. 
iThe horse patrol consults him in the way 
of business; few fights occur without his 
I knowledge; and even the political ex- 
■ press gives him broad hints as to the secret 
operations of his majesty’s ministers. He 
is completely an fait in all common con¬ 
cerns in his vicinity—a local “ finger-post.” 

Occasionally, I have seen a chubfaced, 
curly-headed child playing near his “ box” 
on the roadside, like idleness in ease, with 
rushes and flags round its brow, enjoying 


* The original “ Jack in the Box,” with the nutmeg- 
grater at the bottom, has disappeared with its contem¬ 
porary, the “ Horn Alphabet.” to the no small loss of 
nil good young people. 

IL___ 


the luxuries of fancied greatness, and twist¬ 
ing leaves and weeds together — emblems 
of our varied and united virtues. And 
I have beheld a pikeman's housewife (if 
her dwelling may be called a house) busily 
employed within her narrow sphere to 
“ k eep things straight,” and “ make both 
ends^ meet,” with an understanding, that 
“ all’s well that ends well.”* And 1 
have observed her lovely child, kneeling 
before its mother on a stool, with its palms 
pressed together, in the grateful attitude of 
an acknowledged beneficent Providence. 

1 once knew an upright and a civil pike- 
man. He had seen better days.—One of 
the beauties of education is, that it distin¬ 
guishes a man, however he is placed.— He 
was planed down, as a carpenter luigli* 
say, from the knots of pride, to smooth 
humanity. To use a beautiful, though 
much quoted, apostrophe by Avon’s bard, 
“ I shall not look upon his like again !” 
All good characters give useful example: 
—they teach as they live, and win inferiors 
in virtue by the brightness anc. placiditv of 
their decline and fall 

There is a difference between a Tyburn- 
gate official, and a promiscuous sojourner, 
who guards the pass of a new, lone road, 
through which scarcely a roadster trots. 
The cockney keeper of cockney riders, is 
rarely without “ short cut” and the “ ready ” j 
in word and deed. In his short-pocketed 
white apron he stands defiance, and seems 
to say, “ Who cares ?” His knowing wink 
to the elastic arm of the coachee, which in-' 
dicates the “ all right!” has much meaning 
in it. His twirl of the sixpence on his 
thumb nail, and rattle of “coppers’’for 
“ small change,” prove his knowledge of 
exchange and the world. i 

The pikernan out of town is allowed a 
scrap of garden-ground, which he sedu¬ 
lously cultivates. In town, he has not the 
liberty of a back door—to be acquainted 
with his boundaries, you need only look at 
the “ Farthing pie gate” for an example.! 
He may be sometimes seen in a chair, in 
front of his domicile, making remarks on; 
“men and manners.” His name hangs on 
a thread over his door: if he is an honest 
man, equestrians w ill appreciate his merits, 
and do well if they imitate his philosophy, 

J. R. P. 


* Contented in my little house, 

On every call 1 wait 
To take the toll • to ope and shut 
The five-barr’d turnpike i?ate. 

Rustic Fbiek* 



































Robert (Ssq. of £>rarI)t>rougl). 


This portrait, copied from a picture at 
Scarborough by Mr. Baynes, jun. and not 
before engraven, is of a very worthy per¬ 
son, whose eccentricities in well doing ren¬ 
dered him in some degree remarkable. Mr. 
Robert North, whom it represents, was born 
at that place, of which his father was vicar, 
on the second of November, 1702. His 
education was liberal. After completing 
his studies at one of the universities he 
visited the continent, and was distinguished 
fo» »-efinement of manners and exemplary 


benevolence and piety. In the latter part 
of his life he sought retirement, and seldom 
went abroad except to the church, which he 
regularly attended on every occasion when 
service was performed. He generally ap¬ 
peared absorbed in meditation, and was 
accustomed to make ejaculatory prayers, 
or fervent aspirations, as he walked. Once 
in every year he had a sort of gala-day for 
the entertainment of his female friends, 
whom he charmed by his polite attention 
and pleasing conversation. With the next 


THE TABLE BOOK. 






758 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 


morning he resumed his usual seclusion for 
'he ensuing twelvemonth. He lived many 
years in full expectation of the commence¬ 
ment of the millennium. 

But tnat which has given celebrity to 
the name of the late “ Robert North, Esq.” 
at Scarborough is the founding, in the year 
i ) 728, of a very useful institution, called “ The 
Amicable Society,” for clothing and edu¬ 
cating the children of the poor; which under 
the government of a president, four trus¬ 
tees, and four wardens, annually elected, 
with a fund for its support, arising from the 
weekly subscriptions of the members, col¬ 
lections made in the church, and other 
voluntary donations, continues to flourish. 
The number of children thus clothed and 
educated, now in the school, is sixty, and 
the number of members two hundred and 
, sixty-five. 

i This institution has preserved many 
children from the contagion of evil exam¬ 
ple, and enabled them to follow useful oc¬ 
cupations in life with credit and advantage. 
Several, who, by their early education at 
this seminary, attained a competent know¬ 
ledge of navigation, became mates and 
commanders of vessels, and eventually 
benefactors and patrons of the institu¬ 
tion. 

The exact day of Mr. North’s death does 
not appear; but his interment is dated in 
the parish-register of Scarborough, 14th 
October, 1760. 

Mr. Noith, by a singular codicil to his 
will, gives one pair of his silver candle¬ 
sticks to the celebrated Dr. Young, author 
of the poem on the Last Day, &tc.; and the 
other pair to the Rev. James Hervey, author 
of the Meditations among the Tombs, &c 
“ I call these,” he says, “ in some measure 
legacies to the public, having given them 
to persons so well able to employ them for 
the benefit of mankind." 

The other legacies by this codicil are 
usually in themselves remarkable, and all 
the bequests are accompanied by remarks, 
which denote the peculiar character of the 
donor’s disposition : for example^-" To the 
lady Lowther, of Swillington, a curious 
basket made of beads, the product of the 
virgin amusements of my grandmother—- 
and her two sisters—it seeming highly 
proper to present a thing, which has gained 
the applause of most people, to a person 
who I hope has gained the applause of all. 
To Mrs. Philadelphia Boycott, my Kerry 
seal set in gold, witn Mr. Addison s head 
engraven on it—which will be very fitly 
deposited in the hands of a lady, whose 
letters arc much celebrated for their wit 


and humour. Jn pursuance of an old pro¬ 
mise, to Mrs. Barbara Tatton a picture in 
needlework , which was likewise made at 
the leisure hours of my aforesaid grand¬ 
mother and her sisters , and which 1 suppose 
to have been designed for king Charles II. 
—the subject of which may perhaps some¬ 
times engage her to reflect on this great 
truth, that the finest wit, if it deviate from 
the paths of virtue, is but a more elegant 
sort of folly. To Mrs. Christiana Hargrave, 
spinster, my silver coffee-pot, silver tea-pot, 
the silvei stands for them, and my silver 
tea-canisters, milk-pot. and tea-spoons— 
being all of them baubles of some dignity 
and importance, even to women of sense, 
when in complaisance to the customs of an 
inconsiderate age they condescend to trifle. 
To the Rev. Thomas Adam,* rector of 
Wintringham in Lincolnshire, my maho¬ 
gany bureau and bookcase — which may 
serve as a cabinet in which to reposit his 
manuscripts, till he may think it proper to 
make a cabinet of the world. In pursuance 
of an old promise to Mrs. Susannah Adam, 
his wife, my gold snuff-box—but if the 
contents of it prejudice her constitution, I 
hope she will upon this occasion follow the 
example of many fine ladies, who have 
many fine things which they never use. 
My silver cup and best silver tankard to 
Barnabas Legard, of Brompton, county of 
York, Esq., a person qualified by experi¬ 
ence to teach our fine gentlemen a truth, 
which perhaps many of them will be sur¬ 
prised to hear—that temperance is the most 
delicious and refined luxury. To ensign 
William Massey, (my godson,) son of the 
late Capt. John Massey, of Hull, my 
sword; and hope he will, if ever occasion 
require it, convince a rash world that he 
has learned to obey his God as well as his 
general, and that he entertains too true a 
sense of honour ever to admit any thing 
into the character of a good soldier, which 
is inconsistent with the duty of a good 
Christian.f I give the sum of forty pounds, 
to be paid into the king's exchequer.—I 
give thirty pounds to be added to the 
common stock of our East India company 
—which two last legacies I leave, as the 
best method I know, though not an exact 
one, of making restitution for the injustice 
I may have done, in buying (inadvertently) 


• The Whole Works of the Rev. Thomas Adam have 
been lately first collected in three vols. by the Rev. 

VV. Smith. . , 

f A brave man thinks no one his snpenor who doe* 
him an injury, for he has it then in his power to make 
himself superior to the other by forgiving it. 

Testator. 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


any uncustomed goods; and which I 
uope will be accepted by the great Judge 
of all men, in case I do not meet with a 
oetter before I die.—I give the sum of one 
hundred pounds to the person who shall 
within four years after my decease make 
and publish the best tragedy , entitled Vir¬ 
tue Triumphant — wherein among such 
others, as the poet shall think proper to 
introduce, shall be drawn the character of 
a virtuous man unconquered by misfor¬ 
tunes, &c. l give the sum of one hundred 
pounds to the person who shall, within four 
years after my decease, make and publish 
the best comedy; wherein—among such 
others as the poet shall think proper to in¬ 
troduce—shall be drawn the four following 
characters, viz. of a fine gentleman, a fine 
lady, a beau, and a coquet; the two first 
to be drawn with a thorough taste for reli¬ 
gion and virtue, accompanied with fine 
sense and humour, and to be crowned with 
success; the two last with the fopperies 
and follies common to persons of these 
denominations, and to be made objects of 
contempt and ridicule,” &c.* 

j Mr. North’s Prizes for the Poets. 

Nothing further appears to be known 
respecting Mr. North, except that, through 
: the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July, 

| 1734, he proposed, and was the anonymous 
donor of fifty pounds, “ as a prize for the 
poets,” to encourage them “ to make the 
j best poem, Latin or English, on Life, Death, 

* Besides these bequests, Mr. North desired that 
two manuscript-books, consisting of miscellaneous 
pieces, and particularly a discourse, the first and last 
parts whereof were composed with a view of their being 
reached instead of a sermon at his funeral, should 
e printed in one volume after his decease, at an ex¬ 
pense of one hundred pounds, and directed the profits 
of the books sold to be expended in causing an impres¬ 
sion to be made of four sermons by archbishop Sharp 
and bishop Beveridge, containing a description of the 
Joys of Heaven and the Torments of the Damned'; 
together with some directions how men may obtain 
the one, and escape the other ; the said four sermons to 
be printed on good paper, and in a fair character, 
bound or stitched in strong covers, and given gratis 
among soldiers, sailors, poor persons, and common 
labourers. He further gave to the archbishop of York 
two hundred pounds, in trust, to be applied towards 
the building or other uses and services of another 
church, or a chapel of ease in Scarborough aforesaid, 
provided any such church or chapel should be erected 
within ten years after his decease. He also gave fifty 
pounds to the Society for promoting Christian Know¬ 
ledge ; and fifty pounds to the Society for propagating 
the Gospel in foreign parts “ l desire the lord arch¬ 
bishop of York (Hutton) will do me the honour to 
accept the picture of Pope Gregory I., which has been 
commended, and was a legacy to me from the painter, 
Mr. John Settrington. I desire the lord bishop of Car¬ 
lisle (Osbaldeston) will do me the honour to accept 
my own picture, drawn by the same hand. ’ 

These particulars, and those preceding, are contained 
I i» “ A Biographical Sketch” of Mr. North, printed at 
Scarborough by and for John Cole, 1823. Svo po 16 


Judgment, Ileaven, and Hell, viz. all thf 
said subjects jointly, and not any single 
one independent of the rest:” and, that 
the poets might not be discouraged “ upon 
suspicion of incapacity in their judges,” he 
entirely resigned the decision of the best 
poem to “ universal suffrage” and election 
by “ voteor, as he is pleased to call it, 
in the Magazine for August, “ the public 
vote of kingdoms.” He presumes that this 
scheme “ will probably be most agreeable j 
to the poets themselves, because they wil 
be tried by such a number as is not capa- j 
ble of being bribed, and because this 
method of determination will, as he con¬ 
ceives, tend most to the honour of that 
poet who shall succeed.” In October he 
prescribes that the voters shall sign a de¬ 
claration, disclaiming undue influence; 
and he suggests, that if the majority of 
candidates prefer a determinate number of 
judges to the public at large, he will accoid 
to that arrangement, provided they express 
their desires with their poems. Accord- j 
ingly, the Gentleman’s Magazine of May, 
173.5, “ informs the candidates, that as the 
majority of them are for a decision by a 
select number of judges, the donor is de¬ 
sirous that Mr. Urban should apply to 
three particular gentlemen of unexception¬ 
able merit, to undertake this office and 
it is announced, that the poems will be 
published in “ an entire Magazine Extra¬ 
ordinary i,” to render which “ acceptable, to 
those who have no great taste for poetry,” 
there will be added “ something of general 
use.” In the following July the poems 
appeared in the promised “ Gentleman's 
Magazine Extraordinary f printed by E. 
Cave, at St. John’s Gate, for the benefit of 
thepoets whereto was added, as of “ gene¬ 
ral use," agreeably to the above promise, 
and for those “ who have no great taste in 
poetry,” the Debates in the first session of 
parliament for 1735. 

What gratification Mr. North derived 
from his encouragement of “ the poets,” is 
to be inferred from this—that, in the supple¬ 
ment to the Gentleman’s Magazine of the 
same year, 1735, he announced, that other 
prizes thereafter mentioned would be given 
to persons who should “ make and send ” 
to Mr. Urban, before the 11th of June, 1736, 
the four best poems, entitled “ The Chris¬ 
tian Hero”—viz. 

“ 1. To the person who shall make the 
best will be given a gold medal, (in¬ 
trinsic value about ten pounds,) which 
shall have the head cf the right hon 
the lady Elizabeth Hastings on one 
side, and that of James Oglethorpe 


760 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Esq. on the other, with this motto— 
‘ England may challenge the world, 
1736.’ 

“ 2. To the author of the second, a com¬ 
plete set of Archbishop Tillotson’s 
Sermons 

“ 3. To the author of the third, a complete 
set of Archbishop Sharpe's Sermons. 
And, 

“ 4. To the author of the fourth, a set of 
Cooke’s Sermons.” 

In the Magazine of February, 1736, Mr. 
North begs pardon of the lady Elizabeth 
1 Hastings, (a female of distinguished piety,) 
for the uneasiness he had occasioned her by 
proposing to engrave her portrait on his 
1 prize medal: being, “ however, desirous 
that the poets should exercise their pens,” 

! he proposes to substitute the head of arch¬ 
bishop Tillotson, and “ hopes that Mr. 

> Oglethorpe will be prevailed upon to con¬ 
sent that the medal shall bear his effigies.” 
Several of the poems made by “ the poets” 
for this second prize appear in the Maga¬ 
zine of the same year, to which readers, 
desirous of perusing the effusions elicited 
Dy Mr. North’s liberality, are referred. 


The “ James Oglethorpe, Esq.” whose 
head Mr. North coveted for his prize medal, 
was the late general Oglethorpe, who died 
in 1785, at the advanced age of ninety- 
seven, the oldest general in the service. 
Besides his military employments, first as 
secretary and aide-de-camp to prince Eu¬ 
gene, and afterwards in America, and at 
home during the rebellion in 1745, he was 
distinguished as a useful member of the 
House of Commons, by proposing several 
regulations for the benefit of trade and the 
reform of prisons. In 1732 he settled the 
colony of Georgia, and erected the town of 
Savannah, and arrived in England in June, 
1734, with several Indian chiefs. This 
gentleman’s public services at that time, 
and his eminent philanthropy, were induce¬ 
ments to Mr. North to do him honour. 
The following is an interesting account of 
the presentation of the Indians at court. 

On the 1st of August, 1734, Tomo Cna- 
chi, the king, Senauki his wife, with Too- 
anakowki, their son, Hillispilli, the war 
captain, and the other Cherokee Indians, 
brought over by Mr. Oglethorpe from 
Georgia, were introduced to his majesty at 
Kensington, who received them seated on 
nis throne ; when Tomo Chachi, rnicho, or 
/ting, made the following speech, at the 
same time presenting several eagles’ fea- 
; thers, trophies of their country. 


TGI 


“ This day I see the majesty of your face, 
the greatness of your house, and the num¬ 
ber of your people. 1 am come for the good 
of the whole nation, called the Creeks, to 
renew the peace which was long ago had 
with the English. I am come over in my , 
old days, though I cannot live to see any 
advantage to myself; I am come for the 
good of the children of all the nations of the 
Upper and of the Lower Creeks, that they 
may be instructed in the knowledge of the 
English. | 

“ These are the feathers of the eagle, 
which is the swiftest of birds, and who 
flieth all round our nations. These featheis 
are a sign of peace in our land, and have 
been carried from town to town there; and 
we have brought them over to leave with j 
you, O great king, as a sign of everlasting 
peace. 

“ O great king, whatsoever words you 
shall say unto me, I will tell them faith¬ 
fully to all the kings of the Creek nations ” 

To which his majesty graciously an¬ 
swered, 

“ I am glad of this opportunity of assur¬ 
ing you of my regard for the people from 
whom you come, and am extremely well 
leased with the assurances you have 
rought me from them, and accept very 
gratefully this present, as an indication of 
their good disposition to me and my people. 

I shall always be ready to cultivate a good 
correspondence between them and my own 
subjects, and shall be glad of any occasion 
to show you a mark of my particular friend¬ 
ship and esteem.” 

Tomo Chachi afterwards made the fol¬ 
lowing speech to the queen. 

“ 1 am glad to see this day, and to have 
the opportunity of seeing, the mother of this 
great people. 

“ As our people are joined with your 
majesty’s, we do humbly hope to find you 
the common mother and protectress of us 
and all our children.” 

Her majesty returned a suitably gracious 
answer. 

The war captain, and other attendants of 
Tomo Chachi, were very importunate to 
appear at court in the costume of their 
own country, merely a covering round the 
waist, the rest of the body being naked 
but were dissuaded from it by Mr. Ogle¬ 
thorpe. But their faces were variously 
painted after their country manner, some 
half black, others triangular, and others 
with bearded arrows instead of whiskers, 
Tomo Chachi, and Senauki, his wife, were 
dressed in scarlet, trimmed with gold. 

On the 17th of the same month Tome 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Chachi, and the rest of the Indians, dined 
with the lady Dutry at Putney; and then 
waited on the archbishop of Canterbury, 
(Potter,) who received them with the ut- 
|most kindness and tenderness, and ex- 
; pressed his fatherly concern for their igno¬ 
rance with respect to Christianity, and his 
strong desire for their instruction. His 
grace, though very weak, would not sit 
down, the micho therefore omitted speaking 
to him what he intended, and only desired 
his blessing; adding, that what he had 
further to say he would speak to Dr. Lynch, 
his grace’s son-in-law, and then withdrew, 
lie was afterwards entertained at a noble 
collation, and had a conference with Dr. 
Lynch, expressing his joy, as believing some 
good persons would be sent amongst them 
to instruct their youth. 

On the 30th of October the Indian king, 
queen, prince, See. set out from the Georgia 
office, in the king’s coaches, for Gravesend, 
to embark on their return home. During 
their stay in England, which had been about 
four months, his majesty allowed them 20/. 
a week for their subsistence. Whatever 
was curious and worthy observation in and 
about London and Westminster had been 
carefully shown them; and nothing had 
been wanting to contribute to their diver¬ 
sion and amusement, and to give them a 
just idea of English politeness and respect. 
In return, they expressed themselves heartily 
attached to the British nation. They had 
about the value of 400/. in presents. Prince 
William presented the young micho, John 
Towanohowi, with a gold watch, with an 
admonition to call upon Jesus Christ every 
morning when he looked on it, which he 
promised. They appeared particularly 
delighted with seeing his highness perform 
his exercise of riding the managed horse, 
the Horse Guards pass in review, and the 
agreeable appearance of the barges, &c. on 
the Thames on lord mayor’s day. In the 
same ship embarked several relations of the 
English settled in Georgia, with sir Francis 
Bathurst, his son, three daughters, and ser¬ 
vants; together with fifty-six Saltzburghers, 
newly arrived from Rotterdam. These 
people had been at the German church in 
Trinity-lane, where 47/. was collected for 
them.* 


MENDIP MINES. 

To the Editor. 

Sir, The very great entertainment I 
nave d ived from your Every-Day Book 
induct ne to contribute to your present 

Gentleman’s Magazine, 1734. 


publication, if you consider the accom¬ 
panying copy from an old record merits a 
place in the Table Book. It formed part 
of a brief held by counsel in a cause, 
“ Hembury and Day,” tried at Taunton 
assizes in 1820. On referring to the papers I 
find that the present Mr. justice Gaselee was 
the counsel employed. Some of these old 
Mendip laws are recognised in “ Collin- 
son’s History of Somersetshire.” 

I am, 

Your very obedient servant, 

John Pinchard. 

Taunton , August 24, 1827. 

Laws and Orders of the Mendip 
Miners. 

Be it known that this is a true Copy of 
the Enrollment in the King’s Exchequer in 
the time of King Edward the Fourth, of a 
dispute that was in the County of Somerset, 
Between the Lord Bonfield and the tenants 
of Chewton and the prior of Green Oare; 
the said prior complaining unto the King 
of great injuries and wrongs that he had 
upon Mendip, being the King’s Forrest. 
The said King Edward, commanded the 
lord Chock the lord Chief Justice of Eng¬ 
land to go down into the County of Somer- 
set, to Mendipp, and sit in concord and 
Peace in the said County concerning Men¬ 
dipp upon pain of high displeasure. The 
said Lord Chock sate upon Mendipp on a 
place of my Lord’s of Bath, called the 
Forge, Whereas he commanded all the 
Commoners to appear, and especially the 
four Lords Royal of Mendipp (that is to 
say) the Bishop of Bath, my Lord of 
Glaston, my Lord of Bonfield, the Lord of 
Chewton, and my Lord of Richmond, with 
all the appearance to the Number of ten 
Thousand people. A Proclamation was 
made to enquire of all the company how 
they would be ordered. Then they with 
one consent made answer, That they would 
be Ordered and tryed by the four Lords of 
the Royalties. And then the four Lords 
Royal were agreed, that the Commoners of 
Mendipp should hem out their outlets as 
much the Summer as they be able to Win¬ 
ter, without hounding or pounding upon 
whose ground soever they went to take 
their course and recourse, to which the four 
Lords Royal did put their Seals, and were 
also agreed that whosoever should break 
the said Bonds should forfeit to the King 
1000 Marks, and all the Commoners their 
Bodies and goods to be at the King’s plea¬ 
sure or command that doeth either hound 
or pound.- 











THE TABLE BOOK. 


The old Ancient Occupation of 
Mine us upon Mendipp, being the 
King's Forrest within the County of 
Somerset one of tke four Staples of 
England which, have been Exercised , 
used and continued through the said 
Forrest of Mendipp from the time 
whereof no Man living hath no me¬ 
mory { as hereafter doth particularly 
ensue the Order; 

F rst. That, if any man whatsoever he 
be that doeth intend to venture his Life to 
be a Workman in the said Occupation, he 
must first of all crave licence of the Lords 
of the Soyle where he doth purpose to 
work, and in his absence of his said 
Officers, as the lead-reave or Bailiff, and 
the lord, neither his Bailiffs can deny him. 

2d Item. That, after the first Licence 
had, the Workman shall never need to ask 
leave again, but to be at his free will to 
pitch within the Forrest, and to break the 
ground where and in what place it shall 
please him, to his behalf and profit, using 
himself justly and truly. 

3d Item. If any doth begin to pitch or 
groof he shall heave his hacks through two 
ways after the Rate.—Note, that he that 
thiow the hack must stand to the Girdle or 
Waste in the same Groof, and then no Man 
shall or may work within his hack’s throwe: 
provided always, that no man shall or can 
keep but his wet, and dry Goof, and his 
Mark— 

4rn Item. That, when a Workman have 
landed his Oare, he may carry the same, to 
cleansing or blowing, to what Minery it 
shall please him, for the speedy making out 
of the same, so that he doth truly pay the 
lord of the Soyle, where it was landed, his 
due, which is the Tenth part thereof— 

5th Item. That if any Lord or Officer 
hath once given licence to any Man to 
build, or set up an hearth, or Washing- 
house, to wash, cleanse or blow the Oare, 
He that once hath leave shall keep it for 
ever, or give it to whom he will, so that he 
doth justly pay his Lot-lead, which is the 
Tenth pound which shall be blown at the 
Hearth or hearths, and also that he doth 
keep it Tenantable, as the Custom doth 
require— 

6th Item. That, if any of that Occupa¬ 
tion doth pick or steal any lead or Oare to 
the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny* the 
lord or his Officer may Arrest all his Lead- 
works, house and hearth, with all his Groofs 
and Works, and keep them as safely for his 

• Thirteen pence halfpenny. This particular sum is 
the subject of an article immediately ensuing the pre¬ 
sent. 


own Use; and shall take the person tha' 
hath so offended, and bring him where his 
house is, or his work, and all his Tools or 
Instruments which to the Occupation be¬ 
longs, as he useth, and put him into the 
said house, and set Fire on all together 
about him, and banish him from that Oc¬ 
cupation before the Miners for ever— 

7th Item. That, if ever that person do 
pick or Steal there any more, he shall be j 
tryed by the Common Law, for this Custom 
and Law hath noe more to do with him— 

8th Item. That every Lord of Soyle or 
Soyles ought to keep two Mynedrie Courts 
by the year, and to swear twelve Men or 
more of the same occupation, for the orders 
of all Misdemeanours and wrongs touching 
the Mynedries. 

9th Item. The Lord, or Lords, may 
make three manner of Arrests, (that is to 
say) ye first is for strife between man and 
man, for their workes under the Earth, &c.; 
the second is for his own duty, for Lead oi 
Oare, wheresoever he find it within the said 
Forrest; the third is upon felon’s goods of 
the same occupation, wheresoever he find 
it within the same Hill, &c.— 

10th Item. That, if any Man, by means 
of Misfortune take his Death, as by falling 
of the Earth upon him, by drawing or 
Stifling, or otherwise, as in time past many 
have been, the Workmen of the same Oc¬ 
cupation are bound to fetch him out of the 
Earth, and to bring him to Christian burial, 
at their own Costs and Charges, although ! 
he be Forty Fathoms under the Earth, as ! 
heretofore hath been done; and the Coro¬ 
ner, or any Officer at large, shall not havp 
to do with him in any respect. 


THIRTEEN-PENCE HALFPENNY. 

Hangman’s Wages. 

Jagk Ketch a Gentleman. 

Dr. Samuel Pegge, who is likely to be 
remembered by readers of the article on 
the Revolution-house at Whittington, he 
having, on the day he entered his eighty- 
fifth year, preached the centenary sermon 
to commemorate the Revolution, was an 
eminent antiquary. He addressed a paper 
to the Society of Antiquaries, on “ the vul¬ 
gar notion, though it will not appear to be a 
vulgar error, that thirteen-pence halfpenny - 
is the fee of the executioner in the common 
line of business at Tyburn,* and that, 

* “ The executions, on ordinary occasions, were re- 
moved from this memorable place, and were performed 
in the street of $ie Ok. Bailey, at the door of Newgate , 


763 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


therefore, it is called hangmans wages.” It 
te proposed from this paper to give an ac¬ 
count of the origin of the saying. 

According to Dr. Pegge, the office of 
hangman was, in some parts of the king¬ 
dom, annexed to other posts; for the 
porter of the city of Canterbury was the 
executioner for the county of Kent, tempo- 
ribus Hen. II. and Hen. III.; for which 
he had an allowance from the sheriff, who 
was reimbursed from the exchequer, of 
twenty shillings per annum.* * From the 
great and general disesteem wherein the 
office is held, the sheriffs are much obliged 
to those who will undertake it, as otherwise 
its unpleasant and painful duty must fall 
upon themselves. For, to them the law' 
looks for its completion, as’ they give a 
receipt to the gaoler for the bodies of con¬ 
demned criminals whom they are to pu¬ 
nish, or cause to be punished, according 
to their respective sentences. Sometimes 
in the country, sheriffs have had much 
difficulty to procure an executioner. In 
short, although, in the eyes of the people 
generally, a stigma attaches to the hangman, 
yet, in fact, the hangman is the sheriff’s 
immediate deputy in criminal matters, as 
his under-sheriff is for civil purposes. The 
nature and dignity of the office in some 
particulars, and the rank of the officer, 
called Squire Ketch , will be found to be 
supportable, as well as the fee of office. 

| And first, as regards the sheriff himself. 
The sheriff is, by being so styled in the 
king’s patent under the great seal, an 
. esquire, which raises him to that rank, 
j unless he has previously had the title adven- 
| titiously. None were anciently chosen 
j sheriffs, but such gentlemen whose fortunes 
and stations would warrant it; so, on the 
[ other hand, merchants, and other liberal 
branches of the lower order, were admitted 
first into the rank of gentlemen, by a grant 
of arms, on proper qualifications, from the 
earl marshal, and the kings of arms, re¬ 
spectively, according to their provinces. 
After a negotiant has become a gentleman, 
courtesy will very soon advance that rank, 
md give the party the title of esquire; and 
so it happened with a worthy gentleman, 
'or so a hangman will be proved to have 
been. This remarkable case happened in 
the year 1616 , in the manner following. 

Ralph Brooke, whose real name was 


Tills was first practised on the 9th of December, 1783. 
See the printed account. Every of these executions I 
was told by Mr. Reed, 1785, is attended with an ex¬ 
pense of upwards of nine pounds. Twenty persons 
were hanged at once in February, 1785.”—Dr. Pegge. 

* Madox’s History of the Exchequer, ii. p. 373. 


Brokesmouth, at that time “ York herald/* 
put a trick upon sir William Segar, “ garter 
king of arms,” which had very nearly cost 
both of them their places. Brooke em¬ 
ployed a person to carry a coat of arms 
ready drawn to garter, and to pretend it 
belonged to one Gregory Brandon, a gen¬ 
tleman who had formerly lived in London, 
but was then residing in Spain. The mes¬ 
senger was instructed to desire garter to set 
his hand to this coat of arms: and to pre¬ 
vent deliberation, he was further *> pretend 
that the vessel, which was to carry this 
confirmation into Spain, when it had re¬ 
ceived the seal of the office and garter’s 
hand, was just ready to sail* This being 
done, and the fees paid, Brooke carried it 
to Thomas earl of Arundel, then one of the 
commissioners for executing the office of 
earl marshal; and, in order to vilify garter, 
and to represent him as a rapacious, negli¬ 
gent officer, assured his lordship that those 
were the arms of Arragon, with a canton 
for Brabant, and that Gregory Brandon 
was a mean and inconsiderable person 
This was true enough; for he was the 
common hangman for London and Middle¬ 
sex. Ralph Brooke afterwards confessed 
all these circumstances to the commis¬ 
sioners who represented the earl marshal; 
the consequence of which was, that, by 
order of the king, when he heard the case, 
garter was committed to prison for negli¬ 
gence, and the herald for treachery. There 
was this previous result, however, that 
Gregory Brandon, the hangman, had be¬ 
come a gentleman ; and, as the Bastard 
says in King John, “ could make any Joan 
a gentlewoman.” 

Thus was this Gregory Brandon ad¬ 
vanced, perhaps from the state of a convict, 
to the rank of a gentleman ; and though it 
was a personal honour to himself, notwith¬ 
standing it was surreptitiously obtained by 
the herald, of which Gregory Brandon, 
gentleman , was perhaps ignorant, yet did 
it operate so much on his successors in 
office, that afterwards it became transferred 
from the family to the officer for the time 
being; and from Mr. Brandon’s popularity, 
though not of the most desirable kind, the 
mobility soon improved his rank, and, with 
a jocular complaisance, gave him the title 
of esquire, which remains to this day. 

It seems too as if this office had once, 
like many other important offices of state, 


• These arms actually appear in Edmondson’s Bo-'y 
of Heraldry, annexed to the name of Brandon, vu 
the amis ot Arrajjon with a difference, and the arms o\ 
Brabant in a canton. 
















THE TABLE BOOK, 


been hereditary. Shakspeare has this pas¬ 
sage in Coriylanus, act ii. sc. 1_ 

“ Menenius. —Marcius, in a cheap estimation, is 
worth all your predecessors, since Deucalion; though, 
P radventure, some of the best of them were heredi¬ 
tary hangmen.” 

This looks as if the office of executioner 
had run in some family for a generation or 
i two, at the time when Shakspeare wrote; 
and that it was a circumstance well under¬ 
stood, and would be well relished, at least 
by the galleries. This might, indeed, with 
regard to time, point at the ancestors of 
Mr. Brandon himself; for it was in the 
reign of king James I. that this person was 
brought within the pale of gentil ty. Nay, 
more, we are told by Dr. Grey, in his 
Notes on Shakspeare,* that from this gen¬ 
tleman, the hangmen, his successors, bore 
for a considerable time his Christian name 
of Gregory , though not his arms, they 
being a personal honour, till a greater man 
arose, viz. Jack Ketch , who entailed the 
present official name on all who have 
hitherto followed him.f 

Whether the name of Ketch be not the 
provincial pronunciation of Catch among 
the cockneys, may be doubted, notwith¬ 
standing that learned and laborious com¬ 
piler, B. E., gent., the editor of the “ Cant- 
i iug Dictionary,’’ says that Jack Kitch, for 
so he spells it, was the real name of a 
hangman, which has become that of all his 
successors. 

So much for the office. It now remains 
to consider the emoluments which apper¬ 
tain to it, and assign a reason why thirteen- 
pence halfpenny should be esteemed its stand¬ 
ard fee for inflicting the last stroke of the law. 

Before proceeding to matters of a pecu¬ 
niary nature, it may be allowed, per¬ 
haps, to illustrate a Yorkshire saying. It 
was occasioned by a truly unfortunate man, 
whose guilt was doubtful, and yet suffered 
the sentence of the law at York. This per¬ 
son was a saddler at Bawtry, and hence 
the saying among the lower people to a 
man who quits his friends too early, and 
will not stay to finish his bottle-:—“ He 
will be banged for leaving his liquor, like 
the saddler of Bawtry.” The case was 
this :—There was formerly an ale-house, 
which house to this day is called “ The Gal- 
.ows House,” situate between the city of York 
and their Tyburn ; at this house the cart used 
always to stop, and there the convict and the 
other parties were refreshed with liquors j 


• Vol. ii, P- 163. 

1 The hangman was known by the name of Gregory 
in the year 1612, as we learn from the Mercunus Auli- 
cus, p. i53. 


but the rash and precipita f e saddler of 
Bawtry, on his road to the fatal tree, refused 
this little regale, and hastened on to the 
place of execution; where, but not until 
after he had been turned off. and it was 
too late, a reprieve arrived. Had he 
stopped, as was usual, at the gallows house, 
the time consumed there would have been 
the means of saving his life. He was hanged, 
as truly as unhappily, for leaving his liquor. 

Similar means of refreshment were an¬ 
ciently allowed to convicts, on their pas¬ 
sage to Tyburn, at St. Giles’s hospital; for 
we are told by Stowe, that they were there 
presented with a bowl of ale, called “ St. 
Giles's hotel; thereof to drink at their 
pleasure, as their last refreshing in this 
life.” Tyburn was the established scene 
of executions in common eases so long ago 
as the first year of king Henry IV 7 .; Smith- 
field and St. Giles’s Field being reserved 
for persons of higher rank, and for crimes 
of uncommon magnitude, such as treason 
and heresy. In the last of these, sir John 
Oldcastle, lord Cobham, was burnt, or 
rather roasted, alive; having been hanged 
up over the fire by a chain which went 
round his waist.* 

The executioner of the duke of Mon¬ 
mouth (in July, 1685) was peculiarly un 
successful in the operation. The duke said 
to him, “ Here are six guineas for you : 
pray do your business well; do not serve 
me as you did my lord Russell: I have 
heard you struck him three or four times. 
Here, (to his servant,) take these remain¬ 
ing guineas, and give them to him if he 
does his woik well.” 

Executioner. —“ I hope I shall.” 

Monmouth. —“ If you strike me twice, 1 
cannot promise you not to stir. Pr’ythee 
let me feel the axe.” He felt the edge, and 
said, “ I fear it is not sharp enough.” 

Executioner. —“ It is sharp enough, and 
heavy enough.” 

The executioner proceeded to do his 
office ; but the note says, “ it was under 
such distraction of mind, that he fell into 
the very error which the duke had so ear¬ 
nestly cautioned him to avoid ; wounding 
him so slightly, that he lifted up his head, 
and looked him in the face, as if to upbraid 
him for making his death painful; but said 
nothing. He then prostrated himself again, 
and received two other ineffectual blows; 
upon which the executioner threw down his 


* Rapin. See also Bale’s Life and Trial of Sir John 

Oldcastle. St. Giles’s was then an independent vil¬ 
lage, and is still called St. Giles’s in the Fields, to 
distinguish it from St. Giles’s, Cripplegate; being bn** - 
in the same diocese. 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


axe in a fit of horror; crying out, * he 
could not finish his work:’ but, on being 
brought to himself by the threats of the 
sheriffs, took up the fatal weapon again, 
and at two other strokes made a shift to 
separate the head from the body.”* 

As to the fee itself, “ thirteen-pence half¬ 
penny—hangman’s wages,’ it appears to 
have been of Scottish extraction. The 
Scottish mark (not ideal or nominal money, 
like our mark) was a silver coin, in value 
thirteen-pence halfpenny and two placks, 
or two-thirds of a penny ; which plack is 
likewise a coin. This, their mark, bears the 
same proportion to their pound, which is 
twenty-pence, as our mark does to our 
pound, or twenty shillings, being two-thirds 
of it. By these divisions and sub-divisions 
of their penny (for they have a still smaller 
piece, called a bodel or half a plack) they 
can reckon with the greatest minuteness, 
and buy much less quantities of any article 
than we can.f This Scottish mark was, 
upon the union of the two crowns in the 
person of king James I., made current in 
England at the value of thirteen-pence 
nali’penny, (without regarding the fraction,) 
by proclamation, in the first year of that 
king; where it is said, that “ the coin of 
silver, called the mark piece, shall be from 
henceforth current within the said kingdom 
of England, at the value of thirteen-pence 
halt'peny.”J This, probably, was a revolu¬ 
tion in the current money in favour of the 
hangman, whose fee before was perhaps no 
more than a shilling. There is, however, 
very good reason to conclude, from the 
singularity of the sum, that the odious title 
of “ hangman’s wages ’’ became at this 
time, or soon after, applicable to the sum 
of thirteen pence halfpenny. Though it was 
contingent, yet it was then very consider¬ 
able pay ; when one shilling per day was a 
standing annual stipend to many respect¬ 
able officers of various kinds. 

Nothing can well vary more than the 
perquisites of this office; for it is well 
known that Jack Ketch has a post-obit in¬ 
terest in the convict, being entitled to his 
clothes, or to a composition for them; 
though, on the other hand, they must very 
frequently be such garments that, as Shak- 
speare says, “ a hangman would bury with 
those who wore them.”§ 

* Lord Somers’s Tracts, vol. t. pp. 219, ‘ ; 20; the 
note taken from the Review (f the reigns of Charles 
and James, p 885. 

t Mr. Ray, in his Itinerary, gives the fractional 
oarts of the Scottish penny. 

t The proclamation may be seen inStrype’s Annals, 
•ml. iv. p. 334, where the mark-piece is valued exactly 
*t thirteen-pence halfpenny. 

t Coriolao*s act sc 8. 


This emolument is of no modern date, 
and has an affinity to other droits on very 
dissimilar occasions, which will be men¬ 
tioned presently. The executioner’s per¬ 
quisite is at least as old as Henry VIII.; 
for sir Thomas More, on the morning of 
his execution, put on his best gown, which 
was of silk camlet, sent him as a present 
while he was in the Tower by a citizen of 
Lucca, with wham he had been in corre 
spondence ; but the lieutenant of the Towei 
was of opinion that a worse gown would 
be go d enough for the person who was to 
have it, meaning the executioner, and pre¬ 
vailed upon sir Thomas to change it, which 
he did for one made of frize.* Thus the 
antiquity of this obitual emolument, so well 
known in Shakspeare’s time, seems well 
established; and, as to its nature, has a 
strong resemblance to a fee of a much 
longer standing, and formerly received by 
officers of very great respectability. For 
anciently “ garter king of arms ” had spe¬ 
cifically the gown of the party on the crea¬ 
tion of a peer; and again, when arch¬ 
bishops, bishops, abbots, and priors, did 
homage to the king, their upper garment 
was the perquisite even of the lord cham¬ 
berlain of the household. The fee in the 
latter case was always compounded for, 
though garter’s was often formerly received 
in kind, inasmuch as the statute which 
gives this fee to the lord chamberlain directs 
the composition, because, as the words are, 
“ it is more convenient that religious men 
should fine for their upper garment, than 
to be strippedJ’f The same delicate ne¬ 
cessity does not operate in the hangman’s 
case, and his fee extends much farther than 
either of them, he being entitled to all the 
sufferer’s garments, having first rendered 
them useless to the party. Besides this 
perquisite, there has always been a pecu¬ 
niary compliment, where it could possibly 
be afforded, given by the sufferer to the 
executioner, to induce him to be speedy 
and dexterous in the operation. These I 
outward gifts may likewise be understood! 
as tokens of inward forgiveness. 

“ Upon the whole,” says Dr. Pegge, “ I! 
conceive that what I have offered above, | 
though with much enlargement, is the 
meaning of the ignominious term affixed, 
to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny, 1 
and I cannot but commiserate those for 
whom it is to be paid.”J 


* More’s Life of sir Thomas More- n. 271, 
t Stat. 13 Edward I. 

} Pegge’s Cnrialia Miscellanea. 

























4 


the table book. 





Cfjc SUnuung at iflmroto, £>umg. 


Hie first point of peculiarity that strikes 
t.ie traveller on approaching the Running 
Horse “ is the pictorial anomaly on the 
front of the house—the sign represents a 
race-horse with a rider on its back ; but 
the painter has given us a horse standing 
as still as most horses would be glad to do 
after having been running horses for more 
than half a century. Our “ Running 
Horse ’’ then, stands hard by the church in 
the village of Merrow, (olim Merewe,) 
about two miles from Guildford, in Surrey, 
on the road leading from the latter place 
to'London by way of Epsom. It is at the 
intersection of the high roads leading to 
Epsom, to Guildford, to Stoke, and to 
Albury, Shere, and Dcrking. The latter 
road passes over Merrow Downs, upon 
which, at the distance of a quarter of a 
mile from our hostel, is the course whereon 
Guildford races are annually held. 

Guildford races formerly attracted a 
very numerous assemblage of spectators. 
The elderly inhabitants of the above-named 
ancient borough relate that, such was the 
influx of company, not a bed was to be 
had in Guildford unless secured some 


weeks before the sports commenced. From 
some cause, the nature of which the good 
people of Guildford have never been able 
satisfactorily to ascertain, the races have, 
for several years, gradually declined in 
celebrity and importance, and at present 
they are too often but thinly attended. The 
programme of the sports, which annually 
issues from the Guildford press, is embel¬ 
lished with a wood-cut, an impression I 
believe of the same block that has been ! 
used for the last century. The course is 
not considered by sportsmen a good one, 
but its situation, and the views it commands, 
are delightful. 

When king George the First was at lord 
Onslow’s at Clandon, (the adjoining parish,) 
he gave a plate of one hundred guineas to 
be run for ; and this is now the principal 
attraction to the proprietors of horses. 
The members for the borough of Guildford 
also give a plate of fifty pounds, and there 
is generally a subscription plate besides. 

Our hostel, the “ Running Horse” at 
Merrow, is the place of rendezvous for all 
the “ running horses.” Its stable doors 
bear highly characteristic and interesting 


3 D 


707 








































































THE TABLE BOOK. 




trophies of the honours obtained by their 
former temporary inmates. The best 
formed pumps that ever trod the floors of 
Altnack’s or the saloons of Carlton palace, 
are not more delicately turned than the 
shoes, (albeit they are of iron,) which, hav¬ 
ing done their duty on the course, and 
! brought their high-mettled wearers first to 
the winning-post, are now securely nailed 
1 against the honoured portals, as memorials 
I of his success. They are placed heel to 
heel, and within the oval is carved, in rude 
characters, the name of the horse, with the 
day on which he won for his master the 
purse of gold. What an association of 
ideas does the simple record convey ! Here, 
on a fine warm evening in June, the even¬ 
ing preceding 

-“ the great, th’ important day, 


Big with the fate of jockey and of horse,” 

-arrived the majestic “ Cydnus.” His fine 
proportions were hid from vulgar gaze, by 
cloths of purest while. As he walked 
slowly up the village street ridden by his 
jockey, a stripling of sixteen, his approach 
was hailed by the acclamations of the vil¬ 
lage boys, and the calmer admiration of the 
men, all looking forward jo their holiday 
on the succeeding day. “Here, I say; 
here, here;—here comes one of the lacers! 
—There’s a pnrty creatur! law —look at 
his long legs— law , Jem, I say, look what 
long steps he do take—fancy how he must 
gallop, if he walks so—pnrty fellur ! —I’m 
sure he’ll win—mind if he don’t now !” 
Meanwhile the noble animal arrives at the 
inn door—high breeding, whether in biped 
or quadruped, is not to be kept waiting— 
out comes the host in an important bustle, 
with the bright key of the stable door 
swinging upon his finger. lie shows the 
way to the best stall, and then takes his 
station at the door to keep out the inqui¬ 
sitive gazers, while the jockey and trainer 
commence their tender offices of cleaning 
and refreshing the horse after his unusual 
exercise of walking the public road. This 
done, he is fed, clothed, and left to his 
repose upon as soft a bed as clean straw 
will make, while the jockey and trainer 
adjourn to the house, the admiration of the 
knot of idlers who are there assembled to 
hear the pedigree, birth, parentage, educa¬ 
tion, and merits of “ the favourite.” Other 
horses soon arrive, and the conversation 
takes a more scientific turn, w'hile the 
jockies make their own bets, and descant 
learnedly upon those of their masters, till 
they betake themselves to rest, “ perchance 
to dream” of the important event of the 
succeeding day. 


Long befnre the dew has left the shor* 
herbage on the neighbouring downs, the 
jockies are busily engaged in the stables ; 
and before the sun’s heat has exceeded that 
of an April noon, they are mounted, and 
gently cantering over the turf, with the 
double object of airing their horses and 
showing them the course over which, in a 
few hours, they are urged, at their utmost 
speed, in the presence of admiring thou¬ 
sands. What an elating thought for the 
youthful rider of “ the favourite;” with 
what delight does he look forward to the 
hour when the horse and his rider will be 
the objects of attraction to hundreds of fair 
one’s eyes glancing upon him with looks of 
admiration and interest; while, in his dap. 
per silk jacket and cap of sky-blue and 
white, he rides slowly to the weighing- 
place, surrounded by lords and gentlemen 
“ of high degree.” Within a short space 
the vision is realized—more than realized— 
for he has won the first heat “ by a length.” 
In the next heat he comes in second, but 
only “ half a neck ” behind, and his horse 
is still fresh. The bell rings again for sad¬ 
dling ; and the good steed is snuffing the 
air, and preparing for renewed exertions, 
while his rider “ hails in his heart the 
triumph yet to come.” The bell rings for 
starting—“ They are off,” cry a hundred 
voices at once. Blue and white soon takes 
the lead. u Three to one”— u five to one” 
—“ seven to one”—are the odds in his 
favour ; while at the first rise in the ground j 
he gives ample pioof to the admiring 
“ cognoscenti ” that he “ must win.” A 
few minutes more, and a general hum of 
anxious voices announces that the horses 
are again in sight. “ Which is first?’’— 

“ Oh, blue and white still.”—“ I knew it; 

I was sure of it.” Here comes the clerk of | 
the course flogging out the intruders within 
the rails, and here comes the gallant bay— , 
full two lengths before the only horse that, 1 
during the whole circuit of four miles, has 
been once within speaking distance of him. ! 
He keeps the lead, and wins the race with- j 
out once feeling the whip. Here is a mo¬ 
ment of triumph for his rider! he is 
weighed again, and receives from his 
master’s hand the well-earned reward of 
his “ excellent riding.” The horse is care¬ 
fully reclothed, and led back to his stable, 
where his feet are relieved from the shoe 
which are destined to assist in recording, to 
successive generations of jockies, the gallant 
feats , performed by 










S 




“ Hearts that then beat hi^h for praise. 
But feel that pulse no more.” 


’ . • O 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 




Our hostel, however, must not be thus 
quitted.—The date inscribed within the 
circle above the centre window is, I think, 
1617. (I have a memorandum of it some¬ 
where, but have mislaid it.) The house is 
plastered and washed with yellow ; but its 
gables, Elizabethan chimnies, and project¬ 
ing bay window, (a very proper kind of 
window for a “ running horse,”) render it 
a much more picturesque building than I 
have been able to represent it on the small 
scale of my drawing. In front of it, at 
about the distance of thirty yards, there was 
formerly a well of more than a hundred feet 
I in depth ; the landlord used to repair this 
well, receiving a contribution from all who 
made use of it; but other wells have of 
late years been dug in the neighbourhood, 
and the use of this has subsequently been 
confined to the inmates of the public-house. 

The church of Merrow, of which there is 
a glimpse in the background, is worthy of 
further notice than I have the means of 
affording in the present communication. 

November , 1827. Piiilippos. 


WILLIAM CAPON, 

The Scene Painter. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—Presuming you may not have been 
acquainted with the late Mr. William 
Capon, whose excellence as a gothic archi¬ 
tectural scene-painter has not been equalled 
by any of his compeers, I venture a few 
particulars respecting him. 

My acquaintance with Mr. Capon com¬ 
menced within only the last five or six 
1 years, but his frank intimacy and hearty 
good-will were the same as if our inter¬ 
course had been of longer date. A memoir 
of him, in the “ Gentleman’s Magazine,” 
seems to me somewhat deficient in its 
i representation of those qualities. 

The memoir just noticed assigns the date 
of his birth at Norwich to have been 
October 6,1757 ; and truly represents, that 
though wanting but ten days of arriving at 
the seventieth year of his age when he 
died, his hale appearance gave little indi¬ 
cation of such a protracted existence. He 
laboured under an asthmatic affection, of 
| which he was accustomed to complain, 
while his fund of anecdote, and his jocular 
i nai've‘e in recitation, were highly amusing. 

| Ilis mannei of relating many of tho follies 
of the meal monarchs, now defunct, was 
worn to set the table in a roar; and could 
his reminiscences be remembered, they 
would present a detail quite as amusing 


as some toat have recently diverted the 
town. Kemble he deified; he confessed 
that he could not get rid of old prejudices 
in favour of his old friend ; and, to use his 
own phras#, “ there never was an actor like 
him.’ I have often seen him in ecstasy 
unlock the glazed front of the frame over 
his drawing-room chimney-piece, that en¬ 
closed a singularly beautiful enamel por¬ 
trait of that distinguished actor, which will 
shortly be competed for under the auction¬ 
eer’s hammer. Some of his finest drawings 
of the Painted Chamber at Westminster, 
framed with the richness of olden times, 
also decorated this room, which adjoined 
his study on the same floor. His larger 
drawings had green silk curtains before 
them; and these he would not care to 
draw, unless he thought his visitors’ ideas 
corresponded with his own respecting the 
scenes he had thus depicted. The most 
valuable portion of his collection was a 
series of drawings of those portions of the 
ancient city of Westminster, which modern 
improvements have wholly annihilated. 
During the course of demolition, he often 
rose at daybreak, to work undisturbed in 
his darling object; and hence, some of the 
tones of morning twilight are so strictly 
represented, as to yield a hard and unartist¬ 
like appearance. 

It was a source of disquiet to Mr. Capon 
that the liberality of publishers did not 
extend to such enlargements of Smith’s 
Westminster, as his own knowledge would 
have supplied. In fact, such a work could 
not be accomplished without a numerous 
list of subscribers ; and as he never issued 
a prospectus, the whole of his abundant 
antiquarian knowledge has died with him, 
and the pictorial details alone remain. 

Mr. Capon was, greatly to his incon¬ 
venience, a creditor of the late Richard 
Brinsley Sheridan, of whom he was accus¬ 
tomed to speak with evident vexation. He 
had been induced to enter into the com 
promise offered him by the committee of 
management of Drury-lane theatre, and 
give a receipt barring all future claims. 
This galled him exceedingly; and more than 
once he hinted suspicions respecting the 
conflagration of the theatre, which evinced 
that he had brooded over his losses till his 
judgment had become morbid. 

But he is gone, and in him society ha; 
lost an amiable and respected individual 
To the regret of numerous friends he ex 
pired on the 26th of September at his re¬ 
sidence, No. 4, North-street, Westminster. 

I am, &c. 

November 3,1827. A. W. 


769 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


(Sarrtrtt paps* 

No. XL1II. 

[From “ Brutus of Alba,” a Tragedy, by 
Nahum Tate, 1678.] 

Ragnsa, and four more IVitches , about to 
raise a storm. 

Rag. ’Tis time we were preparing for the storm. 
Heed me, ye daughters of the mystic art; 

Look that it be no common hurricane, 

But such as rend the Caspian cliffs, and from 
Th’ Hyrcanian hills sweep cedars, roots and all. 

Speak ; goes all right? 

All. Uh! Uh ! Uhl Uhl 

** 1st TV. The cricket leaves our cave, and chirps no 
more. 

2d TV. I stuck a ram, hut could not stain my steel. 
3d TV. His fat consumed in th’ fire, and nevci 
smok’d. 

4 th TV. I found this morn upon our furnace wall 
Mysterious words wrought by a slimy snail. 

Whose night-walk fate had guided in that form. 

id TV. Thou’rt queen of mysteries, great Ragusa. 
How hast thou stemm’d the abyss of our black science, 
Traced dodging nature thro’ her blind ’scape-roads, 
And brought her naked and trembling to the light 1 
Rag. Now to our task— 

Stand off; and, crouching, mystic postures make. 
Gnawing your rivel’d knuckles till they bleed, 

Whilst I fall prostrate to consult my art. 

And mutter sounds too secret for your ear. 

(storm rises.) 

Rag. The storm’s on wing, comes powdering f rom 
the Nore; 

Tis past the Alps already, and whirls forward 
To th’ Appenine, whose rifted snow is swept 
To th’ vales beneath, while cots and folds lie buried. 
Thou Myrza tak’st to-uight an airy march 
To th’ Pontic shore for drugs; and for more speed 
On my own maple crutch thou shalt be mounted, 

Which bridled turns to a steed so manageable. 

That thou may’st rein him with a spider’s thread. 

4th TV. And how if I o’ertake a bark ia the way ? 
Rag. Then, if aloft thou goest, to tinder scorch 
The fauns ; but if thou tak’st a lower cut. 

Then snatch the whips off from the steersman’s hand. 
And sowce him in the foam. 

4 th TV. He shall be drench’d. 

(storm thickens.) 

Rag. Aye, this is music ! now methinks I hear 
fhe shrieks of sinking sailors, tackle rent, 

Rudders unhing’d, while the sea-raveners swift 
Scour thro’ the dark flood for the diving corpses. 

(the owl cries.) 

Ha 1 art. thou there, my melancholy sister ? 

Thou think’st thy nap was short, and art surpris’d 
To find night fallen already. 

More turf to th’ fire, till the black mesh ferment 


Burn th’ oil of basilisk to fret the storm. 

That was a merry clap : I know that cloud 
Was of my Flicker’s rending, Fricker rent it; 

O ’tis an ardent Spirit; but beshrew him, 

’Twas he seduced me first to hellish art9. 

He found me pensive in a desart glin. 

Near a lone oak forlorn and thunder-cleft. 

Where discontented I abjured the Gods, 

And bann’d the cruel creditor that seiz’d 
My Mullees,* sole subsistence of my life. 

He promised me full twelve years’ absolute reign 
To banquet all my senses, but he lied. 

For vipers’ flesh is now my only food. 

My drink of springs that stream from sulph’roce 
mines ; 

Beside with midnight cramps and scalding sweats 
I am almost inured for hell's worst tortures.— 

I hear the wood-nymphs cry; by that I know 
My charm has took— 

but day clears up. 

And heavenly light wounds my infectious eyes. 

1st W. Now, sullen Dame, dost thou approve our 
works ? 

Rag. ’Twas a brave wreck : O, you have well per¬ 
form’d. 

id W. Myrza and I bestrid a cloud, and soar’d 
To lash the storm, which we pursued to th’ City, 
Where in my flight I snatch’d the golden globe, 

That high on Saturn’s pillar blaz’d i’ th’ air. 

3d IV. I fired the turret of Minerva’s fane. 

4 th W. I staid i’ th’ cell to set the spell a work. 

The lamps burnt ghastly blue, the furnace shook ; 

The Salamander felt the heat redoubled. 

And frisk’d about, so well I plied the fire. 

Rag. Now as I hate bright day, and love moonshine. 
You shall be all my sisters in the art: 

I will instruct ye in each mystery; 

Make ye all Ragusas. 

All. Ho ! Ho ! Hoi 

Rag. Around me, and I’ll deal to each her dole. 
There’s an elf-lock, tooth of hermaphrodite, 

A brace of mandrakes digg’d in fairy ground, 

A lamprey’s chain, snake’s eggs, dead sparks of thun 
der 

Quench’d in its passage thro’ the cold mid air, 

A mermaid’s fin, a cockatrice’s comb 
Wrapt i* the dried caul of a brat still-born. 

Burn ’em.— 

I n whispers take the rest, Which named aloud 
Would fright the day, and raise another storm. 

All. Ho! Hoi Hoi Hoi 

Soziman, a wicked Statesman , employs 
Ragusa for a charm. 

Rag. — my drudges I’ll employ 
To frame with their best arts a bracelet for thee. 
Which, while thou wear’st it lock’d on thy left arm. 
Treason shall ne’er annoy thee, sword and poison 
In vain attempt; Nature alone have power 
Thy substance to dissolve, nor she herself 
Till many a winter-shock hath broke thy temixz. 


• Her cows. 


770 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


Sox Medea tor her Jason less performed! 

My greatening soul aspires to range like thee. 

In unknown worlds, to search the reign of Night. 
Admitted tc thy dreadful mysteries, 

I should be more than mortal. 

Rag. Near my cell, 

Mong’st circling rocks (in form a theatre) 

Lies a snug vale— 

Soz. With horror I have view’d it; 

Tis blasted all and bare as th’ ocean beech. 

And seems a round for elves to revel in. 
j Rag. With my attendants there each waining moon 
My dreadful Court I hold, and sit in state:— 

And when the dire transactions are dispatch’d, 

Our zany Spirits ascend to make us mirth 
With gambals, dances, masks and revelling songs. 

Till our mad din strike terror through the waste. 
Spreads far and wide to th’ cliffs that bank the main, 
And scarce is lost in the wide ocean’s roar. 

Here seated by me thou shalt view the sports. 

Whilst demons kiss thy foot, and swear thee homage. 

. 

Ragnsa , with the other fVitches , having 
finished, the bracelet. 

Rag. Proceed we then to ftnisu our black projects.— 
View here, till from your green distilling eyes 
The poisonous glances center on this bracelet, 

A fatal gift for our projecting son ;— 

Seven hours odd minutes has it steept i’ th’ gall 
Of a vile Moor swine-rooted from his grave. 

Now to your bloated lips apply it round, 

And with th’ infectious dew of your black oreaths 
Coraoleat its baleful force. 


[From the “ Fatal Union,” a Tragedy; 
Author Unknown ] 

Dirge. 

Noblest bodies are but gilded clay. 

Put away 

But the precious shining rind, 

The inmost rottenness remains behind. 

Kings, on earth though Gods they be. 

Yet in death are vile as we. 

He, a thousand Kings before. 

Now is vassal unto more. 

Vermin now insulting lie. 

And dig for diamonds in each eye; 

Whilst the sceptre-bearing hand 
Cannot their inroads withstand. 

Here doth one in odours wade, 

By the regal unction made; 

While another dares to gnaw 
On that tongue, his people’s law. 

Fools, ah I fools are we that so contrive, 

And do strive. 

In each gaudy ornament. 

Who shall his corpse in the best dish present. 

(J. L. 


ISLE OF WIGHT 

To the Editor. 

Hay Harvest Custom. 

Sir,—Perhaps you may deem the follow¬ 
ing singular tenure from “ Horsey’s Beau¬ 
ties of the Isle of Wight, 1826,” worth 
adding to those already perpetuated in the 
Every-Day Book t and your present agree¬ 
able continuation of it. 

At the foot of St. John’s Wood are two 
meadows, on * 1 on each hand, the main road 
running between them. These meadows 
are known by the name of Monk’s Meads. 
It is a remarkable circumstance, that the 
first crop of hay they produce annually is 
reaped, not by the owner, nor the person 
who may rent the land, but by the tenant 
of Newnham farm, which is situated up¬ 
wards of two miles distant, and has no 
connection whatever with the land. There 
is a legend attaching to this circumstance. 
The tale is, that one of the monks of Quarr 
was in the habit of visiting the family that 
once occupied Newnham farm, and as his 
visits were pretty frequent, and he was 
accustomed to put up his horse at the far 
mer’s expense, he bequeathed to the tenan 
of Newnham farm the first crop of hay 
which these meadows produce annually, 
each meadow to be reaped for his benefU 
every alternate year; and the warrant for 
his doing so was to be the continuance of a 
rude image in the wall of the house. 
Whether this be the legal tenure or not is j 
another question ; one tiling is certain, the ! 
idol is preserved in the wall, the farmer 
comes on the specific day for the crop, and 
the produce is carried to Newnham. 

I am, &c. 

May 17, 1827 Djck Dick’s Son. 


ORIGIN OF HAY-BAND? 

For the Table Book. 

Many of our origins and customs are 
derived from the Romans. In the time of 
Romulus, a handful of hay was used in his 
ranks instead of a flag; and his military 
ensign, who commanded a number of sol¬ 
diers, was called a band , or ancient bearer. 
Thus it will appear, that a twisted band of 
hay being tied round a larger quantity of 
hay, for its support, it is, agreeably to the 
derivation, properly called a hay-band. 

This word might serve for the tracing a 
variety of “ bands,”—as the “ band of 
gentleman pensioners,’’ — the “ duke of 
York’s band,” cum midtis , et cat. 


771 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


ft 


BRISTOL HIGH CROSS. 

For the Table Book. 

The High Cross, which formerly stood at 
Bristol, was first erected in 1373 in the 
High-street, near the Tolsey; and in suc¬ 
ceeding times it was adorned with the 
effigies of four kings, who had been bene¬ 
factors to the city, viz. king John facing 
north to Broad-street, king Henry III. east 
to Wine-street, king Edward III. west to 
Corn-street, and king Edward IV. south to 
High-street. 

After the original Cross had stood three 
hundred and sixty years at the top of High- 
street, a silversmith who resided in the 
house (now 1827) called the Castle Bank, 
facing High-street and Wine-street, offered 
to swear that during every high wind his 
premises and his life were endangered by 
the expected fall of the Cross !—A petition, 
too, was signed by several respectable citi¬ 
zens ! to the corporation for its removal, 
with which that body complied ivith great 
reluctance , and saw its demolition with 
great regret! 

In the year 1633 it was taken down, en¬ 
larged, and raised higher, and four other 
statues were then added, viz. king Henry 
VI. facing east, queen Elizabeth west, king 
James I. south, and king Charles I. north; 
the whole was painted and gilded, and en¬ 
vironed with iron palisadoes. 

In 1733, being found incommodious by 
j obstructing the passage of carriages, it was 
' again taken down, and erected in the centre 
i of College-green, the figures facing the 
same points as before. On that occasion it 
was painted in imitation of grey marble, 
the ornaments were gilt, and the figures 
were painted in their proper colours. 

About the year 1762 it was discovered 
that it prevented ladies and gentlemen 
from walking eight or ten abreast, and 
its final ruin resolved upon; and it was 
once more taken down by the order of the 
Rev. Cuts Barton, then dean, and strange 
to say, as if there were no spot in the whole 
city of Bristol whereon this beautiful struc¬ 
ture could be again erected, it was given 
by the “ very reverend” gentleman to Mr. 
Henry Hoare of Stcurton, who afterwards 
set it up in his delightful gardens there. 

The following extracts from some old 
newspapers, preserved by the Bristol anti¬ 
quary, the late Mr. George Symes Catcott, 
are interesting. 

“ August 21 , 1762.—Several workmen 
! are now employed in raising the walls in 
College-green, and taking down the High 
j Cross, which, ivheti beautified , will be put 


up in the middle of the grass-plot near the 
lower green, about thirty yards from where 
it now stands.” 

“ A.D. 1764.—Epigram:— 

4 Ye people of Bristol deplore the sad loss 
Of the kings and the queens that once reigned in yo’iT j 
Cross ; 

Tho’ your patrons they were, and their reigns were so 
good. 

Like Nebuchadnezer they’re forced to the wood. 

Your great men’s great wisdom you surely must pity, 
Who’ve banished what all men admir’d from the city." 

“ October, 1764.—To the printer (of one 
of the Bristol newspapers)— 

“ Sir,— By inserting the following in 
your paper you will oblige, &c.:— 

“ In days of yore, when haughty France was tamed, 

In that great battle, which from Cressy’s named, 

Our glorious Edward and his Godlike son 
To England added what from France they’d won. 

In this famed reign the High Cross was erected, 

And for its height and beauty much respected. 
Succeeding times (for gratitude then reigned 
On earth, nor was by all mankind disdained) 

The Cross adorned with four patron kings, 

So History assures the muse that sings ; 

Some hundred years it stood, to strangers shown 
As the palladium of this trading town: 

Till in king Charles the first’s unhappy reign 
’Twas taken down, but soon was raised again ; 

In bulk and height increased, four statues more 
Were added to the others, there before : 

Then gilded palisadoes fenc’d it round— 

A Cross so noble grac’d no other ground. 

There long it stood, and oft admir’d had been, 

Till mov’d from thence to adorn the College-green 
There had it still remained; but envious fate, , 

Who secret pines at what is good or great, 

Raised up the ladies to conspire its fall, 

For boys and men, and dogs defiled it all. 

For those faults condemned, this noble pile 
Was in the sacred college stow’d a while. 

From thence these kings, so very great and good, 

Are sent to grace proud Stourton’s lofty wood. 

“ R. S." 

Mr. Britton observes, that “ the im¬ 
provements and embellishments of this 
Cross in 1633 cost the chamber of Bristol 
207 1. Its height from the ground was 
thirty-nine feet six inches. After taking 
it down in 1733 it was thrown into the 
Guildhall, where it remained till some gen¬ 
tlemen of the College-green voluntarily 
subscribed to have it re-erected in the cen¬ 
tre of that open space; but here it was not 
suffered long to continue, for in 1763 the 
whole was once more levelled with the 
ground, and thrown into a secluded corner I 
of the cathedral, so insensible were the 
Bristolians of its beauty and curiosity. Mr, 


772 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Hoare expended about 300/. in its removal 
to and re-erection at Stourton. The present 
structure at Stourton, however, varies in 
many particulars from the original Cross. It 
constitutes not only an unique garden orna¬ 
ment in its present situation, but is singu¬ 
larly beautiful for its architectural character, 
its sculpture, and its eventful history.” 

1821.—A clergyman of Bristol (the Rev. 
Mr. Sayer) having an occasion to write to 
sir R. C. Hoare, bart. received in reply a 
letter containing the following paragraph :— 
“ I am glad to hear that the citizens of 
Bristol show a desire to restore the ancient 
monuments of their royal benefactors ; pray 
assure them, that I shall be very happy to 
contribute any assistance, but my original 
is in such a tottering state that no time 
should be lost.” 

Thus the beautiful High Cross winch 
once adorned the city of Bristol may now, 
through the liberality of sir It. C. Hoare, 
be transplanted (if we may use the expres¬ 
sion} to its native soil, after a banishment 
of fifty-seven years. Its reappearance in 
the College-green would be beautiful and 
highly appropriate. 

At a meeting of the Bristol Philosophi¬ 
cal and Literary Society on the 19th April, 
1827, Mr. Richard Smith read a paper 
from Thomas Garrard, Esq. the chamberlain 
of Bristol, on the subject of the High Cross, 
together with a brief notice of “ the well 
of St. Edith ” in Peter-street. The latter, 
as well as the remains of the Cross, are still 
preserved at sir R. C. Iloare’s at Stourton. 
Many other interesting particulars may be 
found in the Bristol Mirror, April 28, 1827. 

August , 1827. A. B. 


| ORIGIN OF THE WORD TAILOR. 

To the Editor. 

Dear Sir,—Bailey derives “ tailor from 
tailler, French, a maker of garments 
but when a boy I remember perfectly well, 
my grandfather, who was facetious, and 
attached to the usages of the past, ac¬ 
quainting me with his origin of the word 
“ tailor.” He stated it nearly thus :— 

| “ The term tailor originated between a 
botcher (a man that went from farm-house 
to farm-house, and made and repaired 
clothes by the day) and his wife—who, 
going to a town fair without her husband, 
returned in a storm at a late hour, all be¬ 
spattered with mud. The wearied botcher 
had searched for her in vain, till meeting 
a neighbour, who told him his wife was 
gone home draggletailed. he exclaimed, 

i __L_ 


‘ God be praised ! she's where she ough 
to be; but the De’el take the tail-o'her. 
His brother villagers ever after called him 
(not the botcher) but the tail o'her —hence 
tailor. The Devil among the Tailors per¬ 
haps owes its origin to a similar freak.” 

Speaking of a tail, the following from 
Bailey may not be inappropriate.—“ Kent¬ 
ish long tails. The Kentish men are said to 
have had tails for some generations, by 
way of punishment, as some say ; for the 
Kentish pagans abusing Austin the monk 
and his associates, by beating them, and 
opprobriously tying fish-tails to them; in 
revenge of which, such appendages grew 
to the hind parts of all that generation. I) 
But the scene of this lying wonder was not 
in Kent, but at Carne, in Dorsetshire. 
Others again say, it was for cutting off the 
tail of Saint Thomas of Canterbury’s horse ; ! 
who, being out of favour with Henry II., ! 
riding towards Canteibury upon a poor * 1 
sorry horse, was so served by the common 
people. Credut Judaeus Apella*' 

“ Animals’ tails ” were worn at country 
festivals by buffoons and sportmakers; for 
which, see “ Plough Monday,” in the 
Every-Day Book ; and also, see Liston, in 
Grojan, “ I could a tail unfold !” &c. 

Yours truly, 

* # P 

> > 1 • 


For the Table Book. 

TIIE CLERK IN THE DARK. 

“ Set forth, but not allowed to be sung in 
all Churches , of all the people together .” 

Once on a time, ’twas afternoon, 

And winter—while the weary day 
Danced off with Phoebus—to the tune 
Of “ O’er the hills and far away”- 

I went to church, and heard the clerk 
Preface the psalm with “ Pardon me, 

But really friends it is so dark. 

Do all I may I cannot see” -- 

The “ quire” that used the psalms to chant 
Not dreaming to be thus misled— 

Struck up in chorus jubilant. 

The clerk’s apology instead! 

MORAL. 

*> The force of habit’ should not keep 
Our trust in other heads so sure, 

That reason may drop off to sleep. 

Or sense enjoy a sinecure. 

A X 


7 73 



































, ITIE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. . 
CINDERELLA. 

Of all the narratives either of fact or of 
fiction there are none, I will pledge my 
veracity, like the Fairy Tales of the Nursery, 
for interesting all the best feelings of our 
nature, and for impressing an imperishable 
and beautiful morality upon the heart. Was 
there ever, can you imagine—was there ever 
a young woman hardened and heartless 
enough to explore a forbidden closet, after 
she had perused the romantic history of 
Bluebeard ? Would she not fearfully fancy 
that every box, bag, and bottle, jar, jelly, 
aqd jam-pot was grinning hideously at her 
in the person of one of the departed Mrs. 
Bluebeards ? In fact, there is not a tale that 
does not convey some fine instruction, and, 

! I would venture to affirm, that does not 
produce more salutary influence on the 
youthful mind, than all that Dr. Gregory 
and Mrs. Chapone, Dr. Fordyce and Miss 
Hannah More, have ever, in their wearisome 
sagacity, advised. 

Of the whole of these entertaining sto¬ 
ries, perhaps the best, and deservedly the 
most popular, is the History of Cinderella. 
How deeply do we sympathise in her cin¬ 
ders ! how do we admire her patient en¬ 
durance and uncomplaining gentleness,— 
her lvoble magnanimity in not arranging 
her sisters' tresses amiss —for presuming to 
be her miss-tresses —and finally, how do 
we rejoice -at her ultimate and unexpected 
prosperity! Judge then of my horror, 
imagine my despair, when I read the New 
Monthly Magazine, and saw this most ex¬ 
quisite story derived from the childish folly 
of a strolling player! The account, which 
is in a paper entitled “ Drafts on LaFitte,” 
states, that the tale originated in an actual 
occurrence about the year 17 30 at Paris. 
It is to this effect:—An actor, ona Theve- 
nard, saw a shoe, where shoes are frequently 
to be seen, viz. at a cobbler’s stall, and, like 
a wise man, fell deeply in love with itc 
He immediately took his stand by the stall 
all the rest of the day—but nobody came 
for the shoe. Next morning “ Ecce iterum 
Crispinus,” he was with the cobbler again, 
still nobody came: however, to make a 
short story of a long one, day after day the 
poor actor stood there, till the proprietor ol 
the shoe applied for it, in the person or a 
most elegant young woman; when mon¬ 
sieur Thevenard took the opportunity of 
telling her, he admired her foot so much he 
was anxious to gain her hand ; to this mo¬ 
dest desire she kindly complied, and they 

1 


were accordingly married. Thus ends this 
pitiful account. He must have had an in¬ 
ventive fancy, indeed, who could manufac- j 
lure the sweet story of Cinderella out ot 
such meagre materials—it was making a 
mountain out of a molehill! The gentle 
and interesting Cinderella dwindles down 
into a girl, whose only apparent merit was 
her economy in having her shoe patched— 
and the affable and affluent prince melts 
away into a French actor. Were the prize 
of squeezing her foot into the little slipper 
only to become the bride of an actor, I 
should imagine the ladies would not have 
been quite so anxious to stand in her 
shoes! 

Now, gentle reader, as I have told you 
what is not the origin of my story, it is but 
incumbent on me to tell you what is. —In 
the thirteenth book of the “ Various His¬ 
tory” of iElian is the real genuine narrative 
fiom which Cinderella is derived—it is the 
twenty-third anecdote: and the similarity 
of the two stories is so great, that, I trust, 
a simple repetition of it will prove beyond 
a doubt the antiquity, as well as the rank, 
of my favourite Cinderella. Of all the 
Egyptians, says the historian, Rhodope 
was reckoned the most beautiful;—to her, 
when she was bathing, Fortune, ever fond 
of sudden and unexpected catatrophes, ! 
did a kindness more merited by her beauty 
than her prudence. One day, when she 
was bathing, she judiciously left her shoes 
on the bank of the stream, and an eagle 
(naturally mistaking it for a sheep or a little 
child) pounced down upon one of them, 
and flew off with it. Flying with it directly 
over Memphis, where king Psammeticus* 
was dispensing justice, the eagle dropped 
the shoe in the king’s lap. Of course the 
king was struck with it, and admiring the ; 
beauty of the shoe and the skill and pro¬ 
portion of the fabrication, he sent thiough 
all the kingdom in search of a foot that 
would fit it; and having found it attached 
to the person of Rhodope, he immediately 
married her. 

P.S.—I have given my authority, chapter 
and verse, for my story ; but still farther to 
substantiate it, lam willing to lay both my 
Kiame and address before the reader. 

Mr. Smith, 

'Sfovember, 1827. London. 


* PsRmmeticns was one of the twelve kings of Egypt, 
and reigned about the year 670 B. C., just 2400 years 
before the poor Frenchman's time !—(See his history in 
Herodotus, book 2. cap. 2 and 3.) 


774 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


HOHjE CRAVENS. 

For the Table Book. 

II ITCHING STONE FeaST.— CoWLING 

Moons. 

On the highest part of Sutton Common, 
in Craven, is a huge block of solid granite, 
of about fifty yards in circumference, and 
about ten yards high. It is regarded as a 
great natural curiosity, and has for gene¬ 
rations been a prominent feature in the 
legends and old wife’s tales of the neigh¬ 
bourhood. On the west side is an artificial 
excavation, called “ The Chair,” capable of 
containing six persons comfortably, though 
I remember it once, at a pinch, in a tre¬ 
mendous thunder shower, containing eight. 
On the north side is a similar excavation, 
called “ The Churn,” from its resemblance 
to that domestic utensil; on the top is a 
natural basin, fourteen yards in circum¬ 
ference. This stone is the boundary-mark 
for three townships and two parishes, viz. 
the townships of Sutton, Cowling, and 
Laycock, and the parishes of Kildwick and 
Keighley. From time immemorial it has 
been customary to hold a feast round 
llitchingstone on the 1st of August, the 
amusements at which are of a similar 
nature with those of the village feasts and 
tides (as they are called in some places) in 
the vicinity, as dancing, racing, &c. At a 
short distance from llitchingstone are two 
smaller stones, one on the east, called Kid- 
stone, the other on the north-east, called 
Navaxstone; whence the three names are 
derived I am ignorant. 

The inhabitants of Cowling, or Cowling- 
head, the village from which the township 
takes its name, are known in Craven as 
“ Moons; 0 an epithet of derision, which is 
said to have had its origin from the follow¬ 
ing circumstance:—Cowling-head is a wild 
mountain village, and the inhabitants are 
not famed for travelling much; but it is 
told, that once upon a time, a Cowling 
shepherd got so far from home as Skipton, 
(six miles;) on entering Skipton it was a 
fine moonlight night, and the shepherd is 
said to have made this sagacious remark: 
« How like your Skipton moon is to our 
Cowling-head moon.” Be the story true 
or not, the inhabitants are called “ Moons 
and in the vulgar vocabulary of Craven a 
silly fellow is called a “ Cowling moon. ’ 
Not knowing a single inhabitant of Cow¬ 
ling I cannot speak of their civilization; but 
ii does not say much for their advancement 
in knowledge, that the Joannites have a 

i 


chapel amongst them, and remain true to 
their prophetess ; who, as they suppose, 

-is but vanish’d from the earth awhile. 

To come again with bright unclouded smile. 

While residing a few days at a gentle¬ 
man’s house in the neighbourhood, I fre¬ 
quently observed the Cowling Joannites, 
with their long beards, rambling up and 
down the fells. A friend likened them to 1 
the ancient Druid priests, but I thought 
they more resembled goats, and formed no 
bad substitute for that animal, which is 
almost wholly banished from the fells of 
the district. 

He’ S GOT T’OlL-BOTTLE IN HIS POCKET. 

This is a Craven saying, and is applied 
to a person, who, like the heathen Janus, 
has two faces; in other words, one who 
acts with duplicity, who will flatter you to 
your face, and malign you behind your 
back. Alas ! how many are there amongst 
all ranks, and in all places, who have “ got 
t’oil bottles in their pockets.” 

Swine Harry. 

This is the name of a field on the side ot 
Pinnow, a hill in Lothersdale, in Craven ; 
and is said to have derived its name from 
the following singular circumstance. A 
native of the valley was once, at the dead 
of night, crossing the field with a pig which 
he had stolen from a neighbouring farm¬ 
yard ; he led the obstinate animal by a rope 
tied to its leg, which was noosed at the end 
where the thief held it. On coining to a 
ladder-style in the field, being a very cor¬ 
pulent man, and wishing to have both 
hands at liberty, but not liking to release 
the pig, he transferred the rope from his 
hands to his neck ; but when he reached 
the topmost step his feet slipped, the pig 
pulled hard on the other side, the noose 
tightened, and on the following morning ! 
he was found dead. I believe this story 
to be a fact; it was told me by an aged 
man, who said it happened in his father’s 
time. 

Sept. 2, 1827. T. Q. M. 

THOMAS SMITH, 

A Quack Extraordinary. 

For the Table Book. 

The following advertisement, somewhat 
abridged from the original, which must 
have been put forth upwards of a century 
ago, abundantly proves, that quackery and 
puffing had made some progress even at 
that period :— 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


“ In King-street, Westminster, at the 
j Queen’s-anns and Corn-cutter, liveth Tho 
J mas Smith ; who, by experience and in¬ 
genuity, has learnt the art of taking out 
and curing all manner of corns, without 
pa n, or drawing blood. He likewise takes 
out all manner of nails, which cause any 
disaster, trouble, or pain, which no man in 
England can do the like. He cures the 
tooth-ache in half an hour, let the pain be 
never so great, and cleanses and preserves 
the teeth. He can, with God’s assistance, 
perform the same in a little time. 

“ I wear a silver badge, with three 
verses; the first in English, the second in 
Dutch, the third in French, with the States 
of Holland’s crownet on the top, which was 
gave me as a present by the States-general 
of Holland, for the many cures, &c. My 
name on the badge underwritten, Thomas 
Smith, who will not fail, God willing, to 
make out every particular in this bill, &tc. 

“ The famousest ware in England, which 
never fails to cure the tooth-ache in half an 
hour, price one shilling the bottle. Likewise 
a powder for cleansing the teeth, which 
makes them as ivory without wearing them, 
and without prejudice to the gums, one 
shilling the box. Also two sorts of w r ater 
, for curing the scurvy in the gums ; though 
they are eaten away to the bottom, it will 
heal them, and cause them to grow as firm 
as ever, very safe, without mercury, or any 
unwholesome spirit. To avoid counter¬ 
feits, they are only sold at his own house, 
&c., price of each bottle half a crown, or 
more, according to the bigness, with direc¬ 
tions.”— Harl. MSS. 

Smith is mentioned in the Tatler. He 
used to go out daily in quest of customers, 
and made a periodical call at all the coffee¬ 
houses then in London. 

II. M. L. 


DUNCHURCH, COW, AND CALF. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—I am confidently assured, that the 
following coincidences really occur. You 
may not perhaps deem them unworthy of 
the very small space they will occupy in 
your amusing columns, of which I have 
ever been a constant reader. T. R. 

At Dunchurch, near Coventry, is an inn, 
or public-house, called the Dun Cow , which 
supplies its landlord with the milk of ex¬ 
istence. He is actually named Duncalf; 
the product of his barrels may be, there¬ 
fore, not unaptly termed,— mother's milk. 


ffiterobfries* 

OF THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. XIV. 

The Circulation of the Blood, 8cc 

Two thousand years have elapsed since 
the time of Hippocrates, and there has 
scarcely been added a new aphorism tc 
those of that great man, notwithstanding 
all the care and application of so many 
ingenious men as have since studied medi¬ 
cine. 

There exist evident proofs that Hippo- 
crates was acquainted with the circulation 1 
of the blood. Almelooven, in vindication 
of this father of medicine not having more 
amply treated of this subject in his works, 
assigns this reason, that Hippocrates having 
many other important matters to discuss, 
judged that to enlarge upon what was so 
well known, and had been so well explained 
by others, was as needless as it would have 
been to have written an Iliad after Homer. 
It is less requisite here to cite passages as 
proofs of Hippocrates’s knowledge on this j 
vital principle in the animal economy, than 
to state the fact of his acquaintance with 
it. Briefly it may suffice to mention, that 
Hippocrates compares the course of rivers, 
which return to their sources in an unac¬ 
countable and extraordinary manner, to the 
circulation of the blood. He says, that , 
“ when tire bile enters into the blood it j 
breaks its consistence, and disorders its 
regular course.” He compares the admira¬ 
ble mechanism of the blood “ to clues of j 
thread, whose filaments overlap each other;” j 
and he says, that “ in the body it performs ! 
just such a circuit , always terminating 
ivhere it began.’’ 

Mr. Dutens is of opinion that Plato, 
Aristotle, Julius Pollux, Apuleius, and 
other ancients, treat the circulation of the 
blood as well known in their time. To 
that end he cites passages from their writ¬ 
ings, and proceeds to affirm, that what re¬ 
duces to a very small degree the honour ol 
Harvey’s claim to the discovery is, that 
u Servetus had treated of it very distinctly 
before him, in the fifth part of his book De 
Christianismi Restitutione; a work so very 
scarce, that there are but few who can boast 
of having seen it in print. Mr. Wotton, in 
his Reflections upon the Ancients and Mo 


770 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


iterns , cites this passage of SerVetus entire. 
In this passage Servetus distinguishes tliree 
sorts of spirits in the human body, and 
says that blood, “ which he calls a vital 
spirit, is dispersed through the body by the 
anastomosis , or mutual insertion of two 
vessels, at their extremities, into One ano¬ 
ther.” Here it deserves observation, that 
Servetu9 is the first who employed that 
i term to express the communication between 
the veins and arteries. He makes “ the 
expanded air in the lungs contribute to the 
formation of blood, which comes to them 
from the right ventricle of the heart, by the 
canal of the pulmonary artery.” He says, 
that “ the blood is there refined and perfected 
by the action of the air, which subtilises it 
and blends itself with that vital spiiit, 

I which the expanded heart then receives as 
a fluid proper to carry life every where.” 
He maintains that “ this conveyance and 
manner of preparing the blood in the lungs 
is evident from the junction of the veins 
with the arteries in this viscera/’ And he 
concludes with saying, that “ the heart having 
received the blood thus prepared by the 
lungs sends it forth again by the artery of 
; : ts left ventricle, called the aorta, which 
distributes it into all parts of the body.” 
Andreas Cesalpinus, who lived likewise in 
the sixteenth century, has two passages 
which completely contain all that we know 
about the circulation of the blood. He ex¬ 
plains at length “ how the blood, gushing 
from the right ventricle of the heart through 
the pulmonary artery to pass into the lungs, 
enters anastomosically into the pulmonary 
veins, to be conveyed to the left ventricle 
of the heart, and afterwards distributed by 
the aorta into all parts of the body.” Let 
it be remarked, that, according to Boer- 
haave, the first edition of Cesalpin’s book 
was at Venice in 1571 ; that is, almost 
sixty years before Harvey’s work appeared, 
who studied at Padua, which is not far 
from Venice ; and spent a considerable part 
of his time there. 

Johannes Leonicenus says, that the 
.amous Paul Sarpi, otherwise known by the 
name of Father Paul, was he who dis¬ 
covered the circulation of the blood, and 
first discerned “ the valves of the veins, 
which, like the suckers of a pump, open to 
let the blood pass, but shut to prevent its 
returnand that he communicated this 
secret to Fabricius ab Aquapendente, pro¬ 
fessor of medicine at Padoua in the six¬ 
teenth century, and successor to Fallopius, 
who discovered it to Harvey, at that time 
studying physic under nim in the university 
of Padoua. 


SERVETUS. 

Ilrs Books — Ciiristianismi Restitutio 

—De Trinitate Erroribus—DeTri- 

NITATE DlALOGORUM. 

I 

Mr. Dutens, in the course of his remarks 
on Servetus’s discourse concerning the cir¬ 
culation of the blood, observes as follows :— 

“ Servetus published on this subject two 
different books. That for which he was 
burnt at Geneva, in 1553, is entitled 
Christianismi Restitutio, and had been 
printed but a month before his death. The 
care they took to burn all the copies of it 
at Vienne in Dauphiny, at Geneva, and at 
Frankfort, rendered it a book of the greatest 
scarcity. Mention is made of one copy of 
it in the catalogue of Mr. de Boze’s books, 
p. 40, which has been regarded as the only 
one extant. I have had in my hands a 
surreptitious copy of it, published at Lon¬ 
don, which formerly belonged to Dr. j 
Friend; in the 143d, 144th, and 145th | 
pages of which occurs the passage (on the 
circulation.) The book is in quarto, but 
without the name of the place where it was 
printed, or the time when, and is incom¬ 
plete, the bishop of London having put a 
stop to the impression, which, if I mistake 
not, was about the year 1730. Care should 
be taken not to confound this with another 
work of his, printed in 12mo. in 1531, 
without mention of the place where, but 
supposed to be at Lyons. It is entitled 
De Trinitatis Erroribus Libri Septem, per 
Michaelem Serveto, alias Reves,ab Aragonia 
Hispannm ; and there is along with it ano¬ 
ther treatise, printed in 1532, entitled Dia- 
logornm de Trinitate , Lib. 2. de Justitia 
Regni Christi , Capitula 4. per Michaelem 
Serveto, alias Reves , ab Aragonia Hispu- 
nnm. This last, which is very scarce, and 
sold once for one hundred pistoles, (that is 
40/. sterl.) is in the library of the duke of 
Roxburgh at London, where I have seen it, 
but it contains not the passage referred to, 
which is only to be met with in the cor¬ 
rected and enlarged edition of that work, 
published in 1553, and entitled Christia¬ 
nismi Restitutio .” 

Dr. Sigmond, in a recent work, entitled 
“ The Unnoticed Theories of Servetus,” i 
speaks of a Life of Servetus in the His- j 
torical Dictionary;* another, ascribed to i 
M. de la Roche, in the “ Biblioihfcque An- 
gloise,” with extracts relating to Servetus s 
Theory of the Circulation of the Blood ; 
and a third, by M. D’Artigny, in the “ Me- 
moires des Homines lllustres,” who extracted 


« Of which there is an English translation in 8vo. 
































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Ihe history of the trial from the archives of 
the archbishop of Vienne in Dauphine. 
“ And I have lately read with considerable 
pleasure,” says Dr. Sigmond, “ an Apology 
for the Life of Servetus, by Richard Wright; 
not because he adds any thing to our pre¬ 
vious knowledge of his life and conduct, 
but that a spirit of candour and liberality 
entitles the volume to much consideration. 
He has evidently not met with the Christi- 
anismi Restitutio .’’ 

In relation to this latter work by Serve¬ 
tus, Dr. Sigmond says, “ The late Dr. Sims, 
for many years president of the Medical 
Society of London, bequeathed to me his 
copy of Servetus, to which he has prefixed 
the following note :—‘ The fate of this work 
has been not a little singular; all the copies, 
except one, were burned along with the 
author by the implacable Calvin. This 
copy was secreted by D. Colladon, one of 
the judges. After passing through the 
library of the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, 
it came into the hands of Dr. Mead, who 
endeavoured to give a quarto edition of it; 
but before it was nea r ly completed, it was 
seized by John Kent, messenger of the 
press, and William Squire, messenger in 
ordinary, on the 29th of May, 1723, at the 
instance of Dr. Gibson, bishop of London, 
and burnt, a very few copies excepted. 
The late duke de Valliere gave near 400 
guineas for this copy, and at his sale it 
brought 3810 livres. It contains the first 
account of the circulation of the blood, 
above 70 years before the immortal Harvey 
published his discovery.’ ” 

“ In justice to the memory of my late 
valued friend,” says Dr. Sigmond, “ I must 
state my conviction that this copy is not 
the original one; at the same time, I firmly 
believe he imagined it to be that which he 
has described. Yet he was well known as 
an accurate man, as a judicious collector of 
books: and, indeed, to him is the Medical 
Society of London indebted for its valuable 
and admirable library.” Dr. Sigmond’s 
correction of Dr. Sims’s note is substantial; 
but it may be corrected still further. 
Dr. Sims mistook as to the book having 
brought 3810 livres at the duke de Val- 
liere’s sale. The duke gave that sum for 
the book at the sale of M. Gaignat in 1769, 
and when the duke’s library was sold in 
1784, it produced 4120 livres. There is a 
particular account of it in the catalogue of 
that collection, by De Bure, tom. i. p. 289. 
That copy has hitherto been deemed uniqxie. 
Is Dr. Sigmond’s another copy of Serve- 
tus’s own edition? 

Dr. Sigmond’s own work, printed last 


year, is itself scarce, in consequence c 
having been suppressed or withdrawn from 
publication.* This circumstance, and the 
curiosity of its purpose, may render an ex¬ 
emplifying extract from it agreeable :— 

“ I have quoted,” says Dr. S., “ the 
whole of Servetus's theories verbatim. Those 
that relate to the phenomena of mind, as 
produced by the brain, will at this time 
have an additional interest, when Gall and 
Spurzheim have attracted the attention of 
philosophers to the subject. With some 
degree of boldness he has fixed upon the 
ventricles of the brain, and the choroid 
plexus, as the seat of that ray divine which 
an immortal Creator has shed upon man, 
and man alone. The awe and veneration 
with which such a subject must be ap¬ 
proached, are increased by the conviction 
that though we may flatter our fond hopes 
with the idea that some knowledge has j 
been gained, we are still lost in the same i 
labyrinth of doubt and uncertainty that we 
ever were. 

“ After giving his description of the pas¬ 
sage of the blood from the right ventricle 
of the heart through the lungs, to the left 
ventricle of the heart, he gives his reasons 
for his belief in his doctrine of the circula¬ 
tion, and observes that Galen was unac¬ 
quainted with the truth. He then com¬ 
mences that most extraordinary passage 
upon the seat of the mind. The blood, he i 
supposes, having received in its passage 
through the lungs the breath of life, is sent 
by the left ventricle into the arteries; the 
purest part ascends to the base of the brain, 
where it is more refined, especially in the 
retiform plexus. It is still more perfected 
in the small vessels, the capillary arteries, 
and the choroid plexus, which penetrate 
gvery part of the brain, enter into the ven¬ 
tricles, and closely surround the origin of 
the nerves. From the vital spirit it is now j 
changed into the animal spirit, and acts ! 
upon the mass of brain, which is incapable 
of reasoning without this stimulus. In the 
two ventricles of the brain is placed the 
power of receiving impressions from ex- 
ternal objects; in the third is that of rea- j 
soning upon them ; in the fourth is that of 
remembering them. From the communi- 1 
cation through the foramina of the ethmoid 
bone, the two ventricles receive a portion 
of external air to refresh the spirit, and to 
give new animation to the soul. If these 

-—--— i 

* It is entitled “ The Unnoticed Theories of Serve¬ 
tus. a Dissertation addressed to the Medical Soci-ty of 
Stockholm. By George Sigmond, M.D. late of Jesus 
College, Cambridge, and formerly President of the 
Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. London, 1826.” 
dvo. pp. 80. 


778 












THE TABLE BOOK. 


ventricles are oppressed by the introduction 
of noxious vapour, epilepsy is produced, 
if a fluid presses on the choroid plexus, 
apoplexy; and whatever affects this part of 
the brain causes loss of mental power. 

“ I have transcribed his notions on vege 
table and animal life: they are more curi 
ous than correct. They are contained in 
the second Dialogue on the Trinity, which 
is remarkable from its being the best proof 
that the doctrines of Servetus were com¬ 
pletely at variance with the Unitarianism 
of which he was accused. It is a dialogue 
between Peter and Michael, ‘ modum gene 
rationis Christi docens, quod ipse non sit 
creatura, nec finitae potentiae, sed vere ado- 
randus, verusque Deus.’ 

“ He here enters very minutely into the 
soul, as the breath of life; and the whole 
of the theories he has advanced are in sup¬ 
port of the passages in the Bible, relative 
to the Almighty pouring into the nostrils of 
man the breath of life. A long metaphy¬ 
sical and theological discussion, difficult to 
be understood, follows; but not one sylla¬ 
ble can be found contrary to the precepts 
of Christianity, or to the pure faith he 
wished to instil into the mind. In another 
part of the work there is a dissertation upon 
the heart as the origin of faith, which he 
believes, on the authorities he cites from 
the Bible, to be the seat of some degree of 
mental power. The heart, he supposes, 
deliberates upon the will, but the will obeys 
the brain.” 

Persons disposed to inquiries of the 
nature last adverted to, may peruse a re¬ 
markable paper on the functions of the 
heart, as connected with volition, by sir 
James Mackintosh; it was drawn up in 
consequence of a table conversation with 
Mr. Benjamin Travers, and is inserted by 
that gentleman in an appendix to his work 
on Constitutional Irritation.* 

It remains further to be observed respect¬ 
ing Servetus, that, according to Dr. Sig- 
mond, another of his theories was, that “ in 
the blood is the life.” His notions “ on 
vegetable and animal life,” are in his work 
u De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri VIT.” 12mo. 
1531. This book appears in the “ Biblio¬ 
theca Parriana,” by Mr. Bohn, with the 
following MS. remarks on it by Dr. Parr. 

44 Liber rarissimus. I gave two guineas for this 
book.” S. P. 

• 44 An Inquiry concerning that disturbed State of 
the Vital Functions, usually denominated Constitu¬ 
tional Irritation. By Benjamin Travers, F.R.S. 
Senior Surgeon to St. Thomas’s Hospital,_ and Presi¬ 
dent of the Medico-Chirurgical and Hunterian Societies 
of London, &c. second edition. London, 1827.” 8vo. 


“ Servetus was burnt for this book. He might be a 
heretic, but he was not an infidel. I have his 
life, in Latin, written by Allwoerden, which 
should be read by all scholars and true Chris¬ 
tians.” S. P. 

Dr. Sigmond’s opinion of Servetus evi¬ 
dently concurs with Dr. Parr’s. Towards 
the close of Dr. Sigmond’s Introduction to 
his “ Dissertatio, quaedam de Serveto com- 
plectens,” he says, “ Of his religious opi¬ 
nions I have but little to say : the bitter 
prejudices, the violent hatred, the unmanly 
persecutions that disgraced the early intro¬ 
duction of a reformed religion, have fortu¬ 
nately given place to the milder charities of 
true Christianity. The penalty of death, 
by the most cruel toiture, would not now 
be inflicted on a man who offered to the 
world crude and undigested dreams, 'r the 
visionary fancies of a disturbed imagina¬ 
tion ; and‘these, to say the very worst, are 
the sins for which Servetus expired at the 
stake, surrounded by the books his ardent 
and unconquerable spirit had dared to 
compose. 

A sincere love of Christianity beams 
forth in every page of the work I have be¬ 
fore me- His great anxiety was to restore 
religion to that purity, which he believed 
it to have lost. The doctrine he opposed 
was not that of Christ; it was that of the 
churchmen who had established, in his 
name, their own vain and fleeting opinions. 
The best proof that Calvin and Melancthon 
had deserted the mild, the charitable, the 
peaceful religion of truth, and that they 
followed not the divine precepts of their 
gentle Master, was, and is, that they pur¬ 
sued, even unto death, a helpless, poor, and 
learned man.” 

It is well known that Servetus was de¬ 
nounced by Calvin to the government of 
Geneva, and that the civil authorities re¬ 
ferred the case back to Calvin. “ At the 
instance of Mr. Calvin and his associates 
he was condemned to be burnt alive ; which 
sentence was executed October 27, 1553. 
He was upwards of two hours in the fire; 
the wood being green, little in quantity, 
and the wind unfavourable.”* It is not 
now the fashion to burn a man for heresy : 
the modern mode is to exaggerate and dis¬ 
tort his declared opinions; drive him from 
society by forging upon him those which 
he disclaims; wound his spirit, and break 
his heart by continued aspersions; and, 
when he is in his grave, award him the re¬ 
putation of having been an amiable and 
mistaken man. * 

• Dr. Adam Clarke ; Bibliographical Diet. vol. vi. 


779 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


LINES, 

On seeing in the Table Book the Signature 
of a brother , IV. IV . K. 

Where’er those well-known characters I see, 

They are, and ever will be, dear to me! 

How oft in that green field, beneath the shade 
Of beechen-boughs, whilst other youngsters play’d. 
Have I, a happy schoolboy, o’er and o’er, 

Conn’d those dear signs, which now I read once more ! 
How oft, as on the daisied grass I laid, 

Full pleas’d, the W. W. K. I’ve read!— 

When once espied, how tedious ’twas to wait 
The crippled postman’s well-known shuffling gait, 

As, slowly creeping down the winding lane. 

With such a sluggish pace he onward came ; 

Or if in school,—his ring no sooner heard, 

' Than home, with all its sweets, to mind recurr’d ; 

And whilst the letter’s page its news reveal’d. 

The gath’ring drop my boyish sight conceal’d ! 

Something then whisper’d, Bill, that life begun 
So well, the same still happily would run ; 

That tho’ for years the briny sea divide. 

Or be it good, or ill, that each betide, 

The same fond heart would throb in either’s breast, 
Fondness by years and stealing time increas'd ! 

So, as in early days it first became. 

Shall it in riper life, be still the same. 

That by and by, when we’re together laid 
Neath the green moss-grown pile—it may be said. 

As lonely footsteps tow’rds our hillock turn, 

“ They were in life and death together one !” 


DOVER FIG. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—To the fact of the underwritten 
narrative there are many living witnesses of 
high respectability. Anatomists and phi¬ 
losophers may not think it unworthy their 
notice, and the lovers of the marvellous will 
doubtless be interested by a subject which 
assimilates with the taste of all. 

On the 14th of December, 1810, several 
considerable falls of the cliffs, both east 
and westward of Dover, took place; and 
one of these was attended by a fatal do¬ 
mestic catastrophe. A house, situated at 
the base of that part of the cliffs between 
Moat’s Bulwark and where the Dover Gas 
Company's works are built, was buried, 
with its inmates, consisting of the father, 
mother, and five of their children, and a 
sister’s child. The father only was dug 
from the ruins alive. All his family 
perished with the ruin of his household 
property. 

Behind the house, which stood just clear 
of the cliffs’ base, in an excavation, was a 
pig-sty; which, when the cliff fell, was 


inhabited by a solitary and very fat hog, 
supposed to weigh about eight score. In 
the midst of his distress, the unfortu- ; 
nate owner of the quadruped forgot this 
animal; and when it occurred to his re¬ 
collection, so much time had passed since 
the accident, that the pig was numbered 
with the dead. In the ensuing summer, 
on the evening of the 23d of May, some 
workmen of the Ordnance department, 
going home from labour, stopped, as they 
had sometimes done before, to contemplate 
the yet remaining ruin. While thus en- j 
gaged, a sound broke the silence of the 
moment. It seemed like the feeble grunt- j 
ing of a hog. The men listened, and the j 
sound was repeated, till it ceased to be 
matter of doubt. One of them immediately 
went to the commanding officer of the 
Ordnance, and returned with a party of the 
miners, who set to work ; and as soon as 
they had cleared away the chalk fiom be¬ 
fore the chasm, the incarcerated animal 
came staggering forth, more like the ana¬ 
tomy of a pig than a living one. Its skin 
was covered with a long shaggy coat: the 
iris had disappeared from its eyes; and 
the pupils were pale, and had almost lost 
their colour. Nothing beyond these parti¬ 
culars was apparent externally. With 
great attention to its feeding, the creature 
recovered from its debility, and its coat 
fell off, and was renewed as before. When 
I saw this hog in the following November, 
the eyes were of a yellowish tint, and the 
iris only discoverable by a faint line round 
the pupil; no defect showed itself in the 
vision of the organ : and, but for being told 
that the pig before me was the one buried 
alive for six months, there was nothing 
about it to excite curiosity. To the owner 
it had been a source of great profit, by its 
exhibition, during the summer season, at 
the neighbouring towns and watering- 
places ; and, finally, it ended its existence 
in the way usual to its race, through the 
hands of the butcher. 

I have stated the supposed weight of 
this long-buried quadruped at the time of 
its incarceration, to be about eight score, 
or twenty stone; when liberated, it was 
weighed, and had lost half of its former 
quantity, being then four score. A pecu¬ 
liar character of the pig is—its indiscrimi¬ 
nate gluttony and rapid digestion. The 
means by which the life of this particular 
animal was sustained during the long period 
of its imprisonment, may be worth tl« 
consideration of the zootomist. 

I am, See. 

September , 1827. K. B. 


760 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


ANECDOTES. 

Juries. 

Levinz reports a case in the King’s 
Bench, “ Foster v. Hawden,” “ wherein the 
jury, not agreeing, cast lots for their verdict, 
and gave it according to lot; for which, 
upon the motion of Levinz, the verdict was 
set aside, and the jury were ordered to at¬ 
tend next term to be fined/’ 

I On an appeal of murder, reported in 
Coke, the killing was not denied by the 
murderer, but he rested his defence upon a 
point of law, viz. that the deceased had 
provoked him, by mocking him ; and he 
therefore contended that it was not murder. 
The judges severalfy delivered their opi¬ 
nions, that it was murder; but the jury 
could not agree. They however came to 
the following understanding—“ That they 
should bring in, and offer their verdict not 
guilty ; and if the court disliked thereof, 
that then they should all change their ver¬ 
dict, and find him guilty.” They brought 
in a verdict of Not Guilty. The court de¬ 
murred, and sent them back; when, ac¬ 
cording to the above understanding, they 
returned again in a few minutes with a 
verdict of Guilty. 

In 1752, Owen, a bookseller, was pro¬ 
secuted by the attorney-general, on inform¬ 
ation, for a libel. The direction of tl>e 
lord chief justice Lee to the jury does not 
appear at full length in the State Trials, 
but it seems that he “ declared it as his 
opinion, that the jury ought to find the de¬ 
fendant guilty.” The jury brought in their 
verdict “ Not Guilty.” The report pro¬ 
ceeds to state, “ that the jury went away ; 
but at the desire of the attorney-general, 
they were called into court again, and asked 
this leading question : viz. “ Gentlemen of 
the Jury, do you think the evidence laid 
before you, of Owen’s publishing the book 
by selling it, is not sufficient to convince 
you that the said Owen did sell this book.” 
Upon which the foreman, without answer¬ 
ing the question, said, “Not guilty, not 
guilty;” and several of the jury said, 
“ That is our verdict, my lord, and we 
abide by it.” Upon which the court broke 
up, and there was a prodigious shout in 
the hall. 

A Question—Mal-apropos. 

When Dr. Beadon was rector of Eltham, 
in Kent, the text he one day took to preach 
from was, “ Who art thou V After read¬ 
ing it he made a pause, for the congrega¬ 
tion to reflect on the words ; when a gen¬ 
tleman in a military dress, who at the 


instant was proceeding up the middle aisle 
of the church, supposing it a question ad¬ 
dressed to him, replied, “I, sir, am an 
officer of the sixteenth regiment of foot, on 
a recruiting party here; and have come to 
church, because J wish to be acquainted 
with the neighbouring clergy and gentry.” 
This so deranged the divine and astonished 
the congregation, that the sermon was con¬ 
cluded with considerable difficulty. 


GLASS. 

Pliny informs us, the art of making glass 
was accidentally discovered by some mer¬ 
chants who were travelling with nitre, and 
stopped near a river issuing from Mount 
Carmel. Not readily finding stones to rest 
their kettles on, they employed some pieces 
of their nitre for that purpose. The nitre, 
gradually dissolving by the heat of the fire,! 
mixed wilh the sand, and a transparent 
matter flowed, which was, in fact, glass. It 
is certain that we are more indebted to 
chance than genius for many of the most 
valuable discoveries. 


VAIIIA. 

For the Table Booh. 

Tomb of King Alfred. 

Many Englishmen, who venerate the 
name of Alfred, will learn, With surprise 
and indignation, that the ashes of this 
patriot king, after having been scattered by 
the rude -hands of convicts, are probably 
covered by a building at Winchester, erect¬ 
ed in 1788 for the confinement of criminals. 
No one in the neighbourhood was suffi¬ 
ciently interested towards his remains to 
attempt their discovery or preservation. 

Old Law Books. 

It is remarkable, that the oldest book in 
the German law is entitled “ Spiegel,” or 
the Looking-glass which answers to our 
“ Mirror of Justices:” it was compiled by 
Eckius de Keckaw, and is inserted in 
Goldastus’s Collectanea. One of the an¬ 
cient Icelandish books is likewise styled 
“ Speculum Regale.” There is also in 
Schrevelius’s Teutonic Antiquities a col¬ 
lection of the ancient laws of Pomerania 
and Prussia, under the title of “ Speculum.”j( 
Surely all this cannot be the effect of pure 
accident. 











































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Curious Will of an Attorney. 

Mr. Lambe, an attorney, who died at 
Cambridge in t'he year 1800, left about 
eleven hundred pounds; and directed his 
executors (three gentlemen of the univer¬ 
sity) to appropriate the sum of eight hun¬ 
dred pounds as they might think proper. 
For this arduous task he bequeathed them 
one hundred pounds each. 

s. s. s. 


©pttapfts. 

For the Table Book . 

* Those tell in homely phrase who lie below.’ 

Blair. 

. in Bo is Church-yard , near Chesham , Bucks. 

In Memory of 
Mrs. Elizabeth, Wife of 
Mr. Edward Pinchbeck, 
of Chesham, who departed this 
Life 1st Oct. 1781, aged 60 years. 

Here a painful head is at rest. 

Its violent throbbings are o’er; 

Her dangerous mortified breast. 

Neither throbs nor aches any more. 

Her eyes, which she seldom could close 
Without opiates to give her some rest. 

Are now most sweetly composed. 

With her whom her soul did love best. 

On a Rail in Chesham Church-yard. 

la memory of Sarah Bachelor, wife of Benjamin 
Bachelor, daughter of Joseph and Sarah Barnes, who 
departed this life May 23d, 1813, aged 25 years. 

These three lines are on the reverse of 
the rail in question: — 

My time was short not long in this world to stay God 
Summon’d me and I was snatch’d away pray God 
to bless 

And friends be kind to my husband and children left 
behind. 

A plain white marble slab, placed over 
the remains of the illustrious Boerhaven, in 
St. Peter’s, Leyden, bears only these four 
words in black letters. 

Salutifero Boerhavii Gemo Sacrum. 

J. J. K. 


A FILL UP 

Fur the Table Book. 

There is nothing I find so difficult to fill 
up as my spare time. Talk as they will 
about liberty, it is after all nothing but a 
sort of independent ennui —a freedom we 
are better without, if we do not know how 
ao use it. To instance myself:—the first 
thing I do on the cessation of my daily 
avocations, which terminate rather early, is 


to throw my two legs upon one chair, and 
recline my back against another—when, 1 
after a provoking yawn of most ambiguous 
import, I propound to myself with great 
gravity—what the deuce shall I do? A 
series of questions instantly occur, which 
are as instantly answered — generally in 
the negative. Shall I read Blackstone?— 
no: Coke upon Littleton?—worse still; 
Fearne on Contingent Remainders ?—horrid 
idea !—it was recommended the other day 
to a young friend of mine, who befo r e he 
got to the end of the first page was taken 
with a shivering fit, from which he has no* 
yet recovered—no, no ; confo-und the law! 

I had enough of that this morning—What’s 
to be done then? The Table Book does 
not come out till to-morrow—Scott’s novels 
(unfashionable wretch) I don’t like,—have 
read the Epicurean already twenty times— 
and know Byron by heart. Take up my 
flute, mouthpiece mislaid, and <3an’t play 
without—determined to try, notwithstand¬ 
ing it should be my three thousandth 
failure; accordingly, blow like a bellows for 
about half an hour—can make nothing of 
it, suddenly stop, and throw the instrument 
to the other end of the room—forgetting 
the glass in the bookcase, the largest pane 
of which it goes through with a loud crash. 1 
Still musical, persist in humming a favourite 
air I have just thought of—hit the tune to a 
T, and immediately strike up a most de- j 
lightful strain, beginning “ Sounds deli¬ 
cious,” &c., when a cry comes from the 
parlour, “ We really must leave the house 
if that horrid noise is to be continued !”— 
Rather galled by this rub—begin to get 
angry—start up from my two chairs and 
walk briskly to the fireplace—arrange my 
hair pettishly—then stick my hands in my 
pockets, and begin to muse—glass catches 
my eye—neckcloth abominably out of or¬ 
der, instinctively untie and tie it again— 
tired of standing—sit down to my desk— 
commence a Sonnet to the Moon, get on 
swimmingly to the fifth line, and then—a 
dead stop—no rhyme to be got, and the 
finest idea I ever had in my life in danger 
of being lost—this will never do—deter¬ 
mined to bring it in somewhere, and after 
a little alteration introduce it most satis¬ 
factorily into a poem I had begun yesterday 
on Patience, till, upon reading the whole 
over, I find it has nothing whatever to do 
with the subject; and disgusted with the 
failure tear up both poem and sonnet in a 
tremendous rage. Still at a loss what tc 
do—at length I have it—got a communica¬ 
tion for the Table Book —I’ll take a walk 
and leave it— Gulielmi ’3 


782 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


ftote. 

Under severe affliction I cannot make up 
this sheet as I wish. This day week my second 
son was brought home with his scull frac¬ 
tured. To-day intelligence has arrived to me 
of the death of my eldest son. 

The necessity I have been under of sub¬ 
mitting recently to a surgical operation on 
myself, with a long summer of sickness to 
every member of my family, and accumulated 
troubles of earlier origin, and of another 
nature, have prevented me too often from 
satisfying the wishes of readers, and the 
claims of Correspondents. I crave that they 
will be pleased to receive this, as a general 
apology, in lieu of particular notices, and in 
the stead of promises to effect what I can no 
longer hope to accomplish, and forbear to 
attempt. 

December 12, 1827. W. Hone. 


WINTER FLOWERS. 

Chrysanthemum Indicum. 

To the Editor . 

Sir,—While the praises of our wild, na¬ 
tive, simple flowers, the primrose, the vio¬ 
let, the blue bell, and daisy, as well as the 
blossoms of the hawthorn, wild rose, and 
honey-suckle, have been said and sung in 
many a pleasant bit of prose and verse in 
the pages of your extra-ordinary Every - 
Day Book , as connected with the lively 
descriptions given therein of many a rural 
sport and joyous pastime, enjoyed by our 
forefathers and foremothers of the “ olden 
time," particularly in that enlivening and 
mirth-inspiring month, sweet May; when 
both young and old feel a renovation or 
their health and spirits, and hail the return 
of sunshine, verdure, and flowers; permit 
me to call the attention of such of your 
readers as are fond of flowers (and there is 
no one, who has “ music in his soul ” and 
a taste for poetry, that is not) to that highly 
interesting plant, the Indian Chrysanthe¬ 
mum, which serves, by its gay blossoms, to 
cheer the gloom, and enliven the sadness 
of those dreary months, November and 
December. 

Since the introduction of the Camellia 
and the Dahlia, I know of no plant that 
| produces so striking an effect upon the sight 
as the Chrysanthemum. We have now 
about forty distinct varieties cf it in the 


country, for the greater part of which we 
are indebted to the London Horticultural 
Society. Many of the flowers are much 
larger than the largest full-blown Provence 
rose, highly aromatic, and of extremely 
bright, vivid, and varied colours; as white, 
yellow, copper, red, and purple, of all the 
different gradations of tint, and several of 
those colours mixed and blended. Some 
very fine specimens of this flower have 
been exhibited at the society’s rooms and 
greenhouse. Nothing, in my opinion, could 
equal their beauty and splendour; not even 
the well-known collection of carnations and 
foreign picot^es of my neighbour, M 
Hogg, the florist. 

This flower gives a very gay appearance 
to the conservatory and the greenhouse at 
this season of the year, when there is hardly 
another in blossom; and it may also be 
introduced into the parlour and drawing¬ 
room ; for it flowers freely in small sized 
pots of forty-eight and thirty-two to the 
cast, requires no particular care, is not im¬ 
patient of cold, and is easily propagated by 
dividing the roots, or by cuttings placed 
under a hand-glass in the months of May 
or June, which will bloom the following 
autumn, for it is prodigal of its flowers; 
the best method is to leave only one flow¬ 
ering stem in a pot. 

The facility with which it is propagated 
will always make the price moderate, and 
render it attainable by any one; there is 
much dissimilarity in the form of the flow¬ 
ers, as well as in the formation of the petals 
—some flowers are only half spread, and 
have the appearance of tassels, while others 
are expanded fully, like the Chinese aster ; 
some petals are quilled, some half quilled, 
some are flat and lanceolated, some crisped 
and curled, and others are in an imbricated 
form, decreasing in length towards the cen¬ 
tre. There is also some variation in their 
time of flowering, some come much earlier ! 
than others. 

This plant is not a stranger to the coun¬ 
try, for it was introduced about thirty-five j 
years ago; but the splendid vaiieties, of 
which I am speaking, are new, having been 
brought hither, mostly from China, by the 
Horticultural Society within these four or 
five years; and as the society has made a 
liberal distribution of plants and cuttings 
to tne different nurserymen and florists 
round London, who are members thereof, 
they can now be easily obtained. There is 
little chance of its ever ripening its seed, 
from its coming into flower at the com¬ 
mencement of winter, so that we can only 
look for fresh varieties from India or China 


3 E 


783 





































THE TABLE BOOK. 


In conclusion, I will just note down a 
few that particularly engaged my attention, 
namely:— 

The pure or large paper white. 

The large white, with yellow tinged flow¬ 
erets, or petals round the disk or centre. 

The early blush. 

The golden lotus. 

The superb clustered yellow. 

The starry purple. 

The bright red, approaching to scarlet. 

And the brown, red, and purple blended. 

I remain, sir, &c. 

Paddington, Jerry Blossom. 

December. 


#am'ch pays. 

No. XLIV. 

[From “ Blurt, Master Constable a Co 
medy by T. Middleton, 1602.] 

Lover kept au'ake by Love. 

Ah ! how can I sleep ? he, who truly loves, 

| Burns out the day in idle fantasies ; 

I And when the lamb bleating dot-h bid good night 
| Unto the closing day, then tears begin 
j To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice 
Shrieks like the bellman in the lover’s ears : 

| 

; Love’s eye the jewel of sleep oh! seldom wears. 

The early lark is waken’d from her bed, 

Being only by Love’s plaints disquieted ; 

And singing in the morning’s ear she weeps. 

Being deep in love, at Lovers’ broken sleeps. 

But say a golden slumber chance to tie 
With silken strings the c°ver of Love’s eye ; 

! Then dreams, magician-like, mocking present 
| Pleasures, whose fading leaves more discontent. 

j Violetta comes to seek her Husband at the 
house of a Curtizan. 

Violetta. — Imperia, the Curtizan. 

Vio. By your leave, sweet Beauty, pardon my ex¬ 
cuse, which sought entrance into this house : good 
Sweetness, have you not a Property here, improper to 
your house ; my husband ? 

Imp. Hah! your husband here? 

Vio. Nay, be as you seem to be, White Dove, with¬ 
out gall. Do not mock me, fairest Venetian. Come, I 
know he is here. I do not blame him, for your beauty 
gilds over his error. ‘Troth, I am right glad that you, 
my Countrywoman, have received the pawn of his 
! affections. You cannot be hardhearted, loving him ; 

! nor hate me. for I love him too. Since we both love 
ann, let us lit leave him, till we have called home the 
ill husband*'? of a sweet Straggler. Prithee, good 
wench, use ua well. 


Imp. So, so, so— 

Vio. If he deserve not to be used well (as I’d be loth 
he should deserve it). I’ll engage myself, dear Beauty, 
to thine honest heart: give me leave to love him, and 
I’ll give him a kind of leave to love thee. I know he 
hears me. I prithee try my eyes, if they know him ; 
that have almost drowned themselves in their own salt* 
water, because they cannot see him. In troth, I’ll not 
chide him. If I speak words rougher than soft kisses, 
my penance shall be to see him kiss thee, yet to hold 
my peace. 

Good Partner, lodge me in thy private bed ; 

Where, in supposed folly, he may end 
Determin’d Sin. Thou smilest. I know thou wilt. 
What looseness may term dotage,—truly read, 

Is Love ripe-gather’d, not soon withered. 

Imp. Good troth, pretty Wedlock, thou makest my 
little eyes smart with washing themselves in brine. I 
mar such a sweet face !—and wipe off that dainty red! 
and make Cupid toll the bell for your love sick heart! 
—no, no, no—if he were Jove’s own ingle Ganymede— 
fie, fie, fie—I’ll none. Your Chamber-fellow is within. 
Thou shalt enjoy him. 

Vio. Star of Venetian Beauty, thanks ! 


| From “ Hoffman’s Tragedy, or Revenge 
for a Faiher,” 1631. Author Unknown.] 

The Sons of the Duke of Saxony run 
aieay with Lucibel , the Duke of Austria's 
Daughter .— The two Dukes, in separate ' 
piirsuit of their children, meet at the Cell 
of a Hermit : in which Hermit, Saxony 
recognises a banished Brother; at which 
surprised, all three are reconciled. 

Austria. That should be Saxon’s tongue. 

Saxony. Indeed I am the Duke of Saxony. 

Austria. Then thou art father to lascivious sons. 

That have made Austria childless. 

Saxony. Oh subtle Duke, 

Thy craft appears in framing the excuse. 

Thou dost accuse my young sons’ innocence. 

I sent them to get knowledge, learn the tongues, 

Not to be metamorphosed with the view 
Of flattering Beauty—peradventure painted. 

Austria. No, I defy thee, John of Saxony. 

My Lucibel for beauty needs no art; 

Nor, do I think, the beauties of her mind 
Ever inclin’d to this ignoble course. 

But by the charms and forcings of thy sons. 

Saxony. O would thou would’st maintain thy word* 
proud Duke! 

Hermit. I hope, great princes, neither of you dare 
Commit a deed so sacrilegious. 

This holy Cell 

Is dedicated to the Prince of Peace. 

The foot of man never profan’d this floor; 

Nor doth wrath here with his consuming voice 
Affright these buildings. Charity with Prayer 
Humility with Abstinence combined. 

Are here the guardians of a grieved mind 


7*4 



























































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Austria, Father, we obey thy holy voice.' 

Duke John of Saxony, receive my faith ; 
l 'U our ears hear the true course, which thy sons 
Have taken with me fond and misled child, 
l proclaim truce. Why dost thou sullen stand ? 

.f thou mean peace, give me thy princely hand. 

Saxony. Thus do I plight thee truth, and promise 
peace. 

Austria. Nay, hut thy eyes agree not with thy heart. 
In vows of combination there’s a grace, 

That shews th’ intention in the outward face. 

Look chearfully, or I expect no league. 

Saxony. First give me leave to view awhile the 
person 

Of this Hermit.—Austria, view him well. 

Is he not like my brother Roderic ? 

Austria. He’s like him. But I heard, he lost his 
life 

Long since in Persia by the Sophy’s wars. 

Hermit. I heard so much, my Lord. But that report 
j Was purely feign’d ; spread by my erring tongue, 

As double as my heart, when I was young. 

I am that Roderic, that aspired thy throne ; 

I That vile false brother, that with rebel breath. 

Drawn sword, and treach’rous heart, threaten’d your 
death. 

Saxony. My brother!—nay then 1’ faith, old John 
lay by 

Thy sorrowing thoughts ; turn to thy wonted vein, 

And be mad John of Saxony again. 

I Mad Roderic, art alive ?—my mother’s son, 

Her joy, and her last birth !—oh, she conjured me 
To use thee thus; [embracing him] and yet l banish’d 
thee.— 

Body o’ me 1 I was unkind, I know ; 

But thou deservd’st it then : but let it go. 

Say thou wilt leave this life, thus truly idle. 

And live a Statesman ; thou shalt share in reign, 
Commanding all but me thy Sovereign. 

Hermit. I thank your Highness; I will think on it ’ 
But for my sins this sufferance is more fit. 

| Saxony. Tut, tittle tattle, tell not me of sin.— 

Now, Austria, once again thy princely hand : 

I’ll look thee in the face, and smile ; and swear. 

If any of my sons have wrong’d thy child, 

I’ll help thee in revenging it myself. 

But if, as I believe, they mean but honour, 

(As it appeareth by these Jousts proclaim’d), 

Then thou shalt be content to name* him thine, 

And thy fair daughter I’ll account as mine. 

Austria. Agreed. 

Saxony. Ah, Austria ! ’twas a world, when you and I 
Ran these careers; but now we are stitf and dry. 
Austria. I’m glad you are so pleasant, good my 
Lord. 

Saxony. ’Twas my old mood : but I was soon turn’d 
sad, 

With over-grieving for this long lost Lad,— 

And now the Boy is grown as old as I ; 

His very face as full of gravity. ^ 

C. L. 


• By one of the Duke’s w>ns (her Loverl in honour 
of LucibeL 


Bferobfttes 


OF TIIE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. XV. 

Ancient Surgery. 

Mr. Bernard, principal surgeon to king 
William, affirms respecting ancient surgical 
skill as follows ;— 

There is no doubt but the perfection to 
which surgery has been carried in these 
last ages, is principally owing to the dis¬ 
coveries which have been made in anatomy. 
But the art of curing wounds, to which all 
the other parts ought to give way, remains 
almost in the same state in which the 
ancients transmitted it to us. 

Celsus and other ancients have described 
a mode of operating for the stone, although 
it must be owned that a method, deserving 
the preference in many respects, and known | 
by the name of vnuguus apparatus or the 
grand operation , was the invention of 
Johannes de Romanis, of Cremona, who 
lived at Rome in the year 1520, and pub¬ 
lished his work at Venice in 1535. The 
instrument that we make use of in trepan¬ 
ning was doubtless first used by the an¬ 
cients, and only rendeied more perfect by 
Woodall and Fabricius. Tapping, like¬ 
wise, is in all respects an invention of 
theirs. Laryngotomy, or the opening of 
the laiynx in the quinsey, was practised by 
them with success; an operation which,! 
though safe and needful, is out of use at 
present. Galen, in particular, supported 
by reason, experience, and the authority of 
Asclepiades, justly applauds it as the ulti¬ 
mate resource in the case of a quinsey. 
Hernia intestalis , with the distinguishing 
differences of the several species of that 
malady, and their method of cure, are 
exactly described by the ancients. They 
also cured the pterygion and cataract, and 
treated the maladies of the eye as judi 
ciously as modern oculists. The opening of 
an aitery and of the jugular vein is no 
more a modern invention, than the appli¬ 
cation of the ligature in the case of an 
aneurism, which was not well understood 
by Frederic Ruysch, the celebrated anato¬ 
mist. of Holland. The extirpation of the 
amygdales, or of the uvula, is not at all a 
late invention, though it must be owned 
the efficacious cauteries now used in the 
case of the former, were neither practised 
nor known by the ancients. The method 


785 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


we now use of treating the fistula lacryma- 
lis, a cure so nice and difficult, is precisely 
that of the ancients, with the addition that 
Fabricius made of the cannula for applying 
the cautery. As to the real caustic, which 
makes a considerable artiele in surgery, 
although Costeus, Fienus, and Severinus 
have written amply on that subject, yet it 
is evident from a single aphorism of Hip¬ 
pocrates, that this great physician knew 
the use of it as well as those who have 
come after him: and besides, it is frequently 
spoken of in the writings of all the other 
ancients, who without doubt used it with 
great success in many cases where we have 
left it off, or know not how to apply it. 
The cure of the varices by incision appears, 
from the works of Celsus and Paulus Egi- 
netus, to have been a familiar practice 
among the ancients. The ancients describe 
the mode of curing the polypus of the ear, 
a malady little understood by the moderns. 
They were likewise well acquainted with 
all kind of fractures and luxations, and the 
means of remedying them; as well as with 
all the sorts of sutures in use among us, 
besides many we have lost. The various 
amputations of limbs, breasts, &c. were 
performed among them as frequently and 
/ with as great success as we can pretend to. 

! As to the art of bandaging, the ancients 
knew it so well, and to such a degree of 
perfection, that we have not added any 
thing considerable to what Galen taught in 
his excellent tract on that subject. As to 
remedies externally applied, we are in¬ 
debted to them for having instructed us in 
the nature and properties of those we now 
use; and in general methods of cure, par¬ 
ticularly of wounds of the head, the mo¬ 
derns, who have written most judiciously 
upon it, thought they could do no better 
service to posterity, than comment upon 
that admirable book which Hippocrates 
wrote on this subject. 

Ancient Chemistry. 

It is agreed almost by all, that chemistry 
was first cultivated in Egypt, the country 
!>f Cham, of whom it is supposed primarily 
10 have taken its name, x^s?*, Chemia, sive 
Chamia , the science of Cham. Tubal- 
Jain, and those who with him found out 
frie way of working in brass and iron, must 
nave been able chemists; for it was impos¬ 
sible to work upon these metals, without 
first knowing the art of digging them out 
of the mine, of excavating them, and of 
refining and separating them from the 
ore. 


Potable Gold. 

From the story of the golden fleece, the 
golden apples that grew in the gardens of 
the Flesperides, and the reports of Mane- 
thon and Josephus with relation to Seth’s 
pillars, deductions have been made in fa¬ 
vour of the translation of metals; but to 
come to real and established facts, it ap¬ 
pears that Moses broke the golden calf, re¬ 
duced it into powder, to be mingled with 
water, and gave it to the Israelites to drink : 
in one word, he rendered gold potable. 

It was objected within a century, that this 
operation was impracticable, and by some 
it was affirmed as having been impossible. 
But the famous Joel Langelotte affirms in 
his works, that gold may be entirely dis¬ 
solved by attrition alone; and the ingenious 
Homberg assures us, that by pounding for 
a long while certain metals, and even gold 
itself, in plain water , those bodies have 
been so entirely dissolved as to become 
potable. Frederic III., king of Denmark, 
being curious to ascertain the fact, engaged 
some able chemists of his time to attempt 
it. After many tr .als they at last succeeded, 
but it was in following the method of Mo¬ 
ses ; by first of all reducing the gold into 
small parts by means of fire, and then ' 
pounding it in a mortar with water, till it 
was so far dissolved as to become potable. 
This fact is unquestionable; and probably 
Moses, who was instructed in all the learn¬ 
ing of the Egyptians, became acquainted 
with the method from that ancient and 
erudite people, from whom the most emi¬ 
nent philosophers of Greece derived their 
knowledge. 

Mummies. 

The art of embalming bodies, and of 
preserving them for many ages, never 
could have been carried so far as it was 
by the Egyptians, without the greatest 
skill in chemistry. Yet all the essays to 
restore it have proved ineffectual; reiterated 
analyses of mummies have failed to discover 
the ingredients of which they were com¬ 
posed. There were also, in those mummies 
of Egypt, many things besides, which fall 
within the verge of chemistry : such as their 
gilding,* so very fresh, as if it were but o l ! 
fifty years’ standing; and their stained silk, 
vivid in its colours at the end of three 
thousand years. In the British Museum 

# The ancients also understood gilding with beaten, 
or water gold.— 7j5s inaurari argento vivo, legitin.aca 
erat. Plin. Hist. Hatur. lib. xxxiii. c. 3. Vitro*, 
lib. vii. c. 8. 


786 










































THE TABLE BOOK. 


there is a mummy covered all over with 
fillets of granulated glass, various in colour, 
which shows that at that time they under- 
stood not only the making of glass, but 
could paint it to their liking. These glass 
ornaments are tinged with the same colours, 
and set off in the same taste, as the dyes 
in which almost all other mummies are 
painted. 

Painting on Cloth. 

Their manner of painting upon linen 
was, by first drawing upon it the outlines 
of the design, and then filling each com¬ 
partment of it with different sorts of gums, 
proper to absorb the various colours; so 
that none of them could be distinguished 
from the whiteness of the cloth. They 
then dipped it for a moment in a caldron 
full of boiling liquor prepared for the pur¬ 
pose; and drew it thence, painted in all 
the colours they intended. These colours 
neither decayed by time, nor moved in the 
washing; the caustic impregnating the 
liquor wherein it was dipped, having 
penetrated and fixed every colour inti¬ 
mately through the whole contexture of 
the cloth. 

Imitation of Precious Stones. 

The preceding instance is sufficient to 
prove that chemistry had made great pro¬ 
gress among the Egyptians. History affords 
similar instances of extraordinary attain¬ 
ment by this wonderful people, who were 
so ingenious and industrious, that even 
their lame, blind, and maimed were in 
constant employment. With all this, they 
were so noble-minded, as to inscribe their 
discoveties in the arts and sciences upon 
pillars reared in holy places, in order to 
i omit nothing that might contribute to the 
| public utility. The emperor Adrian attests 
this in a letter to the consul Servianus, upon 
presenting him with three curious cups of 
glass, which, like a pigeon’s neck, reflected, 
on whatever side they were viewed, a 
j variety of colours, representing those of the 
precious stone called obsidianum , and which 
some commentators have imagined to be 
cat's-eye, and others the opal. In this art 
of imitating precious stones, the Greeks, 
who derived their knowledge from the 
Egyptians, were also very skilful. They 
could give to a composition of crystal all 
the different tints of any precious stone 
they wanted to imitate. They remarkably 
excelled in an exact imitation of the ruby, 
the hyacinth, the emerald, and the sapphire. 


Gold — Nitre—Artificial Hatching, Sfc. 

Diodorus Siculus says, that some of the 
Egyptian kings had the art of extracting 
gold from a sort of white marble. Strabo 
reports their manner of preparing nitre, and 
mentions the considerable number of mor¬ 
tars of granite, for chemical purposes, that 
were to be seen in his time at Memphis. 
They likewise, by artificial means, hatched 
the eggs of hens, geese, and other fowls, at 
all seasons. 

Medical Chemistry. 

Egyptian pharmacy depended much upon 
chemistiy ; witness their extracted oils, and 
their preparations of opium, for allevi¬ 
ating acute pains, or relieving the mind 
from melancholy thoughts. Homer intro¬ 
duces Helen as ministering to Telemaehus 
a medical preparation of this kind. They 
also made a composition or preparation o. 
clay or fuller’s earth, adapted to the relier 
of many disorders, particularly where it 
was requisite to render the fleshy parts dry, 
as in dropsy, &c. They had different me¬ 
thods of composing salts, nitre, and alumj 
sal cyrenai'c or ammoniac, so called from 
being found in the environs of the temple 
of Jupiter Ammon. They made use of (he 
litharge of silver, the rust of iron, and cal¬ 
cined alum, in the cure of ulcers, cuts, boils, 
deductions of the eyes, pains of the head, 
&c.; and of pitch against the bite of ser¬ 
pents. They successfully applied caustics. 
They knew every different way of preparing 
plants, or herbs, or grain, whether for 
medicine or beverage. Beer, in particular, 
had its origin among them. Their unguents 
were of the highest estimation, and most 
lasting; and their use of remedies, taken 
from metallic substances, is so manifest in 
the writings of Pliny and Dioscorides, that 
it would be needless, and indeed tedious, 
to enter upon them. The latter especially 
often mentions their metallic preparations 
of burnt lead, ceruse, verdigrise, and burnt 
antimony, for plasters and other external 
applications. 

All these chemical preparations the Egyp¬ 
tians were acquainted with in their phar¬ 
macy. The subsequent practice of the 
Greeks and Romans presents a field too 
vast to be observed on. Hippocrates, the 
contemporary and friend of Democritus, was 
remarkably assiduous in the cultivation ot 
chemistry. He not only understood its 
general principles, but was an adept in 
many of its most useful parts. Galen 
knew that the energy of fire might b».' 


787 









THE TABLE BOOK. 


applied to many useful purposes ; and that, 
by the instrumentality of it, many secrets 
in nature were to be discovered, which 
otherwise must, for ever lie hid; and he in¬ 
stances this in several places of his works. 
Dioscorides has transmitted to us many of 
the mineral operations of the ancients, and 
in particular that of extracting quicksilver 
from cinnabar ; which is, in effect, an exact 
description of distillation. 

For the Table Book. 

TALES OF TINMOUTHE PRIOR1E. 
No. II. 

THE WIZARD’S CAVE. 


“ Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds 
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven. 

And when they shewed me this abhorred pit, 

They told me, here, at dead time of night, 

A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, 

Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, 
Would make such fearful and confused cries, 

As any mortal body, hearing it. 

Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.” 

Titus Andronicus, 


' Young Walter, the son of Sir Robert the Knight, 

' Far fam’d for his valour in border-fight, 
t Sat prattling so sweet on his mother’s knee. 

As his arms twin’d her neck of pure ivory. 

Now tell me, dear mother, young Walter said, 

Some feat to be done by the bow or the blade, 

| Where foe may be quell’d or some charm be undone ; 

| Or lady, or treasure, or fame may be won. 

| The lady, she gaz’d on her war-born child, 

| And smooth’d down his ringlets, and kiss’d him, and 
smil’d; 

And she told him high deeds of the Percy brave, 

Where the lance e’er could pierce, or the helm plume 
wave. 

! And she told wild tales, all o f 

'here treasures were hidden in mountain or dell; 
/here wizards, for ages, kept beauty in thrall 
.^eath the mould’ring damp of their dank donjon wall. 

-But list thee, my Walter, by Tinmouthe’s towers 

grey. 

Where chant the cowl’d monks all by night and by 
day; 

In a cavern of rock scoop’d under the sea, 

Lye treasures in keeping of Sorcery. 

It avails not the Cross, ever sainted and true, 

It avails not the pray’rs of the prior Sir Hugh, 
ll avails not, 0 dread l Holy Virgin’s care, 

Great treasure long held by dark Sathan is there. 

L 


x ar, far ’neath the sea, in a deep rocky cell. 

Bound down by the chains of the strongest spell. 

Lies the key of gold countless as sands on the shore, 

And there it will rest ’till old time is no more. 

Nay, say not so, mother, can heart that is bold 
Not win from the fiend all this ill-gotten gold ? 

Can no lion-soul’d knight, with his harness true, 

Do more than cowl’d monks with their beads e’er caa 
do? 

Now hush thee young Walter, how like to thy sirel 
Thy heart is too reckless, thine eye full of fire; 

When reason with courage can help thee m need, 

I will tell how the treasure from spell may be freed. 

Full many a long summer with scented breath, 

Saw the flowers blossom wild on the north mountain 
heath ; 

And the fleetest in chase and the stoutest in fight. 

Grew young Walter, the son of Sir Robert the Knight. 

Full many a long winter of sleet and of snow, 

Swept through the cold valleys where pines only 
grow; 

But heedless of sleet, snow, or howling blast. 

Young Walter e’er brav’d them, the first and the last. 

Who is that young knight in the Percy’s band ? 

Who wieldeth the falchion with master hand ? 

Who strideth the war-steed in border figlrt ? 

-’Tis Walter, the son of Sir Robert the Knight I 

Thy promise, dear mother, I claim from tliee now, 

When my reason can act with my blade and my bow ; 
But the lady she wept o’er bold Walter her son. 

For peril is great where renown can be won. 

And the lady she told what to brave knights befell, j 
Who reckless of life sought the dark treasure cell; 

Who failing to conquer the fiends of the cave. 

For ever must dwell ’neath the green ocean wave. 

t 

No tears the bold bent of young Walter could turn, 

And he laugh’d at her fears, as in veriest scorn— 

-Then prepare thy good harness, my bonny brave 

son, 

Prepare for thy task on the eve of Saint John. 

O loud was the green ocean’s howling din, 

When the eve of Saint John was usher’d in ; 

And the shrieks of the sea-gulls, high whirling in air 
Spread far o’er the land like the screams of despair. 

i 

The monks at their vespers sing loud and shrill. 

But the gusts of the north wind are louder still 
And the hymn to the Virgin is lost in the roar 
Of the billows that foam on the whiten’d shore. 

Deep sinks the mail’d heel of the knight in the sand. 

As he seeks the dark cell, arm’d with basnet and 
brand; 

And clank rings the steel of his aventayle bright, 

As he springs up the rocks in the darkness of night 








































THE TABLE BOOK. 


His plume it is raven and wares o’er his crest. 

And quails not the heart-blood that flows in his breast: 
Unblenched his proud eye that shines calm and serene, 
And floats in the storm his bright mantel of green. 

i 

Now leaping, now swarving the slipp’ry steep. 

One spring and the knight gains the first cavern keep; 
The lightnings flash round him with madd’ning glare, 
And the thunderbolts hiss through the midnight air. 

Down deep in the rock winds the pathway drear, 

And the yells of the spirits seem near and more near, 
And the flames from their eye-balls burn ghastly blue 
As they dance round the knight with a wild halloo. 

Fierce dragons with scales of bright burnished brass, 

! Stand belching red fire where the warrior must pass ; 
But rushes he on with his brand and his shield, 

And with loud shrieks of laughter they vanish and 
yield. 

Huge hell-dogs come baying with murd’rous notes, 
Sulphureous flames in their gaping throats ; 

And they spring to. but shrinks not, brave Walter the 
Knight, 

And again all is sunk in the darkness of night. 

Still down winds the warrior in pathway of stone. 

Now menac’d with spirits, now dark and alone ; 

Till far in the gloom of the murky air 
A pond’rous lamo sheds unearthly glare. 

Then eager the knight presses on to the flame, 

Holy mother!—Why shudders his stalwart frame? 

A wide chasm opes ’neath his wond’ring view, 

And now what availeth his falchion true. 

Loudly the caverns with laughter ring, 

And the eyeless spectres forward spring: 

Now shrive thee young Walter, one moment of fear, 
And thy doom is to dwell ’neath the ocean drear. 

One instant Sir Walter looks down from the brink 
Of the bottomless chasm, then ceases to shrink ; 

Doffs hauberk and basnet, full fearless and fast, 

And darts like an eagle the hell-gulf past. 

Forefend thee, good knight, but the demon fell 
Now rises to crush thee from nethermost hell { 

And monsters most horrible hiss thee around. 

And coil round thy limbs from the slimy ground. 

A noise, as if worlds in dire conflict crash, 

Js heard ’mid the vast ocean’s billowy splash ; 

But it quails not the heart of Sir Robert’s brave son, 

He will conquer the fiend on the eve of Saint John. 

He seizes the bugle with golden chain, 

I To sound it aloud once, twice, and again; 

It turns to a snake in his startled grasp, 

Aud its mouthpiece is arm'd with the stiug of the asp 


In vain is hell’s rage, strike fierce as it may 
The Wizard well knows ’tis the end of his sway ; 
Fcr the bugle is till’d with the warrior’s breath. 
And thrice sounded loud in the caverns of death. 

The magic cock crows from a brazen bill. 

And it shakes its broad wings, as it shouts so shrill 
And down sinks in lightning the demon array. 

And the gates of the cavern in thunder give way. 

Twelve pillars of jasper their columns uprear. 
Twelve stately pillars of crystal clear, 

With topaz and amethyst, sparkles the floor. 

And the bright beryls stud the thick golden door. 

Twelve golden lamps, from the fretted doom. 

Shed a radiant light through the cavern gloom, 
Twelve altars of onyx their incense fling 
Round the jewell’d throne of an eastern king. 

It may not be sung what treasures were seen, 

Gold heap’d upon gold, and emeralds green, 

And diamonds, and rubies, and sapphires untold, 
Rewarded the courage of Walter the Bold. 

A hundred strong castles, a hundred domains, 

With far spreading forests and wide flowery plains, 
Claim one for their lord, fairlv purchas’d by right, 
Hight Walter, the son of Sir Robert the Knight. 


The tradition of the “ Wizard's Cave' j 
is as familiar to the inhabitants and visitors 
of Tynemouth, as “ household words. ” 
Daily, during the summer season, even fair 
damsels are seen risking their slender 
necks, to ascertain, by adventurous explor¬ 
ation, whether young Walter the knight 
might not, in his hurry, have passed over 
some of the treasures of the cave: but j 
alas! Time on this, as on other things, 
has laid his heavy hand; for the falling in 
of the rock and earth, and peradventure 
the machinations of the discomfited “ spi- j 
rits,” have, one or both, stopped up the 
dark passage of the cavern at the depth of 
ten or twelve feet. The entrance of the 
cave, now well known by the name of 
“ Jingling Ceor die's Hole," is partly formed 
by the solid rock and partly by masonry, 
and can be reached with some little danger 
about half way up the precipitous cliff on 
which Tynemouth castle and priory stand. 
It commands a beautiful haven, or sandy| 
bay, on the north of Tynemouth promon¬ 
tory, badly sheltered on both sides by fear¬ 
ful beds of black rocks, on which the oceac 
beats with a perpetual murmur. 

London , Dec. 4, 1827. 


I 


AAfc. 














THE TABLE BOOK. 
PERSONS OF DISTINCTION. 


Uprightness in Death. 

Of German pride we have the following 
extraordinary anecdote:—A German lord 
;eft orders in his will not to be interred, 
but that he might be enclosed upright in a 
pillar, which he had ordered to be hollow* 
ed, and fastened to a post in the parish, in 
order to prevent any peasant or slave from 
walking over his body. 

Taking a Liberty. 

The most singular instance of British 
pride is related of a man, known in his 
time by the name of the “ Proud Duke of 
Somerset.” This pillar of “ the Corinthian 
capital of polished society” married a se¬ 
cond wife. One day, with an affectionate 
ease, she suddenly threw her arm round 
his neck, and fondly saluted him. “ Ma¬ 
dam,” said the unmanly peer, “ my first 
wife was a Percy, and she would not have 
taken such a liberty.” 

Royal Dinner Time. 

The kham of the Tartars, who had not a 
house to dwell in, who subsisted by rapine, 
and lived on mare’s milk and horse-flesh, 
every day after his repast, caused a herald 
to proclaim, “ That the kham having dined, 
all other potentates, princes, and great 
men of the earth, might go to dinner.” 

I 

Self-Esteem. 

Some Frenchmen, who had landed on 
the coast of Guinea, found a negro prince 
seated under a tree, on a block of wood for 
his throne, and three or four negroes, armed 
with wooden pikes, for his guards. His 
sable majesty anxiously inquired, tf Do 
they talk much of me in France?’’ 

Guinea Sovereigns. 

The different tribes on the coast of Gui¬ 
nea have each their king, whose power is 
not greater than that of the negro prince 
mentioned in the preceding anecdote. These 
monarchs often name themselves after ours, 
or adopt the titles of great men, whose ex¬ 
ploits they have heard of. 

I In the year 1743, there was among them 
a <4 King William,” whose august spouse 
called herself “ Queen Anne.” There was 
another who styled himself the “ Duke of 
Marlborough.” 

I This king William was a little Caesar. 
, For twenty vears he had carried on a war 


Hgainst one Martin, wio had dared to at¬ 
tempt to become his equal. At length, 
after a famous and decisive general engage* 
ment, wherein William lost three men, and 
his rival five, Martin made overtures foi 
a cessation of hostilities, which was agreed 
to, on the following conditions: 

1. That Martin should renounce the title 
of king, and assume that of captain. 

2. That captain Martin should never more 
put on stockings or slippers when he went 
on board European ships, but that this bril¬ 
liant distinction should thenceforth solely 
belong to king William. 

3. That captain Martin should give the 
conqueror his most handsome daughter in 
marriage. 

In pursuance of this glorious treaty, the 
nuptials were solemnized, and king Wil¬ 
liam went on board a Danish ship in 
stockings and slippers, where he bought 
silk to make a robe for his queen, and a 
grenadier’s cap for her majesty’s headdress. 
Captain Marlin paid a visit of ceremony to 
his royal daughter on occasion of her 
finery, and declared she never appeared so 
handsome before. This wedding ended a 
feud, which had divided the sable tribe into 
combatants as sanguinary and ferocious as 
the partisans of the white and red rose in 
England. 

Titles. 

Until the leign of Constantine, the title 
of “ Illustrious” was never given but to 
those whose reputation was splendid in 
arms or in letters. Suetonius wrote an ac¬ 
count of those who had possessed this title. 
As it was then bestowed, a moderate book 
was sufficient to contain their names ; nor 
was it continued to the descendants of those 
on whom it had been conferred. From 
the time of Constantine it became very com¬ 
mon, and every son of a prince was “ illus¬ 
trious.” 

Towards the decline of the Roman em¬ 
pire the emperors styled themselves “ divi¬ 
nities I” In 404, Arcadius and Iionorius 
issued the following decree:— 

“ Let the officers of the palace be warned 
to abstain from frequenting tumultuous 
meetings; and those who, instigated by a 
sacrilegious temerity, dare to oppose the 
authority of our divinity , shall be deprived 
of their employments, and their estates con¬ 
fiscated.” The letters of these emperors 
were called “ holy.” When their sons 
spoke of them, they called them—“ Theii 
father of divine memoryor “ Theii 
divine father.” They called their own 
laws “ oracles,” and “ celestial oracles" 


700 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Their subjects addressed them by the titles 
of “ Your Perpetuity, Ycur Eternity.” A 
aw of Theodore the Great ordains thus— 
** If any magistrate, after having concluded 
a public work, put his name rather than 
that of Our Perpetuity , let him be judged 
guilty of high treason.” 

De Meunier observes, that the titles 
which some chiefs assume are not always 
honourable in themselves, but it is suffi¬ 
cient if the people respect them. The king 
| of Quiterva calls himself the “ Great Lion 
and for this reason lions are there so much 
respected, that it is not permitted to kill 
them, except at royal huntings. 

Tire principal officers of the empire of 
Mexico were distinguished by the odd 
titles of “ Princes of unerring javelins;” 
“ Hackers of men;” and “ Drinkers of 
blood.” 

The king of Monomotapa, surrounded 
by musicians and poets, is adulated by 
such refined flatteries, as “ Lord of the Sun 
and Moon;” “ Great Magicianand 
“ Great Thief!” 

The king of Arracan assumes the title of 
“ Emperor of Arracan; Possessor of the 
White Elephant, and the two Ear-rings, 
and in virtue of this possession, legitimate 
heir of Pegu and Brama, Lord of the 
twelve provinces of Bengal; and of the 
twelve Kings who place their heads under 
his feet.” 

His majesty of Ava, when he writes to a 
foreign sovereign, calls himself—“The King 
of Kings, whom all others should obey ; the 
Cause of the Preservation of all Animals; 
the Regulator of the Seasons ; the Absolute 
Master of the Ebb and Mow of the Sea; 
Brother to the Sun; and King of the Four 
and Twenty Umbrellas.” These umbrellas 
are always carried before him as a mark of 
his dignity. 

The titles of the king of Achem are sin¬ 
gular and voluminous. These are a few of 
the most striking: — “ Sovereign of the 
Universe, whose body is luminous as the 
sun; whom God created to be as accom¬ 
plished as is the moon at her plenitude; 
whose eye glitters like the northern star; a 
King as spiritual as a ball is round—who 
| when he rises shades all his people—from 
I under whose feet a sweet odour is wafted, 
&c. &c.” 

Formerly (says Houssaie) the title of 
j “ Highness” was only given to kings. It 
was conferred on Ferdinand, king of Arra- 
gon, and his queen Isabella, of Castile. 
Charles V. was the first who took that of 
“ Majesty;” not in quality of king of Spain, 
1 %it as emperor. 


Our English kings were apostrophized 
by the title of “ Your Grace.” Henry Y 7 II1. 
was the first who assumed the title of 
“ Highness,” and at length “ Majesty.” 
Francis 1. began to give him this last title, 
in their interview in the year 1520. Our 
first “ Sacred Majesty ” was our “ Most 
dread Sovereign, His Highness, the Most 
High and Mighty Prince, James I.” 

The Great Turk. 

This designation of the sovereign of the 
Ottoman empire was not conferred, as some 
have imagined, to distinguish him from his 
subjects. Mahomet II. was the first Turk- 

V 

ish emperor on whom the Christians be¬ 
stowed the title of “ The Great Turk.” 
The distinction was not in consequence of 
his noble deeds, but from the vast extent of 
his territories, in comparison of those of 
the sultan of Iconia, or Cappadocia, his 
contemporary, who was distinguished by j 
the title of “The Little Turk.” After the 
taking of Constantinople, Mahomet II. de- i 
privea “ The Little Turk” of his dominions, 
yet he still preserved the title of “ The Great 
Turk,” though the propriety of it was de¬ 
stroyed by the event. 


AN INSCRIPTION, 

Said to have been dug out of the Ruins oj 
a Palace at Rome. 

Under this monument repose the ashes 
of Domitian, the last of the Caesars, the 
fourth scourge of Rome; a tyrant, no less 
deliberate than Tiberius, no less capricious 
than Caligula, and no less outrageous than 
Nero. 

When satiated with issuing edicts to 
spill human blood be found an amusement 
in stabbing flies with a bodkin. 

His reign, though undisturbed by war, 
occasioned no less calamity to his country 
than would have happened from the loss of 
twenty battles. 

He was magnificent from vanity, affable 
fiom avarice, and implacable from cow¬ 
ardice. 

He flattered incessantly the soldiery, who 
governed him, and detested the senate, 
who caressed him. 

He insulted his country by his laws, 
heaven by his impiety, and nature by hii 
pleasures. 

While living, he was deified; and the 
assassins alone, whom his empress had 




791 
















THE TABLE BOOK. 


<ent to despatch him, could convince him 
of ms mortality. 

j This monster governed during fifteen 
yeu'-s; yet the administration of Titus, the 
delight of humankind, was confined to two. 

Ye passenger?! who read this inscrip- 
ion, blaspheme not the Gods 1 


DICKEY FLETCHER. 

To the Editor. 

» • • • 

I hastily transcribe the following, origin¬ 
ally written for the Hull Advertiser, and 
! printed in that paper for September 27, 
1827, and subsequently in some of the 
London and provincial newspapers. 

| On Saturday, September 22, 1827, the 
inhabitants and visitants of Bridlington 
Quay, by a fatal accident, were suddenly 
deprived of the services of Richard Fletcher, 
the facetious and well-known bellman of 
that place, whose singular appearance, 
rhyming propensity, peculiar manner of 
pronunciation, and drawling and general 
originality, have so long been a source of 
amusement. In the forenoon of the above- 
mentioned day he was following his usual 
vocation, with that accustomed gaiety and 
cheerfulness for which he was remarkable, 
when having occasion to call at the lodging- 
house of Mr. Gray, he accidentally fell 
down the steps of a cellar-kitchen and 
broke his neck. The death of “ poor 
Dickey/’ and the shocking manner in w hich 
it occurred, excited much commisera¬ 
tion. The deceased was seventy-nine years 
of age, and left a widow at the age of 
eighty-nine, the relict of a former bellman, 
to whom he had been united about four 
years—during which period the antiquated 
pair formed a striking pattern of attach¬ 
ment. Dickey was a freeman of Hull, and 
the manner in which he made up his mir.d 
to vote for a candidate is deserving of 
mention. In the event of - a contested 
election he was uniformly for the “ third 
man;” as, he would say, “ the other two 
would not think of looking after me but 
for him." 

A specimen of Dickey’s rhyming eccen¬ 
tricities appeared in the Hull Advertiser of 
! August 5th, 1825; a copy of which, and 
| the paragraph accompanying it, is here 
given :— 

“ The company at Bridlington Quay are 


often highly amused by that eccentric little : 
cieature, yclep’d ‘ the bellman/ He it j 
cuite a lion;—being a poet as well as a j 
crier. His poetry is uncommonly original, i 
and if his pronunciation, when improvising . i 
be not so too, it is uncommonly Yorkshire, I 
which is as good. The following lines are : 
a very faithful imitation of the ‘ cry ’ this 
singular-looking being drawled forth oi 
Saturday morning, July 30 :— 

Tack’n oop this forenoon apod noarth sans 
Two keyes, wich I ev i’ my ans ;— 

Wo-hever as lost ’um mus coom te mea, 

An they sal ev ’um agean an we can agrea.’-* 

u Dickey’s late marriage was one of the 
‘ largest and the funniest’ known in Brid 
lington for a long time; a barouche and 
pair were gratuitously provided on the 
occasion, as well as a wedding-dinner and! 
other et cceteras. Since ‘ they twain be¬ 
came one flesh/ Dickey has been very 
proud of walking abroad, at fair times and 
public occasions, with ‘ his better part,’ 
when they generally formed objects of con 
siderable attraction to those to whom they 
were not particularly known.” 

T. C. 

Bridlington , October, 1^27. 


ANOTHER ODD SIGN.* 

At Wold Newton, near Bridlington, 
there is a public-house with the sign of a 
crooked billet, and the following lines oi 
an angular board :— 

First side 

When this comical stick grew in the wood 
Our Ale was fresh and very good, 

Step in and taste, O do make haste, 

For- if you don’t ’twill surely waste. 

Second side. 

When you have view’d the other side, 

Come read this too before you ride; 

And now to end we’ll let it pase. 

Step in, kind friends, and take a olas*. 

Bridlington. T. C. 


* See Table Booh , vol. i. p. 636. 


792 





































— 


the table book. 


For the Table Book. 

TO FANNY. 

No, Fanny, no, it may not be ! 

Though parting break my heart in twain, 

This hour I go, by many a sea 
Divided—ne’er we meet again. 

I love thee; and that look of thine, 

That tear upon thy pallid cheek, 

Assures me that I now resign 

What long it was my joy to seek. 

Oh ! once it was my happiest dream, 

My only hope, my fondest prayer; 

’Tis gone, and Kke a meteor beam 
Hath past, and left me to despair. 

I 

i 

Yet may you still of joy partake, 

I Nor find like me those hopes decay, 

Which ever, like a desert lake. 

Attract the sight to fade away. 

I could not brook to see that eye, 

So full of life, so radiant now, 

I could not see its lustre die. 

And time’s cold hand deface thy brow— 

And death will come, or soon or late, 

(I could not brook to know that hour,) 

But, if I do not learn thy fate, 

I’ll think thou ne’er canst feel his pow’r. 

Yes ! I will fly 1 though years may roll, 

And other thoughts may love estrange, 

’Twill give some pleasure to my soul 
To know I cannot see thee change. 

Then fare thee well, death cannot bring 
One hour of anguish more to me ; 

Since I have felt the only sting 
He e’er could give, in leaving thee. 

s. 


THE PLEASURES OF ILLUSION. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—I am a person unable to reckon 
upon the certain receipt of sixpence per 
annum, and yet I enjoy all the pleasures 
this sublunary world can afford. My as¬ 
sertion may startle, but its truth will be 
apparent when I declare myself a visionary, 
or, what is called by the world, “ a castle 
builder.” Many would denounce my pro¬ 
fession as useless and unprofitable; but 
he object constantly desired and inces¬ 
santly pursued by mankind is happmess, 
which they find as evanescent and delusive 
as the silver of the moon upon the waters. 

. -= 


Most men attaob to certain states of ex 
istence every pleasure that the earth can 
bestow. Some enter these by laborious 
and careful steps, but find them, upon ex¬ 
amination, devoid of the charms which 
their enthusiastic imaginations had painted. 
Others, more ardent and less calculating, 
rapidly ascend towards the object of their 
wishes, and when their hands are stretched 
forth to grasp it they lose their high foot¬ 
ing by an incautious step, and fall into an 
abyss of despondence and are lost for ever. 
Ilow different a fate is mine ! I have been 
the conqueror of nations, without feeling a 
pang at the recollection of the blood spilled 
in raising me to my exalted situation. I 
have been the idol and defender of my 
country, without suffering the anxieties of 
a statesman. I have obtained the affections 
of an amiable girl, without enduring the 
solicitudes of a protracted courtship. In 
fact, I possess every earthly pleasure, with¬ 
out any of the pains of endeavouring to 
obtain them. True it is, that the visions I 
create are easily dispelled, but this is a 
source of gratification rather than regret. 
When glutted with conquest, I sink into 
love; and on these failing to charm me, I 
enter upon scenes more congenial to the 
desires with which I feel myself inspired 
Every wish that I conceive is instantly 
gratified, and in a moment I possess that 
which many devote their whole lives to 
obtain. Surely the existence I lead is an 
enviable one ; yet many calling themselves 
my friends (and I believe them to be such) 
would wish me to think otherwise. Some¬ 
times, to gratify their desires, I have en¬ 
deavoured to break the fairy spells that bind 
me ; but when I dissipate the mist in which 
I am almost constantly surrounded, the 
scenes of misery that present themselves to 
my view have such an effect upon my 
senses, that on returning to my peculiar 
regions they appear doubly delightful, from 
being contrasted by those of the real world. 

I have obtruded this epistle on your no¬ 
tice, in vindication of a practice which has 
been deprecated by many; solely, as I 
believe, from their powers of imagination 
being unable to lead them into the abodes 
where I so happily dwell. Should you 
think it unworthy a place in your miscel¬ 
lany, its rejection will not occasion me a 
moment’s mortification, as I already possess 
a reputation for literary acquirements, far 
surpassing any which lias been given to 
the most celebrated writers that have flou¬ 
rished since the creation of your miserable 
world. 

November 6, 1827. T. T. B. 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


OLD MACARONIC POEM. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—I am a literary lounger, and diur- 
nally amuse myself, during about four 
hours, in poring over old poetical MSS. in 
the British Museum: the result of yester¬ 
day’s idle labours was the accompanying 
transcript from a macaronic drinking song, 
which appears to me a very curious amal¬ 
gamation of jollity and devotion. If you 
coincide in this opinion, perhaps you will 
honour its unknown author by inserting it 
in your delightful miscellany, which, like 
the diving bell, restores to the world many 
interesting relics of antiquity, and rescues 
-them from eternal oblivion. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant 
and constant reader, 

Le Flaneur. 

Heading Room , 

Brit. Mus. Nov. 2 2, 1827. 

From the Cotton MS. Vespasian A.xxv. 

1. 

There is no tre that growe 
On earthe, that I do knows. 

More worthie praise I trowe, 

Than is the vyne, 

Whos grapes, as ye may rede, 

Their licoure forthe dothe shed* 

Wherof is made indede 

All our good wyn*. 

And wyne, ye maye trust me, 

Causethe men for to be 
Merie, for so ye see 

His nature ia : 

Then put asyde all wrathe 
For David showde us hath* 

Vinum letificat 

Cor hominis. 

2 . 

Wyne taken with excesse. 

As Scripture dothe express*, 

Causethe great hevines 

Unto the mynde i 
But theie that take pleasure 
To drinke it with measure, 

Ko doute a great treasure 

They shall it find# 

Then voide you all sadnes, 

Drinke your wyne with gladnes 
To take thought is madnes, 

And marke well this *. 

And put asyde all wrathe, &c. ut supra. 

3. 

How bringe ye that to pas 
Cordis Jucunditas, 
ia now and ever waa 

Tha lyfe of man • 


Sithe that mirthe hathe no peare. 

Then let us make good cheare, 

And be you merie heare, 

While that ye can t 
And drinke well of this wyne. 

While it is good and fyne. 

And showe some outwarde syne 
Of joye and blisse ; 

Expell from you all wrathe, &c. ut suora. 
i. 

This thinge full well ye ken, 

Hevines dulleth men, 

But take this medicien then. 

Where’er ye come: 

Refreshe yourself therewith. 

For it was said long sithe. 

That vinum acuit 

Ingenium. 

Then give not a chery 
For sider nor perrye, 

Wyne maketfc man merie, 

Ye knowe well this ; 

And put asyde all wrathe, &c. ut supi 

5. 

In hope to have release 
From all our hevines, 

And mirthe for to encrease 

Sum dele the more, 

Pulsemus organa. 

Simul cum cithara, 

Vinum et musica 

Vegetabit cor. 

But sorowe, care, and strife 
Shortnethe the days of life, 

Bothe of man and of wyfe 

It will not mis; 

Then put asyde all wrathe, iie. ut anpr*, 

6 . 

A merie herte in cage 
Makethe a lustie age, 

As telleth us the sage, 

Ever for the noynea; 

Because we should delight 
In mirthe, bothe daye and night. 

He saith an hevie fright 

Driethe up the bones. 

Wherfor, let us alwaye 
Rejoice in God, I saye, 

Our mirthe cannot decaye 
If we do this. 

And put asyde all wrathe, &c. ut aupnk 
/• 

Nowe ye that be presente. 

Laud God Omnipotent, 

That hathe us given and sent 
Our dalie foode. 

When thorowe sinne we’re a la Lae, 

He sent his son againe. 

Us to redeeme from paite 

By his sweet* Wood#, 


794 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


And he is the trewe Tyne, 

From whome distill’d the wyne. 
That boughte your soules and myne. 
You knovre well this : 
Then put asyde all wrathe. 

For David showde us hat he 
Vinum letificat 

Cor hominis. 


ANTY BRIGNAL AND THE BEG- 
G1NG QUAKER. 

For the Table Book. 

A few years ago a stout old man, with 
long grey hair, and dressed in the habit of 
the Society of Friends, was seen begging in 
the streets of Durham. The inhabitants, 
attracted by the novelty of a “ begging 
Quaker,” thronged about him, and several 
questioned him as to his residence, &c. 
Amongst them was “ Anty Brignal,” the 
olice-officer, who told him to go about his 
usiness, or he would put him in the kitty* 
“ for an imposter or .” “ Who ever heard,” 

said Anthony, “ of a begging Quaker ?” 
“ But,” said the mendicant, while tears 
flowed adown his face, “ thou knowest, 
friend, there be bad Quakers as well as 
good ones; and, I confess to thee, I have 
been a bad one. My name is John Tay¬ 
lor ; I was in the hosiery business at N-, 

and through drunkenness have become a 
bankrupt. The society have turned me 
out, my friends have deserted me. I have 
no one in the world to help me but my 
daughter, who lives in Edinburgh, and I 
am now on my way thither. Thou seest, 
friend, why I beg ; it is to get a little money 
to help me on my way : be merciful, as thou 
hopest for mercy.” “ Come, come,” said 
the officer, “ it won’t do, you know ; there’s 
not a word of truth in it; ’tis all false. 
Did not I see you drunk at Nevill's Cross 
'a public-house of that name) the other 
night?” “No, friend,” said the man of 
unsteady habits, “ thou didst not see me 
drunk there, but I was there, and saw thee 
drunk ; and thou knowest when a man is 
drunk he thinks every body else so!” This 
was a poser for the police-officer. The 
crowd laughed, and “ Anty Brignal ” slunk 
away from their derision, while money fell 
plentifully into the extended hat of the dis¬ 
owned quaker. 

T. Q. M. 


• an it the house of correction called in Durham. 


For the Table Book 
THE ORPHANS. 

Written on seeing a small Lithocka 
phic Print of two Female Orphan 
Children. 

1 . 

Like two fair flowers that grow in tome lone epot. 

Bent by the breeze that wafts their fragrance round— 

Pale, mild, and lovely ; hut by all forgot,— 

They droop neglected on the dewy ground. 

2 . 

Thus left alone, without a friend or guide 

To cheer them, through life’s drear and rugged wny 

Stand these two pensive mourners side by side. 

To sorrow keen, and early grief, a prey. 

3. 

Low in the grave, o’er which the cypress spreads 
Its gloomy shade, in death their parents sleep ; 

Unconscious now they rest their weary heads. 

Nor hear their children sigh, nor see them weep. 

4. 

And see, a tear-drop gems the younger’s eye. 

While struggling from its coral cell to start; 

Oh, how that pearl of sensibility 

In silence pleads to every feeling heart. 

5. 

Not Niobe, when doom’d by cruel fate 
To weep for ever in a crystal shower. 

Could claim more pity for her hapless state. 

Than does, for you, that drop of magic power 

6 . 

Breathes there on earth, of human form possest. 

One who would in those bosoms plant a thorn. 

And banish thence the halcyon’s tranquil nest, 

While they its loss in secret anguish mourn? 

7. 

Perish the wretch ! who with deceitful wile 
Forsaken innocence would lead astray. 

And round her like a treach’rous serpent coil. 

And having stung, relentless haste away. 

8 . 

May you the orphan’s friend find ever near 
To guard you safe, and strew your path with flowers 

May hope’s bright sun your gloomy morning cheer. 
And shine in splendour on your evening hours. 

R. B 

Sept. 1827. 


795 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


For the Table Book. 

JACK THE VIPER. 

This is an odd name for a man, who does 
not bear the appearance of a viper, or “ a 
snake in the grass.” He is a rough sort of 
fellow, has been at Waterloo, but did not 
obtain a medal. He, nevertheless, carries 
the hue of a triumphant soldier, wears an 
honest sunburnt face, and might be trusted 
with his majesty’s great seal, or that of 
another description in the British Museum. 
He is a lover of ringing bells and swine; 
but without regular employment. A sin¬ 
gular piece of human construction, lone, 
and erratic in his love of nature. A shep¬ 
herd lies down at ease by the sides of his 
flocks and fountains, listens to the plaints 
if injured birds, the voice of water and 
.he music of skies, and dreams away his 
existence, years of youth, manhood, and 
old age. Jack is more tranquil even than 
the shepherd. He creeps silently in woods 
and forests, and on retired hot banks, in 
search of serpentine amusement—he is a 
viper catcher. Strange that creatures, 
generally feared and shunned by mankind, 
should win Jack’s attention and sympathy, 
Yet, true it is, that Jack regards them as 
the living beauties of solitude, the lovely 
but startling inhabitants of luxuriant spots 
in the sultry summer. Were we to look 
round us, in the haunts of men, we could, 
perhaps, discover beings as fearful and 
awakening. Jack has travelled, seen the 
world, and profited by his travels ; for he 
has learned to be contented. He is not 
entirely idle, nor wholly industrious. If 
he can get a crust sufficient for the day, he 
leaves the evil if it should visit him. The 
first time I saw him was in the high noon 
of a scorching day, at an inn in Layton- 
stone. He came in while a sudden storm 
descended, and a rainbow of exquisite 
majesty vaulted the earth. Sitting down 
at a table, he beckoned the hostess for his 
beer, and conversed freely with his ac¬ 
quaintance. By his arch replies I found 
that I was in company with an original— 
a man that might stretch forth his arm in 
the wilderness without fear, and, like Paul, 
grasp an adder without harm. He play¬ 
fully entwined his fingers with their coils 
and curled crests, and played with their 
forked tongues. He had unbuttoned his 
waistcoat, and as dexterously as a fish- 
woman handles her eels, let out several 
snakes and adders, warmed by his breast, 
and spread them on the table. He took 
ofl his hat, and others of different sizes and 


lengths twisted before me; some of them 
when he unbosomed his shirt, returned to 
the genial temperature of his skin ; some 
curled round the legs of the table, and 
others rose in a defensive attitude. He 
irritated and humoured them, to express 
either pleasure or pain at his will. Some 
were purchased by individuals, and Jack 
pocketed his gain, observing, “ a frog, or 
mouse, occasionally, is enough for a snake’s 
satisfaction.” 

The “ Naturalist’s Cabinet ” says, that 
“ in the presence of the grand duke of 
Tuscany, while the philosophers were mak¬ 
ing elaborate dissertations on the danger of 
the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a 
viper catcher, who happened to be present 
requested that a quantity of it might be put 
into a vessel; and then, with the utmost 
confidence, and to the astonishment of the 
whole company, he drank it off. Every 
one expected the man instantly to drop 
down dead ; but they soon perceived theii 
mistake, and found that, taken inwardly, 
the poison was as harmless as water.” 

YVilliam Oliver, a viper catcher at Bath, 
was the first who discovered that, by the 
application of olive oil, the bite of the viper 
is effectually cured. On the 1st of June, 
1 735, he suffered himself to be bitten by 
an old black viper; and after enduring all 
the agonising symptoms of aoproaching 
death, by using olive oil, he perfectly re¬ 
covered. 

Viper’s flesh was formerly esteemed foi 
its medicinal virtues, and its salt was 
thought to exceed every other animai pro¬ 
duct, in giving vigour to a languid consti¬ 
tution. 

August, 1827. - 


A SKETCH IN SPA FIEJJDS 

f J l! ' » 1“ 

To the Editor;. 

Sir,—Allow me to draw your attention 
to a veteran, who in the Egyptian expedi¬ 
tion lost his sight by the ophthalmy, and 
now asks alms of the passenger in the little 
avenue leading from Sadler’s Wells to Spa 
Fields, along the eastern side of the New 
River Head. 

His figure, sir, would serve for a model 
of Belisarius, and even fiis manner of 
soliciting would be no disgrace to the Ho-' 
man general. I am not expert at drawing 
portraits, yet will endeavour by two or 
three lines to give a slight conception of 
this. His present height is full six feet. 


7l ! 6 


i 




























THE TABLE BOOK. 


but in bis youth it must have been nearly 
two inches more; as the weight of about 
sixty-five years has occasioned a slight cur¬ 
vature of the sjnne. His limbs are large 
and muscular, his shoulders broad, his 
chest capacious, the lines of his counte¬ 
nance indicate intelligence; his motion is 
not graceful, for he appears to step without 
confidence, occasioned no doubt by his 
blindness. 

Now, sir, give his head no other covering 
than a few very short grey hairs, and button 
him up close in the remains of a dragoon 
dress, and you have his likeness as exact as 
an unskilful artist can give it. 

O. 

N.B.—An old woman must lead him. 


attracts 

FROM MY NOTE BOOK. 

For the Table Book. 

Moore, in his life of Sheridan, says, that 
“ he (Sheridan) had a sort of hereditary 
fancy for difficult trifling in poetry ; parti¬ 
cularly to that sort which consists in rhym¬ 
ing to the same word through a long string 
of couplets, till every rhyme that the lan¬ 
guage supplies for it is exhausted and 
quotes some dozen lines, entitled “ My 
Trunk/’and addressed “ To Anne,” where¬ 
in a lady is made to bewail the loss of her 
trunk, and rhymes her lamentation. The 
editor, in a note, says, “ Some verses by 
general Fitzpatrick on lord Holland’s fa¬ 
ther, are the best specimen I know of this 
scherzo.” The general’s lines I have never 
seen, and it is probable they are only in 
MS. ; but le Seigneur des Accords , in his 
Bizarrures, (ed. 1585, Paris, Richer, feuillet 
27,) quotes sixty lines, rhyming on a very 
indecent word from “ un certain hure contre 
les femmes,” composed by Drusac, “ un 
Tolosain rimailleur imitant Marotand 
who is there stated to have composed 300 
or 400 verses on the same subject, and to 
the same rhyme. And at feuillet 162 of 
/he same work and edition, the Seigneur 
adduces two other remarkable instances of 
u difficult trifling in poetry.” Speaking of 
one of which, he says, “ Vn Allemant 
nomm6 Petrus Porcius Porta, autrement 
Petrus Placentius, a fait un petit poeme 
laborieux le possible auquel il descrit Pug- 
nam Porcorum en 350 vers ou environ, 
qui commencent tous par P, dont j'ai rap- 
porte ces xvi suivas pourexemple, et pour 

i_ 


contenter ceux qui ne Pont pas veu.” Tire 
quotation referred to commences with 

“PraBcelsia Proauis Pulchrfc Prognate Patror# ” 

and concludes with 

“ Pingui Porcora Pingendo Poemate Pugnaro. * 

The other instances adduced by the Sei¬ 
gneur of this laborious folly, is related also 
of a German, by name Christianus Pierius; 
who, says the author, “ depuis peu de 
temps a fait un opuscule d’environ mille ou 
donze ces vers , intitule Christus Cruci- 
fixus, tous les mots duquel commencent 
par C.” Four lines are quoted; they are 
as follows:— 

Currite Castalides Christi Comitante Camcenae 
Concelabrature COcbv'sm Carmine Certum 
Confugium Collapsorum Concurrite Cantus 
Concinnaturae Celebres Celebresque Cotburnos. 

I myself recollect seeing and copying at 
Notting Hill some lines written (I think) 
on the battle of Waterloo, (the copy of i 
which I have however lost;) which, al¬ 
though short, were sufficiently curious. 
They were in an album belonging to the j 
sister of a schoolfellow, (W. O. S.,) and, 
as far as I have ever seen, were unique in 
their species of the paronoemic genus. The 
first line began with “ A,” and each subse¬ 
quent one with a successive letter of the 
alphabet, and each word alliterated to the 
initial letter of the line where it was placed. 
The poem went through the whole of the 
alphabet, not even excepting X or Z, and 
mqst have required a world of Patience and 
Perseverance to Perfect. 


Marot, christened Clement, the French 
poet, who is said, in a quotation from le 
Seigneur des Accords in the foregoing note, 
to have been imitated by Drusac, lived in 
the reign of Francis I., and was a Protest¬ 
ant. There is a portrait of him at page 161 
of “ Les Vrais Portraits des Hommes Illus- 
tres ” of Theodore de Bbze, Geneva, 1581, 
whereto a short sketch of his life is attached ; 
which says, that “ par une admirable feli- 
cite d’esprit, suns aucune cognoissance des 
langnes ni des sciences, il surpassa tous les 
poetes qui Fauoient devance.” He was 
twice banished on account of his religion; 
and when in exile translated one-third of 
the Psalms into French verse. “ Mais au 
reste,” says Theodore,“ ayant passe presque 
toute sa vie & la suite de cour, (oil la pi£te / 
et l’honestete n’ot gubres d’audiance,) il ne 
se soucia pas beaucoup de reformer sa vie 


797 


































THE TABLE BOOK. 


peu Chr&ienne, ains se gouuernoit h sa 
raanifere accoutum^e mesmes en sa vieil- 
iesse, et mourut en I’&ge de 60 ans a Turin, 
oil il s’esfoit retire sous la faueur du Lieu¬ 
tenant du Roi.” He was a Quercinois, 
having been born at Cahors, in Quercy. 

The following lines were written after 
his death by Jodelle, who was famed for 
these “ vers rapportez.” 

Quercy, la Cour, le Piedmont, l’Univers 
Me fit, me tint, m’enterra, me cogneut, 

Quercy mon los, la cour tout mon temps eut. 
Piedmont mes os, et 1’uni vers mes vers. 


Guildhall. —Misson, in his “ Mdmoires 
et Observations faites par un Voyageur en 
Angleterre,” published anonymously at the 
Hague in 1698, under this head, accounts 
thus philologically for the name :—“ II est 
A croire que la grande salle etoit autrefois 
dor£e, puisque le mot de Guild ou Gild-hull , 
signifie salle doree.” To do him justice, 
however, after quoting so ridiculous a pas¬ 
sage, I must annex his note, as follows:— 
“ D autres disent que Guild est un ancien 
mot qui signifie incorpori: Guildhall; la 
salle des incorporez ou associez.”—p. 236. 


Juliet was no doubt a delectable little 
I creature, but, like most of the genus, she 
1 was but a flimsy metaphysician. “ What’s 
in a name ?” that depends now-a-days on 
the length or age of it. The question should 
be put to a Buckinghamshire meeting man, 
if one would desire to know the qualities 
of all the component parts of an Abraham 
1 or Absalom, in some parts of the country, 
people seem to think they have bilked the 
devil, and booked sure places in heaven 
for their children, if, at their christening, 
they get but a scripture name tacked to the 
urchins. “ In proof whereof,” Esther, 
Aaron, and Shad rack Puddyfat, with mas¬ 
ter Moses Myrmidon, formed a blackberry- 
»ng party that I fell in with a summer back 
near Botley, on the road between Chesham 
and Hemel Hempstead. At a farm-house 
in Bucks it is no uncommon sight for the 
twelve apostles to be seen tucking in greens 
and bacon, or for the tribes of Israel to be 
found drunk together in a pot-house. Some 
poor drunken-brained bigots would not ac- 
! cept even the free services of a ploughman, 
j whose name was not known before the 
flood 

Note. —The names above seem sc very 
ludicrous, that I have no doubt there will 
j be many sceptics to the belief of their 


reality if this passage be printed; but I de¬ 
clare positively, on the word, honour, and 
faith of a man and a gentleman, that they 
are as true, real, and existent, as Thomas 
Tomkins, or any other the most usual ana 
common place. 

J. J. K. 


WHIMSIES. 

An Essay on the Understanding.' 

“ Harry, I cannot think,” says Dick, 

** What makes my ancles grow so thick f* 

“ You do not recollect,” says Harry, 

" How great a calf they have to carry.” 


“ Old Westminster Quibble*.* 
Toes. 

A fellow did desire 
To warm at a fire 
His toes, before he went home | 

But the man said ” No, 

If you put fire and toe 
Together, you will burn the room.” 

B. C. 

One did ask, why B 
Was put before C, 

And did much desire te know— 

Why a man must be , 

Before he can see. 

And I think I have hit on it now. 

The Red Nose. 

A Man did surmise, 

That another man’s eyes 
Were both of a different frame | 

For if they had been matches , 

Then, alas! poor wretches, 

His nose would a set ’em in a flame. 


“New Westminster Quibbles.* 
The Soldier. 

“ There is one soldier less," 

Exclaimed sister Bess, 

As a funeral passed by the door { 

Then said Mr. Brown, 

“ I V bet you a crown, 

I’ll prove it is one soldier mort.** 

Scilicet. 

Why every silly cit 
Has pretensions to wit. 

You may learn if you listen to my ditty; 
The word scilicet 
In law means to wit , 

So citizens, by law, must be witty 


798 































THE TABLE BOOK* 



Srfel) i3rprs. 


A young friend brings me from Ireland 
a couple of pipes, in common use among 
the labouring people in Dublin and Clon¬ 
mel. Their shape and materials being 
wholly different from any in England, they 
ere represented in the above engraving, 
which shows their exact size. The bowl 


part, formed of 


iron, like 


the socket of a 


candlestick, is inerted m apiece of maho¬ 
gany carved, as hen? shown, in the shape 


of a violin, or a pair of bellows, or other 
whimsical form; and the mahogany is 
securely bound and ornamented with brass 
wire: to a small brass chain is attached a 
tin cover to the bowl. The tube is of dog¬ 
wood, such as butchers’ skewers are made 
of, or of a similar hard wood ; and, being 
movable, may be taken out for accommo¬ 
dation to the pocket, or renewal at plea¬ 
sure. These pipes cost sixpence each. 


3 f 


793 




































THE TABLE BOOK. 


The dadeen , or short pipe, the “ little 
tube of magic power,” wherewith the Irish 
labourer amuses himself in England, is 
thus mentioned in a note on the “ Fairy 
Legends and Traditions of the South of Ire¬ 
land,’’ by Mr. Crofton Croker:—“ Dudeen 
signifies a little stump of a pipe. Small 
tobacco-pipes, of an ancient form, are fre¬ 
quently found, in Ireland on digging or 
ploughing up the ground, particularly in 
the vicinity of those circular intrenchments, 
called J )anish forts, which were more pro¬ 
bably the villages or settlements of the 
native Irish. These pipes are believed by 
the peasantry to belong to the Cluricaunes, 
and when discovered are broken, or other¬ 
wise treated with indignity, as a kind of 
retort for the tricks which their supposed 
owners had played off.” Mr. Croker sub¬ 
joins a sketch of one of these pipes, and 
adds, that “ In the Anthologia Iliberrnca, 
vol i. p. 352, (Dublin, 1793,) there is a 
print of one, which was found at Bran- 
nockstown, county Kildare, sticking be¬ 
tween the teeth of a human skull; and it is 
accompanied by a paper, which, on the 
authority of Herodotus, (lib. i. sec. 36,) 
Strabo, (lib. vii. 296,) Pomponius Mela, (2,) 
and Solinus, (c. 15,) goes to prove that the 
northern nations of Europe were acquainted 
with tobacco, or an herb of similar proper- 
lies, and that they smoked it through small 
iulies—of course, long before the existence 
of America was known.” 


<§aiTtcft pays* 

No. XLV. 

FACETIiE. 

1 . 

Holding in Capite. 

First Gent. ’Tis well known I ain a Gentleman. 
My fattier was a man of ^500 a year, and he held 
something' in capite too. 

Second Gent. So does my Lord something— 

Foolish Lord. Nay, by my troth, what I hold in 
capite is worth little or nothing. 

2 . 

Fool's Experience. 

Pane. He that’s first a scholar, and next in love, the 
year after is either an arrant fool or a madman. 

Master. How came your knavery by such experi¬ 
ence? 

Page. As fools do by news: somebody told me so, 
and l beiieve i*- 


3 . 

Modern Sybarite. 

-softly, ye villains 1 — the rogues of chuii* 

men have trundled me over some damn’d nutshell or 
other, that gave me such a jerk as has half murder’d 
me. 

4 . 

Spare diet of Spaniards. 

Spaniard. The air being thin and rarified generally 
provides us good stomachs. 

Englishman. Aye, and the earth little or nothing to 
satisfy ’em with ; I think a cabbage is % jewel among 
you. 

Span. Why, truly a good cabbage is respected. But 
our people are often very luxurious, they abound very 
often. 

Eng. O no such matter, faith, Spaniard! ’death, 
if they get but a piece of beef, they shall hang all the 
bones out, and write underneath Here hath been beej 
eaten , as if ’twere a miracle. And if they get but a 
lean hen, the feathers shall be spread before the door 
with greater pride than we our carpets at some princely 
solemnity. 

5 . 

Foolish Form. 

Servant (to mg Lord Stately's Gentleman Usher.) 
Sir, here’s your Lord’s footman come to tell you, your 
Lord’s hat is blown out of his hand. 

Lord W. Why did not the footman take it up? 

Usher. He durst not, my Lord ; ’tis above him. 

Lord TF. Where ? a’top of the chimney ? 

Usher. Above his office, my Lord. 

J.ord IF. How does this fool, for want of solid 
greatness, swell with empty ceremony, and fortify 
himself with outworks! That a man must dig thro 
rubbish to come at an ass. English Friar. 

6 . 

Cast Books. 

Waiting maid. I have a new Bible too; and when 
my Lady left her Practice of Piety, she gave it me. 

Newcastle. 

7 . 

Good at guessing 

Nay, good Mr. Constable, you are e’en the luckiest 
at being wise that ever I knew. Newcastle. 

8 . 

Essays at Essays. 

1. O eternal blockhead, did you never write Essays ? 

2. I did essay to write Essays, but 1 cannot say I 

writ Essays. v Newcastle. 

9. 

Hard words. 

Indiscerptibility, and Essential Spissitude: words 
which, though I am no competent judge of, for want of 
languages, yet I faDcy strongly ought to mean nothing 

Mrs. Afra Behn■ 


































THE TABLE BOOK 


10 

Scandals to Atheism . 

X| 1 ~ a late learned Doctor; who, though himself 
!»o gTeat assertor of a Deity, yet was observed to be 
continually persuading this sort of men [the rakehelly 
blockheaded Infidels about town] of the necessity and 
truth of our religion; and being asked how he came 
to bestir himself so much this way, made answer, that 
it was because their ignorance and indiscreet debauch 
made them a Scandal to the Profession of Atheism. 


16 . 

EnglishBeau, contrasted with a French on 9 . 

- a true-bred English Beau has indeed the 

powder, the essence, the toothpick, the snuff-box ; and 
is as idle; but the fault is in the flesh—he has not 
the motion, and looks stiff under all this. Now a 
French Fop like a Poet, is born so, and would be 
known without clothes; it is in his eyes, his nose, 
his fingers, his elbows, his heels. They dance when they 
walk, and sing when they speak. We have nothing in 
that perfection as abroad ; and our cuckolds, as well 
as our grapes, are but half ripened. Burnaby. 


Excuse for being afraid in a Storm. 

Master. Courage! why what dost thou call courage ? 
Hector himself would not have exchanged his ten years’ 
siege for our ten days’ storm at sea. A Storm 1 a hun¬ 
dred thousand fighting men are nothing to it; cities 
sack’d by fire, nothing. ’Tis a resistless coward, that 
attacks a man at disadvantage ; an unaccountable 
magic, that first conjures down a man’s courage, and 
then plays the devil over him ; and, in fine, it is a 
Storm I 

Mate. Good lack, that it should be all these terrible 
things, and yet that we should outlive it! 

Master. No god-a-mercy to our courages tho’, I tell 
you that now ; but like an angry wench, when it had 
huffed and bluster’d itself weary, it lay still again. 


Dutch Gallantry 

Mate. What, beat a woman, Sir ? 

Master. ’Psha, all’s one for that; if I am provoked, 
anger will have its effects upon whomsoe’er it light: 
*o said Van Tromp, when he took his Mistress a cuff 
on the ear for finding fault with an ill-fashioned leg he 
made her. I liked his humour well. Behn. 

13 . 

Dutchman. 

- sitting at home in the chimney comer, curs¬ 
ing the face of Duke de Alva upon the jugs, for laying 
an imposition on beer. Behn. 


14 . 

Rake at Church. 

.. I shall know all, when I meet her in the 
chapel to-morrow. I am resolved to venture thither 
tho’ I am afraid the dogs will bark me out again, ar 
by that means let the congregation know how mud 
am a stranger to the place. Durfe, 

15 . 

Lying Traveller 

You do not believe me then? the de>il take me, if 
these home-bred fellows can be saved: they neither 
know nor beBvre half the creation. Lacy. 


17 . 


Fanciful Recipe, prescribed for sick Fancy 

The juice of a lemon that’s civil at seasons. 

Twelve dancing capers, ten lunatic reasons ; 

Two dying notes of an ancient swan ; 

Three sighs, a thousand years kept, if you can ; 

Some scrapings of Gyges’s ring may pass. 

With the skin of a shadow caught in a glass ; 

Six pennyworth of thoughts untold ; 

The jelly of a star, before it be cold ; 

One ounce of courtship from a country daughter; 

A grain of wit, and a quart of laughter.— 

Boil these on the fire of Zeal (with some beech-coals, 
lest the vessel burst).—If you can get these ingre¬ 
dients, I will compound them for you. Then, when 
the patient is perfectly recovered, she shall be married 
in rich cloth of rainbow laced with sunbeams. 

Strode. 


18 . 

Beauties at Church. 


Fair Women in Churches have as ill effect as fine 
Strangers in Grammar schools: for tho’ the boys keep 
on the humdrum still, yet none of ’em mind their lesson 
fpr looking about ’em. Fane. 


19 . 


Expedients 

I have observed the wisdom of these Moors: for 
some days since being invited by one of the chie f 
Bashaws to dinner, after meat, sitting by a huge Are’ 
and feeling his shins to burn, I requested him to pull 
back his chair, but he very understanding^ sent for 
three or four masons, and removed the chimney. 

Brome. 

20 . 

Mayor of Queenborow, a Christian , giv¬ 
ing orders for feasting Hengist , a Paaan 
King of Kent , who has invited himself to 
the Mayor's table. 

-give charge the mutton come in all raw; the 

King of Kent is a Pagan, and must be served so. And 
let those officers, that seldom or never go to church 
bring it in; it will be the better taken. 

Middleton. 


801 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


21. 

Fat man s device to get a dainty. 

I have a privilege. I was at the tavern the other 
day ; in the next room I smelt hot venison. I sent but 
a drawer to tell the company, “ one in the house with 
a great belly longed for a corner,” and I had half a 
pasty sent me immediately. Shirley. 

22 . 

Miser's Servant. 

Friend. Camelion, how now, have you turned away 
your master ? 

Camelion. No; I sold my place. As I was thinking 
to run away, comes this fellow, and offers me a break¬ 
fast for my good will to speak to my master for him. 
I took him at his word, and resigned my office, and 
turned over my hunger to him immediately. Now I 
serve a man. Shirley. 

23. 

Walking. 

Fine Lady. I am glad I am come home, for I am 
«ven as weary with this walking; for God’s sake, 
whereabouts does the pleasure of walking lie ? I swear 
I have often sought it till I was weary, and yet I could 
ne’er find it. T. Killegrew. 

24. 

Foolish Sukor. 

Aldenr.an. Save you. Sir. 

Suitor. You do not think me damn’d, Sir, that you 
bestow 

That salutation on me ? 

Aid. Good, Sir, no. 

Whom would you speak with here? 

Suit. Sir, my discourse 
Points at one Alderman Covel. 

Aid. I am the party. 

Suit. I understand you have a daughter, is 
Of most unknown perfections. 

Aid. She is as Heaven made her— 

Suit. She goes naked then ; 

The tailor has no hand in her. 

<J. L. 


atones! 

OF THE 

Ctabttt Balts. 

No. III. 


He had been in Yorkshire dal® 

Among the winding scars. 

Where deep and low the hamlets lie. 

Beneath a little patch of sky. 

And little patch of stars.—W ordsworth. 


Proem. 

In the summer of 1823 I was residing 
for a few days at a solitary inn amongst the 
hills of Craven. One afternoon I had 


planned an excursion to a neighbouring 
cave, but was prevented from going there 
by a heavy rain which had fallen during 
the whole of the day. I had no friends in 
the neighbourhood, and could not have 
procured at my inn any work worth the 
perusal. The library of my landlord was 
small, and the collection not remarkable for 
being well chosen ; it consisted of Pamela, 
Baron Munchausen, Fox’s Martyrs, the 
Pilgrim’s Progress, and a few other public¬ 
ations of an equally edifying description. 
I should have been at a loss how to have 
spent the tedious hours, had I not had a 
companion. He was a stout, elderly man, 
a perfect stranger to me; and by his con¬ 
versation showed himself possessed of a 
very considerable share of erudition : his 
language was correct, his remarks strong 
and forcible, and delivered in a manner 
energetic and pointed. While engaged in 
conversation, our ears were stunned by a 
number of village lads shouting and halloo¬ 
ing at the door of the inn. On inquiring of 
the landlord into the cause of this disturb¬ 
ance, we were informed that a poor woman, 
who was reputed to be a witch, had taken 
shelter at his house from the inclemency of 
the storm, and that some idle boys, on see¬ 
ing her enter, were behaving in the rude 
manner already mentioned. 

The landlord having left the room, I 
said to my companion, “ So you have 
witches in Craven, sir; or, at least, those 
who pretend to be such. I thought that 
race of ignorant impostors had bean long 
extinct, but am sorry to find the case is 
otherwise.” 

The stranger looked at me, and said, 
“ Do you then disbelieve the existence of 
witchcraft V* 

“ Most assuredly,” I replied. 

“ But you must confess that witchcraft 
did exist? ” 

“ I do ; but think not its existing in the 
prophetical ages to be any evidence of its 
being permitted in the present.” 

“ But learned works have been written 
to prove the existence of it in late times — 
You are aware of the treatises of Glanvill 
and Sinclair ?” 

“ True; and learned men have some¬ 
times committed foolish actions; and cer¬ 
tainly Glanvill and Sinclair, great as their 
taler.is undoubtedly were, showed no great 
wisdom in publishing their ridiculous effu¬ 
sions, which are nothing more than the 
overflowings of heated imaginations.” 

My companion seeing I was not to be 
convinced by any arguments he could ad¬ 
vance, but. that, like the adder in holy writ, 


802 












. - - . . . 1,1 - - - : ... 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


I was “ deaf to the voice of the charmer, 
charm he never so wisely,” thus addressed 
me:—“ I was like you, sceptical on the 
subject of our present discourse; but the 
doubts I once entertained have long since 
vanished ; and if you can attend patiently 
to a history I will relate, I think you will 
be convinced that witchcraft does exist; or 
at least has existed in very modern times.” 

The stranger then related the story of 

The Wise Woman of Littondale. 

“ In the year 17 —, in a lonely gill, not 
far distant from Arncliffe, stood a solitary 
cottage : a more wretched habitation the 
imagination cannot picture. It contained 
a single apartment, inhabited by an old 
woman, called Bertha, who was throughout 
the valley accounted a wise woman, and a 
practiser of the ‘ art that none may name.’ 

I was at that time very young, and unmar- 
1 ried; and, far from having any dread of 
her, would frequently talk to her, and was 
always glad when she called at my father's 
house. She was tall, thin, and haggard ; 
her eyes were large, and sunk deep in their 
sockets ; and the hoarse masculine intona¬ 
tions of her voice were anything but pleas¬ 
ing. The reason I took such delight in the 
company of Bertha was this—she was pos¬ 
sessed of much historical knowledge, and 
related events which had occurred two or 
three centuries ago, in a manner so minute 
and particular, that many a time I have 
been induced to believe she had been a 
spectatress of what she was relating. Bertha 
was undoubtedly of great age; but what 
that age was no one ever knew. I have 
frequently interrogated her cn the subject, 
but always received an evasive answer to 
my inquiries. 

“ In the autumn, or rather in the latter 
end of the summer of 17 — , I set out one 
evening to visit the cottage of the wise 
woman. I had never beheld the interior; 
and, led on by curiosity and mischief, was 
determined to see it. Having arrived at 
the cottage, I knocked at the gate. ‘ Come 
in,’ said a voice, which I knew was Bertha’s. 

[ entered ; the old woman was seated on a 
three-legged stool, by a turf fire, surrounded 
by three black cats and an old sheep-dog. 

‘ Well,’ she exclaimed, ‘ what brings you 
here ? what can have induced you to pay a 
visit to old Bertha?’ I answered, ‘ Be not 
offended ; I have never before this evening 
viewed the interior of your cottage; and 
wishing to do so, have made this visit; I 
also wished to see you perform some of 
vour incantations' I pronounced the last 
word ironically. Bertha observed it and 


said, ‘Then you doubt m power, think me 
an impostor, and consider my incantations 
mere jugglery; you may think otherwise: 
but sit down by my humble hearth, and in 
less than half an hour you shall observe 
such an instance of my power as I have 
never hitherto allowed mortal to witness.’ 
i obeyed, and approached the fire. I now 
gazed around me, and minutely viewed me 
apartment. Three stools, an old deal table, 
a few pans, three pictures of Merlin, 
Nostradamus, and Michael Scott, a cal¬ 
dron, and a sack, with the contents of 
which I was unacquainted, formed the 
whole stock of Bertha. The witch having 
sat by me a few minutes, rose, and said, 
‘Now for our incantations; behold me, 
but interrupt me not.’ She then with chalk 
drew a circle on the floor, and in the midst 
of it placed a chafing-dish filled with burn¬ 
ing embers; on this she fixed the caldron, 
which she had half filled with water. 

“ She then commanded me to take my 
station at the farther end of the circle, 
which I did accordingly. Bertha then 
opened the sack, and taking from it various 
ingredients, threw them into the ‘ charmed 
pot.’ Amongst many other articles I 
noticed a skeleton head, bones of different , 
sizes, and the dried carcasses of some small 
animals. My fancy involuntarily recurred 
to the witch in Ovid— 

Semina, floresque, et succos in coqrnt acres ; 

Addidit et exceptas lun& pernocte pruinas, 

Et strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas, 

Vivacisque jecur cervi; quibus insuper addit. 

Ora caputque novem cornicis saecula passse.’ 

While thus employed, she continued mut¬ 
tering some words in an unknown language; 
all I remember hearing was the word konig. 

At length the water boiled, and the witch, 
presenting me with a glass, told me to look 
through it at the caldron. I did so, and 
observed a figure enveloped in the steam; 
at the first glance I knew not what to make 
of it, but I soon recognised the face of 
N-, a friend and intimate acquaint¬ 

ance : he was dressed in his usual mode, 
but seemed unwell, and pale. I was asto¬ 
nished, and trembled. The figure having 
disappeared, Bertha removed the caldron, 
and extinguished the fire. ‘ Now,' said 
she, ‘ do you doubt my power ? I have 
brought before you the form of a person 
who is some miles from this place; was 
there any deception in the appearance ? I 
am no impostor, though you have hitherto 
regarded me as such.’ She ceased speak¬ 
ing : I hurried towards the door, and said, 
‘Good night.’ ‘Stop,’ said Bertha, ‘1 


803 





























THE TABLE BOOK. 


have not done with you ; I will show you 
something more wonderful than the ap¬ 
pearance of this evening: to-morrow, at 
midnight, go and stand upon Arnclifle 
bridge, and look at the water on the left 
side of it. Nothing will harm you; fear 
not/ 

“ * And why should I go to Arnclifle 
bridge? What end can be answered by it? 
The place is lonely ; I dread to be there at 
such an hour; may I have a companion ?’ 

“ ‘ No/ 

“ 1 Why not ?’ 

“ ‘ Because the charm will be broken/ 

“ ‘ What charm V 
u ‘ I cannot tell/ 

“ ‘ You will not/ 

‘ I will not give you any further in- 
.ormation: obey me, nothing shall harm 
you/ 

“ ‘ Well, Bertha,* I said, * you shall be 
obeyed. I believe you would do me no 
injury. I will repair to Arnclifle bridge 
to-morrow at midnight; good night/ 

I then left the cottage, and returned 
home. When I retired to rest I could 
not sleep; slumber fled my pillow, and 
with restless eyes I lay ruminating on the 
strange occurrences at the cottage, and on 
what I was to behold at Arnclifle bridge. 
Morning dawned, I arose unrefreshed and 
fatigued. During the day I was unable to 
attend to any business ; my coming adven¬ 
ture entirely engrossed my mind. Night 
arrived, I repaired to Arnclifle bridge: 
never shall I forget the scene. It was a 
lovely night: the full orb'd moon was sail¬ 
ing peacefully through a clear blue cloud¬ 
less sky, and its beams, like streaks of silvery 
lustre, were dancing on the waters of the 
Skirfare; the moonlight falling on the hills 
formed them into a variety of fantastic 
shapes ; here one might behold the sem¬ 
blance of a ruined abbey, with towers and 
spires, and Anglo-Saxon and Gothic arches; 
at another place there seemed a castle 
frowning in feudal grandeur, with its but¬ 
tresses, battlements, and parapets. The 
stillness which reigned around, broken only 
by the murmuring of the stream, the cot¬ 
tages scattered here and there along its 
banks, »nd the woods wearing an autumnal 
tinge, all united to compose a scene of 
calm and perfect beauty. I leaned against 
the left battlement of the bridge; I waited 
a quarter of an hour—half an hour—an 
hour—nothing appeared. I listened, all 
was silent; I looked around, I saw nothing. 
Surely, I inwardly ejaculated, I have mis¬ 
taken the hour; no, it must be midnight ; 
Bertha has deceived me, fool that 1 am. 


why have I obeyed the beldam? Thus I 
reasoned. Tire clock of the neighbouring 
church chimed—I counted the strokes, it 
was twelve o’clock ; I had mistaken the 
hour, and I resolved to stay a little longer 
on the bridge. I resumed my station, 
which I had quitted, and gazed on the 
stream. The river in that part runs in a 
clear still channel, and ‘ all its music dies 
away/ As I looked on the stream I heard 
a low moaning sound, and perceived the 
water violently troubled, without any ap¬ 
parent cause. The disturbance having 
continued a few minutes ceased, and the 
river became calm, and again flowed along 
in peacefulness. What could this mean ? 
Whence came that low moaning sound ? 
What caused the disturbance of the river ? 1 
asked myself these questions again and 
again, unable to give them any rational 
answer. With a slight indescribable kind 
of fear I bent my steps homewards. On 
turning a corner of the lane that led to my 
father’s house, a huge dog, apparently of 
the Newfoundland breed, crossed my path, 
and looked wistfully on me. ‘ Poor fel¬ 
low !’ I exclaimed, * hast thou lost thy 
master? come home with me, and I will 
use thee well till we find him/ The dog 
followed me ; but when I arrived at my 
place of abode, I looked for it, but saw no 
traces of it, and I conjectured it had found 
its master. 

“ On the following morning I again re¬ 
paired to the cottage of the witch, and 
found her, as on the former occasion, seated 
by the fire * Well, Bertha/ I said, ‘ 1 
have obeyed you ; I was yesterday at mid- \ 
night on Arnclifle bridge.’ j 

“ ‘ And of what sight were you a wit- i 

? % * > 

“ ‘ I saw nothing except a slight disturb¬ 
ance of the stream/ 

“ * I know/ she said, ‘ you saw a dis¬ 
turbance of the water, but did you behold 
nothing more V 
“ ‘ Nothing.’ 

u ‘ Nothing ! your memory fails you/ 

“ ‘ I forgot, Bertha; as I was proceed¬ 
ing home, I met a Newfoundland dog, 
which I suppose belonged to some tra¬ 
veller/ 

“ ‘ That dog/ answered Bertha, ‘ never 
belonged to mortal; no human being is 
his master. The dog you saw was Bar- 
gest; you may, perhaps, have heard of 
him.’ 

“ 4 1 have frequently heard tales of Bar- 
gest, but I never credited them. If the 
legends of my native hills be true, a death 
may be expected to follow his appeararce ’ 


t04 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


“ ‘ You are right, and a death will follow 
lis last night’s appearance.’ 

“ * Whose death?’ 

u ‘ Not yours.’ 

“ As Bertha refused to make any further 
communication, I left her. In less than 
three hours after I quitted her I was in¬ 
formed that my friend N-, whose 

figure I had seen enveloped in the mist of 
the caldron, had that morning committed 
suicide, by drowning himself at Arnclitfe 
bridge, in the very spot where l beheld the 
disturbance of the stream !” 

Such was the story of my companion ; 
the tale amused me, but by no means in¬ 
creased my belief in witchcraft. I told the 
narrator so, and we again entered into a 
serious discussion, which continued till the 
inn clock struck seven, when the stranger 
left me, saying, that he could not stay any 
longer, as he had a distance often miles to 
travel that evening along a very lonely road. 

The belief of witchcraft is still very pre¬ 
valent in Craven ; and there are now re¬ 
siding in different parts wise men and 
wise women, whom the country people 
consult when any property is stolen or lost, 
as well as for the purpose of fortune-telling. 
These impostors pretend generally to prac¬ 
tise divination by the crystal, as in the tale 
—a mode of deception which Moncrieff has 
very ingeniously ridiculed in his “ Tom 
and Jerry." Witches and wizards are not 
so common as they were a few years ago 
amongst us. The spread of education, by 
means of National and Sunday Schools, 
goes a great way to destroy superstition, 
hew witches were better known in Craven 
than Kilnsay Nan, who died a few years 
ago. This old hag travelled with a Guinea 
pig in her breast, which she pretended 
solved questions, and used at times to open 
a witchcraft shop in Bag’s-alley, Skipton : 
her stock of spells was not very large, for 
it only consisted of her Guinea pig, and 
about half a pack of dirty cards. 

Littondale, the romantic valley which 
forms the scene of the above tale, is at the 
extremity of the parish of Burnsal, where 
Wharfdale forks off into two great branches, 
one whereof retains the name of Wharfdale 
to the source of the river; and the other, 
which is watered by the Skirfare, (some¬ 
times called the Litton and Litton Bech,) 
is called Littondale. The ancient name 
was Amerdale; and by that designation 
Wordsworth alludes to it in his “ White 
Doe,” 

“ The deep fork of Amerdale.” 

The whole of ti.e dale is in the parish of 
Arncliffe; so called, according to my great 


authority in Craven matters, Dr. Whitaker 
from 6a]rn, an eagle, and clypp, a rock, 
i. e. the eagle’s rock; “ as it afforded many 
secure retreats for that bird in its ridges of 
perpendicular limestone.” The western 
side of the valley extends to Pennigent; on 
the skirts of which mountain are many 
ancient places of interment, called “ Giants' 
Graves,” thought to be Danish. 

During the last summer I took a ride up 
Littondale, principally with a View of in¬ 
specting Arncliffe church, on the venerable 
tower of which I had frequently gazed at a 
distance. Alas ! it is the only venerable 
thing about the church, all the rest of which 
has been rebuilt in a most paltry and insig¬ 
nificant style—not an ornament about it, 
inside or outside : as Dr. Whitaker trulv 
says, “ it has been rebuilt with all the 
attention to economy, and all the neglect, 
both of modern elegance and ancient form, 
which characterises the religious edifices of 
the present day.” It is indeed, as the same 
historian observes, “ a perfect specimen” of 
a “ plain, oblong, iW-constructed building, 
without aisles, choir, column, battlements, 
or buttresses ; the roof and wainscotting of 
deal, the covering of slate; the walls run¬ 
ning down with wet, and the whole resem¬ 
bling a modern conventicle, which this year 
may serve as a chapel, and the next as a 
cockpit.” The remarks that Arncliffe church 
leads the doctor to make ought to be thun¬ 
dered in the ears of every “ beautifier” from 
Cornwall to Berwick upon Tweed:— 

“ Aw'akened by the remonstrances of 
their ecclesiastical superior, a parish dis¬ 
covers that, by long neglect, the roof of 
their church is half rotten, the lead full 
of cracks, the pews falling down, the 
windows broken, the mullions decayed, 
the walls damp and mouldy. Here it is 
well if the next discovery be not the value 
of the lead. No matter whether this cover¬ 
ing have or have not given an air of dignity 
and venerable peculiarity to the church for 
centuries. It will save a parish assess¬ 
ment; and blue slate will harmonize verv 
prettily with the adjoining cotton-mill! The 
work of renovation proceeds—the stone 
tracery of the windows, which had long 
shed their dim religious light, is displaced, 
and with it all the armorial achievements 
of antiquity, the written memorials oi 
benefactors, the rich tints and glowing 
drapery of saints and angels—but to console 
our eyes for the losses, the smart luminous 
modern sash is introduced ; and if this be 
only pointed at top, all is well ; for all is— 
still Gothic!* Next are condemned the 

* Ry Is tone cliaoel has been “ beautified” in this way.- 
























THE TABLE BOOK. 


massy oaken stalls, many of them capable 
of repairs, many of them wanting none: 
*hese are replaced by narrow slender deal 
pews, admirably contrived to cramp the 
tall, and break down under the bulky. 
Next the fluted wood work of the roof, with 
all its carved enrichments, is plastered over. 
It looked dull and nourished cobwebs! 
Lastly, the screens and lattices, which, from 
period antecedent to the Reformation, had 
spread their light and perforated surfaces 
from arch to arch, are sawn away ; and, in 
the true spirit of modern equality, one un¬ 
distinguishing blank is substituted for 
separations which are yet canonical , and to 
distinctions which ought to be revered." 

In Littondale is the celebrated cave 
Doukerbottom Hole : the road leading to 
it is steep and difficult to travel for one 
unused to hilly countries; but the tourist 
will receive an ample recompense for the 
badness of the road, by the splendid views 
obtained from all parts of it of Whernside 
and the neighbouring hills. It is some 
years since I saw Doukerbottom Cave; 
and at this distance of time I fear to at¬ 
tempt a description of its wonders; but I 
remember that the entrance is steep and 
rather dangerous ; the first chamber very 
spacious and lofty, and the roof starred with 
beautiful stalactites formed by the dripping 
of the limestone; that then the cavern be¬ 
comes narrower and lower, so much so, 
that you have to stoop, and that at the end 
the ear is stunned by a waterfall, which 
discharges itself into some still lower cave. 
I remember, too, that I visited it in com¬ 
pany with an amiable dissenting minister, 
and that we were highly amused at the 
jokes and tales of our one-eyed guide, Mr. 
Proctor, of Kilnsay. I have just been in¬ 
quiring after that worthy and eccentric old 
fellow, and find that he is dead. Iam 
sorry for it; and if my reverend friend 
should see this article, I doubt not but he 
will lament with me, that poor old Proctor 
is gone. For many years he had been 
guide to Doukerbottom Cave and Whern¬ 
side. 

In Littondale is a ridge of rock, called 
Tenant’s Ride, from one of the Tenant 
family having galloped along it while 
hunting. A dangerous feat truly, but not 
so daring as is generally supposed; for 1 
am given to understand the ridge is seven 
yards wide, and perfectly level. There are 
fine waterfalls in the valley. I trust that 
a time will come when Littondale will be 
more frequented than at present. 

T. Q. M. 

December , 1827. 


HAGBUSH-LANE 

From desire to afford the destroyers ol 
Corrall’s cottage time to reflect, and make 
reparation for the injury they had inflicted 
on the old man and his wife; and wishing 
to abstain from all appearance of strife¬ 
making, the topic has remained till now 
untouched. 

On the 28th of November Mr. S., as 
the agent of a respectable clergyman 
whose sympathy had been excited by 
the statements of the Table Book , called 
on me to make some inquiries into the 
case, and I invited him to accompany me 
to Corrall’s shed. We proceeded by a 
stage to the “ Old Mother Red Cap,” 
Camden-town, and walked from thence 
along the New Road, leading to Holloway, 
till we came to the spot at the western j 
corner of Hagbush-lane, on the left-hand ! 
side of the road. We had journeyed fori 
nothing—the shed had disappeared from ! 
the clay swamp whereon it stood. Along ' 
the dreary line of road, and the adjacent 
meadows, rendered cheerless by alternate 
frosts and rains, there was not a human 
being within sight; and we were at least 
a mile from any place where inquiry could 
be made, with a chance of success, respect¬ 
ing the fugitives. As they might have re¬ 
tired into the lane for better shelter during 
the winter, we made our way across the 
quaggy entrance as well as we could, and 
I soon recognised the little winding grove, i 
so delightful and lover-like a walk in days 
of vernal sunshine. Its aspect, now, was 
gloomy and forbidding. The disrobed trees 
looked black, like funeral mutes mourning 
the death of summer, and wept cold drops 
upon our faces. As we wound our slippery 
way we perceived moving figures in the 
distance of the dim vista, and soon came 
up to a comfortless man and woman, a 
poor couple, huddling over a small smoul¬ 
dering fire of twigs and leaves. They told 
us that Corrall and his wife had taken 
down their shed and moved three weeks 
before, and were gone to live in some of 
the new buildings in White-conduit fields. 
The destitute appearance of our informants 
in this lonely place induced inquiry re¬ 
specting themselves. The man was a Lon¬ 
don labourer out of employment, and, for 
two days, they had been seeking it in the 
country without success. Because they 
were able to work, parish-officers would 
not relieve them; and they were with¬ 
out a home and without food. They had 
walked and sauntered during the two 
nights, for want of a place to sleep in. 


























THE TABLE BOOR. 



a last ?took at JjaglntsMant. 


and occasionally lighted a fire for a little 
warmth— 

“ The world was not their friend, nor the world s law. 

We felt this, and Mr. S. and myself contri¬ 
buted a trifle to help them to a supper and 
a bed for the night. It was more, by all 
ts amount, than they could have got 
n that forlorn place. They cheerfully 
undertook to show us to Corrall’s present 
-^sidence, and set forward with us. Before 


we got out of Hagbush-lane it was dark, 
but we could perceive that the site of Cor- 
rall’s cottage and ruined garden was occu¬ 
pied by heaps of gas-manure, belonging tc 
the opulent landowner, whose labourers 
destroyed the poor man’s residence and his 
growing stock of winter vegetables. 

_“ A man may see how this world 

goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears . 
see how yon’ justice rails upon you’ simple 


807 


































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


thief. Hark in thine ear: change places ; 
and handy dandy, which is the justice, 
which is the thief?- 

‘ Through tatter’d cloaths small vices do appear ; 
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks : 

Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it.” 

We found Corrall and his wife ar^d child 
at No. 3, Bishop's-place, Copenhagen-street. 
The overseers would have taken them into 
: the workhouse, but the old man and his 
wife refused, because* according to the 
workhouse rules, had they entered, they 
i would have keen separated. In “ The Form 
of Solemnization of Matrimony,” it is en¬ 
joined, after the joining of hands, “ Those 
whom God hath joined together, let no 
man put asunderand though this pre¬ 
scription is of the highest order of law, yet 
it is constantly violated by parochial autho¬ 
rity. Corrall is sixty-nine years old, and 
his wife’s lungs appear diseased. Were 
they together in the poor-house they would 
be as well circumstanced as they can ever 
hope or wish ; but, this not being allowed, 
they purpose endeavouring to pick up a 
living by selling ready dressed meat and 
small beer to labouring people. Their 
child, a girl about seven years of age, seems 
destined to a vagabond and lawless life, 
unless means can be devised to take her 
off the old people’s hands, and put her 
to school. On leaving them l gave tne 
wife five shillings, which a correspondent 
sent for their use :* and Mr. S. left his 
address, that, when they get settled, they 
may apply to him as the almoner of the 
benevolent clergyman, on whose behalf 
he accompanied me to witness their situa¬ 
tion.— 

This notice will terminate all remark 
on Iiagbush-lane: but I reiterate, that since 
it ceased to be used as the common high¬ 
way from the north of England into Lon¬ 
don, it became a green lane, affording 
lovely walks to lovers of rural scenery, 
which lawless encroachments have de¬ 
spoiled, and only a few spots of its former 
beauty remain. It is not “ waste ” of the 
manors through which it passes, but be¬ 
longs to the crown ; and if the Commis¬ 
sioners of Woods and Forests survey and 
inquire, they will doubtless claim and pos¬ 
sess themselves of the whole, and appro¬ 
priate it by sale to the public service. True 
it is, that on one or two occasions manor 
homages have been called, and persons 


• I am sorry I cannot remember the initials to this 
entleman’s letter, which has been accidentally mis* 
iid. 

l ! : - -- ,^ ^=: 


colourably admitted to certain parcels; but 
the land so disposed of, a homage could not 
legally admit claimants into possession of; 
nor could an entry on the court rolls confer 
a legal title. Indeed the court rolls them¬ 
selves will, at least in one instance, show that 
the steward has doubted his lord’s right; and 
the futility of such a title has seemed so ob¬ 
vious, that some who retain portions of Hag- 
bush-lane actually decline ad mission through 
the manor-court, and hold their possessions | 
by open seizure, deeming such a holding as 
legal, to all intents and purposes, as any 
that the lord of the manor can give. Such 
possessors are lords in their own right— 
a right unknown to the law of England— 
founded on mere force; which, were it 
exercised on the personalties of passengers, 
w ould infallibly subject successful claimants 
to the inconvenience of taking either a long 
voyage to New South Wales, or, peihaps, 
a short walk without the walls of Newgate, 
there to receive the highest reward the 
sheriff’s substitute can bestow. 

* 


JBtetobm'cs 

OF THE 

4NUENTS AND MODERNS 
No. XXXV. 

Ancient Chemistry, &c. 

Distillation. — It has been questioned 
whether the ancients were acquainted with 
this art, but a passage of Dioscorides not 
only indicates the practice, but shows that 
the name of its principal instrument, the 
alembic, was derived from the Greek lan¬ 
guage. Pliny gives the same explanation, 
as Dioscorides does, of the manner of ex¬ 
tracting quicksilver from cinnabar by dis¬ 
tillation. And Seneca describes an instru¬ 
ment • exactly resembling the alembic. 
Hippocrates even describes the process of 
distillation. lie talks of vapours from the 
boiling fluid, which meeting with resistance 
stop and condense, till they fall in drops. 
Zosimus of Panopolis, an Egyptian city, 
desires his students to furnish themselves 
with alembics, gives them directions how 
to use them, describes them, and presents 
drawings of such as best deserve to be 
employed in practice. 

Alcalis and Acids .—Of the substances 
Promiscuously termed lixivial salt, sal alcali. 


80S 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


rock-salt, &c., Aristotle speaks,wh^n he says 
that in Umbria the burnt ashes of rushes and 
feeds, boiled in water, yield a gieat quan¬ 
tity of salt. Theophrastus observes the 
same. VarrO relates of dwellers on the 
borders of the Rhine, who having neither 
sea nor pit salt, supply themselves by 
means of the Saline cinders of burnt plants. 
Pliny speaks of ashes as impregnated with 
salts, and in particular of the nitrous ashes 
of burnt oak ; adding, that these salts are 
Used in medicine, and that a dose of lixivial 
ashes is an excellent remedy. Hippocrates, 
Celsus, Dioscorides, and especially Galen, 
often recommend the medical use of sal 
dlcali. To the mixture of acids and alcali, 
Plato ascribed fermentation. Solomon 
seems to have known this effect of them, 
when he speaks of “ vinegar upon nitre ” 

I Cleopatra's Pearl .—A convincing proof 
of the ability of the ancients in chemistry 
is the experiment with which Cleopatra 
entertained Marc Antony, in dissolving be¬ 
fore him, in a kind of vinegar, a pearl of 
very great value, (above 45,-toO/. sterling.) 
At present we know not of any “ vinegar” 
that can produce this effect; but the fact is 
well attested. Probably the queen added 
something to the vinegar, omitted by the 
historian. The aid of Dioscorides, sur- 
named Phacas, who was her physician, 
might have enabled her thus to gain her 
wager with Marc Antony, that she would 
exceed him in the splendour and costliness 
of her entertainment. But Cleopatra her¬ 
self was a chemical adept, as appears from 
some of her performances still in the libra¬ 
ries of Paris, Venice, and the Vatican. 
And Pliny informs us of the emperor Caius, 

that bv means of fire he extracted some 
* 

I gold from ofpiment. 

Malleability of Glass .—The method of 
rendering glass ductile, which is to us a 
secret, was assuredly a process well 
known to the ancients. Some still doubt 
of it, as others have of the burning glasses 
of Archimedes. Because forsooth they do 
not know how it could be effected, they 
will not admit the fact, notwithstanding the 
exact accounts we have of it, till somebody 
again recovers this lost or neglected secret, 
as Rircher and Buflon did that of Archi¬ 
medes’s mirrors. Pliny says, the flexibility 
of glass was discovered in the time of 
Tiberius; but that the emperor fearing 
lest gold and silver, those most precious 
metals, should thereby fall in their value, 
so as to become contemptible, ordered the 
residence, workhouse, and tools of the in¬ 
genious artisan to be destroyed, and thus 
strangled the art in its infancy, f etrcnius 


is more diffuse. lie says, that in the time 
of Tiberius there was an artificer who made 
vessels of glass, which were in their com- ! 
position and fabric as strong and durable 
as silver or gold ; and that being introduced 
into the presence of the emperor, he pro 
sented him with a vase of this kind, such 
as he thought worthy of his acceptance. 
Meeting with the praise his invention de¬ 
served, and finding his present so favour¬ 
ably received, he threw the vase with such 
violence upon the floor, that had it been of 
brass it must have been injured by the 
blow; he took it up again whole, but 
dimpled a little, and immediately repaired 
it with a hammer. While in expectation 
of ample recompense for his ingenuity, the 
emperor asked him whether any body else 
was acquainted with this method of pre¬ 
paring glass, and being assured that no 
other was, the tyrant ordered his head to be 
immediately struck off; lest gold and sil¬ 
ver, added he, should become as base as 
dirt. Dion Cassius, on this head, confirms 
the attestations of Pliny and Petronius. 
Ibn Abd Alhokirn speaks of malleable glass 
as a thing known in the flourishing times of 
Egypt. Greaves, in his work on Pyramids, 
mentions him as a celebrated chronologist 
among the Arabians, and cites from him 
that “ Saurid built in the western pyramid 
thirty treasuries, filled with store of riches 
and utensils, and with signatures made of 
precious stoties, and with instruments of 
iron and vessels of earth, and with arms 
which rust not, and with glass which mighi 
be bended, and yet not broken, &c.” 
There is, however, a modern chemical com¬ 
position, formed of silver dissolved in acid 
spirits, and which is called cornu lunce , or 
horned moon, a transparent body, easily 
put into fusion, and very like horn or glass, 
and which will bear the hammer. Borri- 
chius, a Danish physician of the seven¬ 
teenth century, describes an experiment of 
his own, by which he obtained a pliant and 
malleable salt: he gives the receipt, and 
concludes from thence, that as glass for the 
most part is only a mixture of salt and 
sand, and as the salt may be rendered duc¬ 
tile, glass may be made malleable : he even 
imagines that the Roman artificer, spoken 
of by Pliny and Petronius, may have suc¬ 
cessfully used antimony as the principal 
ingredient in the composition of his vase. 
Descartes supposed it possible to impart 
malleability to glass, and Morhoff assures 
us that Boyle was of the same opinion. 

Painting on Glass .—This art, so far as it 
depends upon chemistry, was carried for¬ 
merly to high perfection. Of this we have 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


strncmg instances in the windows of ancient 
churches, where paintings present them¬ 
selves in the most vivid colours, without 
detracting from the transparency of the 
glass. Boerhave and others observe, that 
( we have lost the secret to such a degree, 
that there are scarcely any hopes of recover¬ 
ing it. Late experiments go far towards a 
successful restoration of this art. 

Democritus .—This eminent man, who 
was a native of Abdera in Thrace, flourish¬ 
ed upwards of four centuries before the 
Christian sera. For the sake of acquiring 
wisdom he travelled into Egypt, and abode 
with the priests of the country. He may 
| be deemed the father of experimental phi¬ 
losophy. It is affirmed that he extracted 
the juice of every simple, and that there 
was not a quality belonging to the mineral 
or vegetable kingdoms that escaped his no- 
| tice. Seneca says, that he was the inventor 
of reverberating furnaces, the first who 
gave a softness to ivory, and imitated nature 
in her production of precious stones, par¬ 
ticularly the emerald. 

Gunpowder .—Virgil and his commenta- 
| tor Servius, Hyginus, Eustathius, La Cerda, 
Valerius Flaccus, and many other authors, 
speak in such a manner of Salmoneus’s at¬ 
tempts to imitate thunder, as suggest to us 
that he used a composition of the nature of 
gunpowder. He was so expert in mecha¬ 
nics, that he formed machines which imi- 
; tated the noise of thunder, and the writers 
j of fable, whose surprise in this respect may 
I be compared to that of the Mexicans when 
j they first beheld the fire-arms of the Spa¬ 
niards, give out that Jupiter, incensed at 
the audacity of this prince, slew him with 
lightning. It is much more natural to sup¬ 
pose that this unfortunate prince, as the in¬ 
ventor of gunpowder, gave rise to these 
fables, by having accidentally fallen a 
victim to his own experiments. Dion and 
Joannes Antiochenus report of the emperor 
Caligula, that he imitated thunder and 
lightning by means of machines, which at 
the same time emitted stones. Themistius 
relates, that the Brachn.ans encountered 
one another with thunder and lightning, 
which they had tht art of launching from 
on high at a considerable distance. Aga- 
ihias reports of Anthemius Trafienais. that 
having fallen out with his neighbour Zeno 
the rhetorician, he set fire to his bouse v'-.th 
thunder and lightning. Philostiates speak¬ 
ing of the Indian sages, says, thai when 
they were attacked by their enemies they 
did not leave their walls to fight them, but 
repelled and put them to flight by thunder 
and lightning. In another place he alleges 


that Hercules and Bacchus attempting to 
assail them in a fort where they were en¬ 
trenched, were so roughly received by re¬ 
iterated strokes of thunder and lightning, 
launched upon them from on high by the 
besieged, that they were obliged to retire. 
The effects ascribed to these engines could 
scarcely be brought about but by gunpow¬ 
der. In Julius Africanus there is a receipt 
for an ingenious composition to be thrown 
upon an enemy, very nearly resembling 
that of gunpowder. But that the ancients 
were acquainted with it seems proved be¬ 
yond doubt, by a clear and positive passage 
of an author called Marcus Graecus, whose 
work in manuscript is in the Royal Library 
at Paris, entitled “ Liber Ignium.” The 
author, describing several ways of encoun¬ 
tering an enemy, by launching fire upon j 
him, among others gives the following re- ! 
ceipt:—Mix together one pound of live 
sulphur, two of charcoal of willow, and 
six of saltpetre; reduce them to a very fine 
powder in a marble mortar. He directs a 
certain quantity of this to be put into a 
long, narrow, and well-compacted cover, 
and so discharged into the air. Here we 
have the description of a rocket. The 
cover with which thunder is imitated he 
represents as short, thick, but half-filled, i 
and strongly bound with packthread, which 
is exactly the form of a cracker. He then 
treats of different methods of preparing 
the match, and how one squib may set fire 
to another in the air, by having it enclosed 
within it. In short, he speaks as clearly of 
the composition and effects of gunpowder 
as any body in our times could do. This 
author is spoken of by Mesue, an Arabian 
physician, who flourished in the beginning 
of the ninth century. There is reason to 
believe that he is the same of whom Galen 
speaks. 

Generation. 

There are two theories on this suniect 
among the moderns. Harvey, Stenon, Graaf, 
Redi, and other celebrated physicians, 
maintain that all animals are oviparous 
and spring from eggs, which in the animal 
kingdom are what seed is in the vegetable. 1 
Hartsoeker and Lewenhoek are of a differ- ! 
ent opinion, and maintain that all animals 
spring by metamorphosis from little animals 
of extreme minuteness. 

The first of these systems is merely a 
revival of that taught by Empedocles, as 
cited by Plutarch and Galen, and next to 
him Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Macrobius. 
The other system, that of animalcula or 


810 















THE TABLE BOOK. 


permatic vermiculi, is but a revival of the 
pinions of Democritus and other ancients. 

Hippocrates, founding himself upon a 
principle universally received by antiquity 
Uiat nothing arises from nothing, advanced 
I that nothing in nature absolutely perished ; 

I that nothing, taking it altogether, was pro¬ 
duced anew; nothing born, but what had 
a prior existence ; that what we call birth, 
is only such an enlargement as brings from 
darkness to light, or renders visible, those 
small animalcula which were before imper¬ 
ceptible. He maintains that every thing 
increases as much as it can, from the lowest 
to the highest degree of magnitude. These 
principles he afterwards applies to genera¬ 
tion, and declares that the larger sizes arise 
out of the lesser; that all the parts success¬ 
ively expand themselves, and grow and 
increase proportionally in the same series 
of time; that none of them in reality takes 
the start of another, so as to be quicker or 
slower in growth; but that those which are 
naturally larger sooner appear to the eye, 
than those which are smaller, though they 
by no means preceded them in birth or 
existence. 

Polypi .—The multiplicity of animation 
of which the polypus is capable, supposed 
to have been discovered by the moderns, 
was known to the ancients. There are 
passages of Aristotle and St. Augustine, 
wherein they speak of it as a thing which 
they knew from their own experience. The 
latter, in his book entitled “ De Quan¬ 
titate Anitnae,” relates, that one of his 
friends performed the experiment before 
him of cutting a polypus in two; and that 
immediately the separated parts betook 
themselves to flight, moving with precipita¬ 
tion, the one one way, and the other ano¬ 
ther. Aristotle, speaking of insects with 
many feet, says, that there are of these 
animals or insects, as well as of plants and 
trees, that propagate themselves by shoots: 
and as what were but the parts of a tree 
before, become thus distinct and separate 
trees; so in cutting one of these animals, 
says Aristotle, the pieces which before com¬ 
posed altogether but one animal, become 
all of a sudden so many different indivi¬ 
duals. He adds, that the animating prin¬ 
ciple in these insects is in effect but one, 
though multiplied in its powers, as it is in 
plants. 

The Sexual System of Plants. 

Vivunt in Venerem frondes, omnesque vicissim 

Felix arbor amat, nutant ad mutua palmaa 

Feeder a, populeo suspirat popuJus ictu, 

Et platani platams, alnoque assibilat alnus. 

Claudictn. de Nuptiis Honoriiet Marie ». 


Claudian’s verses have been thus fa¬ 
miliarly Englished :—“ The tender boughs 
live together in love, and the happy trees 
pass their time entirely in mutual em¬ 
braces. Palms by consent salute and 
nod to each other; the poplar, smitten 
with the poplar, sighs; whilst planes and 
alders express their affection in the melody 
of whispers/' This allusion to the “ Loves 
of the Plants” was not a mere imagination 
of the old poet: their sexual difference 
was known to the old philosophers. “ Na¬ 
turalists,” says Pliny, “ admit the distinc¬ 
tion of sex not only in trees, but in herbs 
and in all plants.” 

Astronomy—Mathematics—Mecha¬ 
nics—Optics, &c. 

The Vibration of the Pendulum was em¬ 
ployed, for the purpose it is still applied to, 
by the ancient Arabians, long before the 
epoch usually assigned to its first discovery. 
A learned gentleman at Oxford, who care¬ 
fully examined the Arabian manuscripts in 
the library of that university, says, “ The 
advantages recommending the study of 
astronomy to the people of the East were 
many.” He speaks of “ the serenity of 
their weather; the largeness and correct¬ 
ness of the instruments they made use of 
much exceeding what the moderns would 
be willing to believe ; the multitude of 
their obsetvations and writings being six 
times more than what has been composed 
by Greeks and Latins ; and of the number 
of powerful princes who, in a manner be¬ 
coming their own magnificence, aided them 
with protection.” He affirms, that it is 
easy “ to show in how many respects the 
Arabian astronomers detected the deficiency 
of Ptolemy, and the pains they took to cor¬ 
rect him; how carefully they measured 
time by water-clocks, sand-glasses, immense 
solar dials, and even by the vibrations of 
the pendulum ; and with what assiduity and 
accuracy they conducted themselves in 
those nice attempts, which do so mucli 
honour to human genius—the taking tne 
distances of the stars, and the measure of 
the earth.” 

Refraction of Light. — According to 
Roger Bacon, Ptolemy, the great philoso¬ 
pher and geometrician, gave the same ex¬ 
planation of this phenomenon, which Des¬ 
cartes has done since; for he says, that “ 
ray, passing from a more rare into a more 
dense medium, becomes more perpendicu¬ 
lar.” Ptolemy wrote a treatise on optics 
whence Alhazen seems to have drawn 
whatever is estimable : n what he advance* 


811 






THE TABLE BOOK. 


about tho refraction )f light, astronomical re¬ 
fraction, and the cause of the extraordinary 
size of planets when they appear on the hori¬ 
zon. Ptolemy, and after him Alhazen, said, 
that “ when a ray of light passes from a more 
rare into a more dense medium, it changes its 
direction when it arrives upon the surface 
of the latter, describing a line which inter¬ 
sects the angle made by that of its first 
direction, and a perpendicular falling upon 
it from the more dense medium.” Bacon 
adds, after Ptolemy, that “ the angle form¬ 
ed by the coincidence of those two lines is 
not always equally divided by the refracted 
ray ; because in proportion to the greater 
or less density of the medium, the ray is 
more or less refracted, or obliged to decline 
from its first direction.” Sir Isaac Newton 
subsequently deducing the cause of refrac¬ 
tion, from the attraction made upon the ray 
of light by the bodies surrounding it, says, 
“ that mediums are more or less attractive 
in proportion to their density.” 

Astronomic Refraction. —Ptolemy, ac¬ 
quainted with the principle of the refraction 
of light, could not fail to conclude that this 
was the cause of the appearance of planets 
upon the horizon before they came there. 
Hence he accounted for those appearances 
from the difference there was between the 
medium of air, and that of ether which lay 
beyond it; so that the rays of light coming 
from the planet, and entering into the 
denser medium of our atmosphere, must of 
course be so attracted as to change their 
direction, and by that means bring the star 
to our view, before it really come upon 
the horizon. 

tVhy Stars appear largest upon the Hori¬ 
zon is attempted to be accounted for by 
Roger Bacon. He says it may proceed 
from this, that the rays coming from the 
I star are made to diverge from each other, 
j not only by passing from the rare medium 
of ether into the denser one of our sur¬ 
rounding air, but also by the interposition 
of clouds and vapours arising out of the 
earth, which repeat the refraction and aug¬ 
ment the dispersion of the rays, whereby 
the object must needs be magnified to our 
eye. He afterwards adds, that there has 
been assigned by Ptolemy and Alhazen 
another more reasonable cause. These 
authors thought that the reason of a star’s 
appearing larger at its rising or setting than 
when viewed over head arose from this, 
that when the star is over head there are no 
mmediate objects perceived between it and 
s so that we judge it nearer to us, and 
not surprised at its littleness; but when 
1 is viewed on the horizon, it lie* then 


so low that all we can see upon earth inter¬ 
poses between it and us, which making it j 
appear at a greater distance, we are sur¬ 
prised at observing it so large, or rather 
imagine it larger than it is. Por the same 
reason the sun and moon, when appearing 
upon the horizon, seem to be at a greater 
distance, by reason of the interposition o! 
those objects which are upon the surface of 
our earth, than when they are over head; 
and consequently there will arise in our 
minds an idea of their largeness, augmented 
by that of their distance, and this of course 
must make them appear larger to us, when 
viewed on the horizon, than when seen in 
the zenith. 

Perspective of the Ancients .—Most of 
the learned deny the ancients the advantage 
of having known the rule r of perspective, 
or of having put them in p.^ctice, although 
Vitruvius makes mention of the principles 
of Democritus and Anaxagoras respecting 
that science, in a manner that plainly shows 
they were not ignorant of them. “ Anaxa¬ 
goras and Democritus,” says he, “ were im 
structed by Agatarchus, the disciple of 
Eschylus. They both of them taught the 
rules of drawing, so as to imitate from any 
point of view the prospect that lay in sight, 
by making the lines in their draught, issu¬ 
ing from the point of view there, exactly 
resemble the radiation of those in nature; 
insomuch, that however ignorant any one 
might be of the rules whereby this was 
performed, yet they could not but know at 
sight the edifices, and other prospects which 
offered themselves in the perspective scenes 
they drew for the decoration of the theatre, 
where, though all the objects were repre¬ 
sented on a plain surface, yet they swelled 
out, or retired from the sight, just as objects 
do endowed with all dimensions.” Again 
he says, that the painter Apatarius drew a 
scene for the theatre at Tralles, “ which 
was wonderfully pleasing to the eye, on 
account that the artist had so well managed 
the lights and shades, that the architecture 
appeared in reality to have all its projec¬ 
tions.” Pliny says, that Pamyhilus, who 
was an excellent painter, applied himself 
much to the study of geometry, and main¬ 
tained that “ without its aid it was impos¬ 
sible ever to arrive at perfection in that 
art.” Pliny elsewhere says, that Apelles 
fell short of Asclepiodorus in “ the art of 
laying down distances in his paintings.” 
Lucian, in his Dialogue of Zeuxis, speak* 
of the effects of perspective in pictures 
and Philostratus, in his preface to his 
Drawings, or History of Painting, makes 
it appear that he knew this science; and 








THE TABLE BOOK, 


in hi? account of Menoetius’s picture of the 
siege of Thebes, describes the happy effects 
of perspective when studied with care. 

Optical Problem *—Aristotle was the first 
who proposed the famous problem respect¬ 
ing the roundness of that image of the sun, 
which is formed by his rays passing through 
a small puncture, even though the hole 
itself be square or triangular. “ Why is 
it,” inquires Aristotle, “ that the sun, in 
passing through a square puncture, forms 
itself into an orbicular, and not into a 
rectilinear figure, as when it shines through 
a grate? Is it not because the efflux of its 
rays, through the puncture, converges it 
into a cone, whose base is the luminous 
circle ?” 

Squaring the Circle .—If there remain 
any hope of solving this problem it is 
founded on that discovery of Hippocrates 
of Chios, called the squaring of the Lunula, 
which is said to have first put him in heart, 
they say, to attempt, the squaring of the 
circle. This Hippocrates must not be con¬ 
founded with the father of medicine, who 
was of the isle of Cos. He who is spoken 
of here was a famous geometrician, and 
lived about five hundred years before Jesus 
Christ. 

Anaxagoras appears to have been the 
first who dared this enterprise, and it was 
when he was in prison at Athens. Plu¬ 
tarch says positively that he achieved it; 
but this must be looked upon only as a 
general expression. Aristotle in many 
places mentions the efforts of the Pythago¬ 
reans Bryson and Antiphon, who likewise 
flattered themselves with having found out 
the square of the circle. Aristophanes 
jeers the learned of his time for attempting 
to resolve this problem. One of the nearest 
approximations to the solution of this pro¬ 
blem is that of Archimedes. He found the 
proportion of the diameter to the circum¬ 
ference to be as 7 to 22, or somewhat be¬ 
tween 21 and 22; and it is in making use 
of Archimedes’s method, that Wallis lays 
down rides for attaining nearly the square 
of the circle; yet they bring us not fully up 
to it, how far soever we advance. Archi¬ 
medes contented himself with what he had 
in view, which was to find out a proportion 
that would serve all the purposes of ordi¬ 
nary practice. What he neglected to do, 
by extended approximations was afterwards 
performed by Apollonius, and by Philo of 
Gadare, who lived in the third century. 

The Squaring of the Parabola is one of 
the geometrical discoveries which has done 
most honour toArchimedes. It is remarked 
to have been the first instance of the reducing 


a curve figure exactly into a square, unless 
we admit of Hippocrates’s squaring the 
lunulce to have been of this sort. • 

The Burning Glasses , employed by Archi¬ 
medes to set fire to the Roman fleet at the 
siege of Syracuse, Kepler, Nauddus, and 
Descartes have treated as fabulous, though j 
attested by Diodorus Siculus, Lucian, Dion,! 
Zonaras, Galen, Anthemius, Eustathius, 
Tzetzes, and other eminent authors. Some 
have pretended to demonstrate by the rules 
of catoptrics the impossibility of it; but 
Kircher, attentively observing the descrip¬ 
tion which Tzetzes gives of the burning 
glasses of Archimedes, resolved upon an 
experiment; and having, by means of a 
number of plain mirrors, collected the sun’s 
rays into one focus, he by an increased 
number of mirrors produced the most in¬ 
tense degree of solar heat. Tzetzes says, 
that “ Archimedes set fire to Marcellus’s 
navy, by means of a burning glass com¬ 
posed of small square mirrors, movi g 
every way upon hinges; which, when 
placed in the sun’s rays, directed them 
upon the Roman fleet so as to reduce it to 
ashes at the instance of a bow-shot.” Buf- 
fon’s celebrated burning glass, composed 
of 168 little plain mirrors, produced so 
considerable a heat, as to set wood in flames 
at the distance of two hundred and nine 
feet; melt lead, at that of one hundred and 
twenty ; and silver, at that of fifty. 

Anthemius of Tralles in Lydia, cele¬ 
brated as an able architect, sculptor, and 
ma'hematician, who in the emperor Justi¬ 
nian’s time built the chuich of St Sophia 
at Constantinople, wrote a sma*'l treatise in 
Greek, which is extant only in manuscript, 
entitled “ Mechanical Paradoxes,” wherein 
is a chapter respecting burning glasses, 
with a complete description of the requi¬ 
sites, which, according to this author, Ar¬ 
chimedes must have possessed to enable him 
to set fire to the Roman fleet. His elaborate 
description demonstrates the possibility of 
a fact so well attested in history. Zonaras, 
speaking of Archimedes’s glasses, mentions 
those of Proclus, who, he says, burnt the 
fleet of Vitellius at the siege of Constanti¬ 
nople, in imitation of Archimedes, who 
set fire to the Roman fleet at the siege of 
Syracuse. He intimates that the mannei 
wherein Proclus effected this, was by 
launching upon the vessels, from the sur¬ 
face of reflecting mirrors, such a quantity 
of flame as reduced them to ashes. 

Refracting Burning Glasses were cer¬ 
tainly known to the ancients. Pliny and 
Lactantius speak of glasses that burnt by 
refraction. The former tells of balls or 


813 










THE TABLE BOOK. 


globes of glass, or crystal, which exposed 
to the sun transmit a heat sufficient to set 
fire to cloth, or corrode away the dead flesh 
of those patients who stand in need of 
caustics; and the latter, after Clemens 
Alexandrinus, takes notice that fire may be 
kindled, by interposing glasses filled with 
water between the sun and the object, so as 
to transmit the rays to it. Aristophanes, 
in his comedy of the Clouds, introduces 
Socrates as examining Strepsiades about 
the method he had discovered for getting 
clear for ever of his debts. The latter re¬ 
plies, that he thought of making use of a 
burning glass, which he had hitherto used 
in kindling his fire; for, says he, should 
they bring a writ against me, I’ll immedi¬ 
ately place my glass in the sun, at some 
little distance from the writ, and set it a 
fire. 


Erratum. 

Col. 455, line 10 from the bottom, for “ Hartley Com¬ 
mon,” read “ Startley Common 


For the Table Book . 

FREE TRANSLATION 

OF A 

DRINKING SONG, BY GOETHE. 

_ Sung by the Poet at a Meeting of 
Friends, to join which he and others 
had travelled a considerable dis¬ 
tance. 

1 . 

Celestial rapture seizes me, 

Your inspiration merely; 

It lifts me to the winking stars, 

I seem to touch them nearly : 

Yet would I rather stay below, 

I can declare sincerely, 

My song to sing, my glass to ring 
With those I love so dearly. 

2 . 

Then wonder not to see me here 
To prop a cause so rightful: 

Of all lov’d things on this lov’d earth 
To me ’tis most delightful. 

( vow’d I would among ye be 
In scorn of fortune spiteful; 

So here I came, and here I am, 

To make the table quite fall. 


3 . 

When thus we should together meet, 

Not quickly to be sunder’d, 

I hoped at other Poets’ songs 

My joy, too, should be thunder’d. 

To join such brothers who would grudge 
To travel miles a hundred ! 

So eager some this day to come. 

Through very haste they blunder’d. 

4. 

Long life to him who guards our livesl 
My doctrine’s not learnt newly: 

We’ll first do honour to our King, 

And drink to him most duly. 

May he his foes without o’ercome. 

Within quell all unruly ; 

And grant support of every sort. 

As we shall serve him truly I 

5. 

Thee next I give—thou only one. 

Who all thy sex defeatest! 

Each lover deems right gallantly. 

His mistress the completest. 

I therefore drink to her I love ; 

Thou, who some other greetest. 

Ne’er drink alone—still think thine own 
As I do mine—the sweetest ! 

6 . 

The third glass to old friends is due. 

Who aid us when we need it. 

How quickly flew each joyous day 
With such kind hearts to speed it! 

Wheu fortune’s storm was gathering dark 
We had less cause to heed it: 

Then iill the glass—the bottle pass— 

A bumper!—we’ve agreed it 1 

7 . 

Since broader, fuller, swells the tide 
Of friends, as life advances. 

Let’s drink to every lesser stream. 

The greater that enhances. 

With strength united thus we meet. 

And brave the worst mischances ; 

Since oft the tide, must darkly glide 
That in the sunlight dances. 

8 . 

Once more we meet together here. 

Once more in love united : 

We trust that others’ toils like oui*. 

Like ours will be requited. 

Upon the self-same stream we see 
Full many a mill is sited 1 

May we the weal of all men teel, 

And with it be delighted. 

J. P. c. 


814 















6?orcte asioomfitfi). 


Tliis portrait of the elder brother ot 
Robert Bloomfield, “ the Farmer’s Boy,” 
js here presented from a likeness recently 
drawn in water colours from the life, and 
communicated to the Table Book for the 
ourpose of the present engraving. 

The late Mr. Capel Lloftt, in a preface 
.o Robert Bloomfield’s “ Farmer’s Boy,” 
relates Robert’s history, from a narrative 
drawn up by George Bloomfield. It ap¬ 


pears from thence, that their father died 
when Robert was an infant under a year 
old : that their mother had another family | 
by John Glover, a second husband; and 
that Robert, at eleven years old, was taken 
by a kind farmer into his house, and em¬ 
ployed in husbandry work. Robert was 
so small of his age, that his master said he 
was not likely to get his living by hard 
labour: his brother Geortre informed his 


niE TABLE BOOK. 
























































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


mother, if sue would let him have Robert, 
he would take him and teach him his own 
trade, shoemaking; another brother, Na¬ 
thaniel, offered to clothe him; and the 
mother and Robert, who was then fifteen 
years old, took coach, and came to London 
to George Bloomfield. “ I have him in 
my mind’s eye,” says George; “ a little 
boy; not bigger than boys generally are at 
twelve years old. When I met him and 
his mother at the inn, (in Bis'nopsgate- 
street,) he strutted before us, dressed just as 
he eame from keeping sheep, hogs, &c.— 
his shoes filled full of stum*ps in the heels. 
He, looking about him, slipt up—his nails 
were unused to a flat pavement. I remem¬ 
ber viewing him as he scampered up—how 
small he was—little thought that little 
fatherless boy would be one day known and 
esteemed by the most learned, the most 
respected, the wisest., and the best men of 
the kingdom.” Robert developed his ta¬ 
lents under the fostering of George, to 
whose protection he was left by their mo¬ 
ther. “ She charged me,” says George, 
“ as I valued a mother’s blessing, to watch 
over him, to set good examples for him, 
and never to forget that he had lost his 
father.” Her injunctions were strictly ob¬ 
served till Robert was eighteen, when 
George, having housed him, and taught him 
his trade, quitted London, and left Robert 
to pursue shoemaking and playing on the 
violin. “ Robert told me in a letter,” says 
George, “ ‘ that he had sold his fiddle, and 
got a wife.’ Like most poor men, he got 
a wife first, and had to get household stuff 
afterward. It took him some years to get 
out of ready furnished lodgings. At 
length, by hard working, &c. he acquired a 
bed of his own, and hired the room up one 
pair of stairs, at No. 14, Bell-alley, Cole- 
man-street. The landlord kindly gave him 
leave to sit and work in the light garret, 
two pair of stairs higher. In this garret, 
amid six or seven other workmen, his ac« 
tive mind employed itself in composing the 
Farmer's Boy." George, with filial piety 
and fondness, tells of his mother’s pains to 
imbue Robert’s mind in infancy with just 
principles. “ As his reason expanded,” 
continues George, “ his love of God and 
man increased with it. I never knew 
his fellow for mildness of temper and good¬ 
ness of disposition ; and since I left him, 
universally is he praised by those who know 
him best, for the best of husbands, an in¬ 
dulgent father, and quiet neighbour.” 

The progress and melancholy termina¬ 
tion of Robert Bloomfield’s life are familiar 
to pnost readers of sensibility: they may 


not know, perhaps, that his brother George 
has long struggled with poverty, and is now 
an aged man, overwhelmed by indigence. 

Two letters, written to a friend by a 
gentleman of Thetford, Mr. Faux, and some 
manuscripts accompanying them in George 
Bloomfield’s hand-writing, are now before 
me. They contain a few particulars re 
specting George Bloomfield and his present 
situation, which are here made known, with 
the hope of interesting the public in the 
behalf of a greatly distressed and very 
worthy man. The following extract from 
one of Mr. Faux’s letters introduces George 
Bloomfitdd’s circumstances, and conveys an 
idea of his character: it will be seen that 
he, too, is a versifier. 

“ Thetford , Oct. 15, 1827 

“ I have found the letter you allude to, 
regarding his application to the overseers 
of St. Peter’s. I was rather inclined to 
send you a bundle of his letters and poetry, 
but I hardly think it fair without first con¬ 
sulting poor old George, and obtaining his 
permission. The letter enclosed, in answer 
to my invitation to him to be present on 
the day the duke of Grafton laid the first 
stone of the Pump-room, will show you 
what a shy bird he is. His presence on 
that occasion would have been highly 
beneficial t<? him ; but his extreme modesty 
has been a drawback upon him through life, 
leaving him generally with a coat * scarcely 
visib’.e.' I believe he has been always poor, 
and yet a more temperate man never 
lived.”- 

The following is the note above refer- 
red to. 

From George Bloomfield to Mr. Faux 

“ Wednesday , 3 o'clock. 

“ I was just folding the papers to take 
them to Stone, when the Master Fauxes 
came in, with great good nature in their 
countenances, and delivered their father’s 
very kind invitation. I feel truly grateful 
for the kindness: but when I can, without i 
offence, avoid being seen, I have, through 
life, consulted my sheepish feelings. I have 
been accused of ‘ making myself scarce,’ , 
and been always considered an * unsocial b 
fellow : it is a task to me to go into a situa- 1 
tion where I am likely to attract attention, 1 
and the observation of men. In childhood 
I read of an invisible coat—I have some-! 
times worn a coat scarcely visible ; but I 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


want a coat that would render me Invisible. 
I hope to be excused without giving offence, 
as I should be very ill at ease. 

“ Mr. Faux would have been presented 
with the enclosed papers a fortnight back, 
but I waited a favourable opportunity. 
This week I had but little work to do.— 
Lo, lo! here they are.” 

A poem by George Bloomfield, called 
“ The Spa,” which, being of local interest, 
has scarcely passed beyond provincial cir¬ 
cles, induced the following public testimo¬ 
nial to his talents and virtues. 

I 

Lines addressed to George Bloom¬ 
field, by the Rev. Mr. Plumtree, 
late Fellow of Clare Hall, Cam¬ 
bridge. 

i 

Hail, aged minstrel 1 well thine harp thou’st strung, 
Tuneful and pleasingly of Thetford sung ; 

Her abbey nunnery, and her mounds of war. 

Her late discovered, healing, blessed, Spa ; 

And with a skilful hand, and master’s art. 

Hast poured the tribute of a grateful heart. 

Thy talent must not sleep. Resume thy lyre. 

And bid it in some deeper notes respire. 

Thy great Creator and thy Saviour claim 
The emanations of a poet’s flame. 

Poets and prophets once were names entwin’d : 

Ah, why was virtue e’er from verse disjoin’d ? 

Ah, why have Christians lent a willing ear 
To strains ’twas sin to sing, ’twas sin to hear ? 

Will Christians listen to a Byron’s lay ? 

To Bloomfield, rather, admiration pay. 

His simple verse, with piety enjoin’d, 

More grateful steal on my attentive mind ; 

And if it thrills with less tumultuous joy, 

It is a pleasure free from all alloy. 

Then, aged minstrel, strike thy lyre again. 

And o’er the land be heard thy pleasing strain. 

And, oh ! may Britain’s sons thy lay regard, 

And give the aged minstrel his reward: 

Not the cheap recompense of empty praise. 

Nor e’en the crown of never-fading bays ; 

But such as may effectually assuage 
The wants and cares of thy declining age ; 

And the last lay that shall thy lyre employ. 

Accompany a “ heart ” that sings for joy. 

The hand of the “ aged minstrel” is now 
too weak to strike the lyre; nor will his 
voice again be heard. Mr. James Burrell 
Faux, of Thetford, Norfolk, is anxious for 
immediate assistance in George Bloom¬ 
field’s behalf; and to that gentleman com¬ 
munications and contributions should be 
addressed. All that the Table Book can 
do, is thus to make known the necessity of 
the case, and to entreat pecuniary relief 
from those who have hearts to feel, and 
ability to give. 

I _ 


©arricft paps* 

No. XLVI. 

SERIOUS FRAGMENTS 

1 . 

Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nate-s ; and 
they are more one, whom the same misfortun" joined 
together, than whom the same womb gave life. 

H. Kidi^rew. 

2 . 

Dying Person. 

- my soul 

The warm embraces of her flesh is now, 

Ev’n now forsaking; this frail body must 
Like a lost feather fall from off the wing 
Of Vanity— IV. Chamberlain. 

3 . 

-eternity: 

Within whose everlasting springs we shall 
Meet with those joys, whose blasted embryos were 
Here made abortive— W. Chamberlain. 


Crown declined by a Spiritual person. 

I know no more the way to temporal rule, 

Than he that’s born, and has his years come to him, 
On a rough desart— Middleton. 

5. 

To a Votaress. 

Keep still that holy and immaculate fire. 

You chaste lamp of eternity; ’tis a treasure 
Too precious for death’s moment to partake, 

The twinkling of short life.— Middleton. 

6 . 

The fame that a man wins himself is best; 

That he may call his own : honours put to him 
Make him no more a man than his clothes do. 
Which are as soon ta’en off; for in the warmth 
The heat comes from the body, not the weeds; 

So man’s true fame must strike from his own deeds. 

Middleton. 

7 . 

Adventurers. 

The sons of Fortnne, she has sent us forth 
To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits.— 

Middleton. 

8 . 

New made Honour. 

. .. —— forgetfulness 

Is the most pleasing virtue they can have, 

Thahdo spring up from nothing; for by the same. 
Forgetting alL they forget whence they came, 

Middleton. 


817 















9 . 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


17 . 


I 


CEnone forsaken . 

Beguil’d, disdain’d, and out of love, live long, thou 
Poplar tree, 

And let thy letters grow in length to witness this with 
me. 

Ah Venus, but for reverence unto thy sacred name. 

To steal a silly maiden’s love I might account it 
blame.— 

And if the tales I hear be true, and blush for to recite, 

Thou dost me wrong to leave the plains, and dally out 
of sight. 

False Paris I this was not thy vow, when thou and I 
were one. 

To range and change old love for new; but now those 
days be gone. Peel. 

10 . 

Epilepsy. 

— your [Caesar’s] disease the Gods ne’er gave to man. 

But such a one as had a spirit too great 

For all his body’s passages to serve it; 

Which notes the excess of your ambition. 

Chapman. 

11 . 


We are not tried but in our misery. He is a cuo 
ling coachman, that can turn well in a narrow room. 

Anon. 

12 


Gray hairs. 


— upon whose reverend head 
The milk-white pledge of wisdom sweetly spreads.— 

Lodge. 


13 . 


Ladies Dancing. 

- a fine sweet earthquake, gently moved 

By the soft wind of whispering silks.— 

Decker. 


Herod, jealous, to Mariamne. 

Hast thou beheld thyself, and could’st thou stain 
So rare perfection ?—ev’n for love of thee 
1 do profoundly hate thee 

Lady Elizabeth Carew. 

18 . 

Cleopatra. 

The wanton Queen, that never loved for Love.— 

Lady E. Carew. 

19 . 

Conceit of a Princess’ love. 

’Twas but a waking dream. 

Wherein thou madest thy wishes speak, not her; 
In which thy foolish hopes strive to prolong 
A wretched being: so sickly children play 
With health-loved toys, which for a time delay, 
But do not cure the fit. Rowley. 


20 . 

Changing colour at sudden news. 

Why look’st thou red, and pale, and both, and nei¬ 
ther ?— Chapman. 

21 . 

Rich Usurer to his Mistress. 

I will not ’joy my treasure but in thee. 

And in thy looks I’ll count it every hour; 

And thy white arms shall be as bands to me. 
Wherein are mighty lordships forfeited.— 

Then triumph, Leon, richer in thy love. 

Than all the hopes of treasure I possess. 

Never was happy Leon rich before; 

Nor ever was I covetous till now. 

That I see gold so ’fined in thy hair. 

Chapman. 

22 . 


14 . 


Puritan. 


•— sharp witted Poets ; whose sweet verse 
Makes heav’nly Gods break off their nectar draughts, 
And lay their ears down to the lowly earth— 

Anon. 


15 . 


- his face demure, with hand 

On bsceet, as you have seen a canting preacher. 
Aiming to cheat his audience, wanting matter, 
Sigh, to seem holy, till he thought on something.— 

Anon. 


Grandsires ’ Love. 

Old men do never truly doat, until! 

Their children bring them babies. Shirley. 

16 . 

To a false Mistress. 

• ■ thy name 

sweeten'd once the name of him that spake it.— 

Shirley • 


23 . 

Sects 

Eternity, which puzzles all the world 
To name the inhabitants that people it; 
Eternity, whose undiscover’d country 
We fools divide before we come to see it. 
Making one part contain all happiness. 

The other misery, then unseen fight for it. 

All sects pretending to a right of choice, 

Yet none go willingly to take a part. anon 




818 





THE TABLE BOOK. 


24 . 

Man is a vagabond both poor and proud. 

He treads on beasts who give him clothes and food} 
But the Gods catch him wheresoe’er he lurks, 

W hip him, and set him to all painful works: 

And yet he brags he shall be crown’d when dead. 
Were ever Princes in a Bridewell bred ? 

Nothing is sinfully begot but he: 

Can base-born Bastards lawful Sovereigns be? 

Crowne. 


25 . 

IVishes for Obscurity. 

liow miserable a thing is a Great Man!— 

Take noisy vexing Greatness they that please; 

Give me obscure and safe and silent ease. 
Acquaintance and commerce let me have none 
With any powerful thing but Time alone: 

My rest let Time be fearful to offend. 

And creep by me as by a slumbering friend; 

Till, with ease glutted, to my bed I steal. 

As men to sleep after a plenteous meal. 

Oh wretched he who, call’d abroad by power. 

To know himself can never find an hour! 

Strange to himself, but to all others known. 

Lends every one his life, but uses none ; 

So, e’er he tasted life, to death he goes; 

And himself loses, e’er himself he knows. Crowne. 


26 . 


Mind constituted to Goodness. 

-you may do this, or any thing you have a mind 

to; even in your fantasy there is a secret counsel, see- 
ir<r that all your actions, nay all your pleasures, are 
in some exercise of virtue— H. Killigrew. 


27 . 

Returned Pilgrim. 

To man how sweet is breath ! yet sweetest of all 
That breath, which from his native air doth fall. 
How many weary paces have I measured, 

How many known and unknown dangers past. 

Since I commenced my tedious pilgrimage. 

The last great work of my death-yielding age 1 
Yet am I blest, that my returning bones 
Shall be rak’t up in England’s peaceful earth. 

Anon. 


28 . 

Usury. 

Nature in all inferior things hath set 
A pitch or term, when they no moie shall get 
Increase and offspring. Unrepaired houses 
Fall to decay ; old cattle cease to breed; 
And sapless trees deny more fruit or seed: 
The earth would heartless and infertile be. 
If it should never have a jubilee. 

Only the Usurer’s Money ’genders still; 

The longer, lustier ; age this doth not kill. 


He lives to see his Money’s Money’s Money 
Even to a hundred generations reach. 

Anon. 

29 . 

Love defined by contraries. 

Fie, fie, how heavy is light Love in me!— 

How slow runs swift Desire !—this leaden air. 
This ponderous feather, merry melancholy; 

This Passion, which but in passion 

Hath not his perfect shape.— Day 

30 

Good Faith. 

What are we but our words t when they are past. 
Faith should succeed, and that should ever last. 


31 , 


Weeping for good news 

I knew your eye would be first served; 

That’s the soul’s taster still for grief or joy. 

Ruw.ey 


32 . 


Forsaken Mistress. 

I thought the lost perfection of mankind 
Was in that man restored ; and I have grieved. 
Lost Eden too was not revived for him ; 

And a new Eve, more excellent than the first. 
Created for him, that he might have all 
The joys he could deserve : and he fool’d me 
To think that Eve and Eden was in me: 

That he was made for me, and I for him. 

Crowne. 


33 . 


Love surviving Hope. 

*Tis a vain glory that attends a Lover, 

Never to say he quits; and, when Hope dies, 

The gallantry of Love still lives, is charm’d 
With kindness but in shadow. Browne. 

34 . 

Warriors. 

I hate these potent madmen, who keep all 
Mankind awake, while they by their great deeds 
Are drumming hard upon this hollow world. 

Only to make a sound to last for ages. 

Crowne. 

35 . 

Life. 

What is’t we live for ? tell life’s finest tale— 

To eat, to drink, to sleep, love, and enjoy. 

And then to love no more 1 

To talk of things we know not, and to know 

Nothing but things not worth the talking ot. 

Sir R. Fane, run. 


819 







THE TABLE BOOK. 


36. 

Hroiher. supposed dead , received by a 
Sister • she shews him a letter , disclosing 
an unworthy action done by him ; at which 
he standing abashed, she then first congra¬ 
tulates him : 

-now I meet, your love. Pardon me, my ’bro¬ 
ther; I was to rejoyce at this your Badness, before I 
tould share with you in another joy. 

It. KiUigrew. 

37. 

Person just dead. 

’Twas but just now he went away; 

I have not yet had time to shed a tear; 

And yet the distance does the same appear. 

As if he had been a thousand years from me. 

Time takes no measure in eternity. 

Sir Robert Howard. 

38. 

French Character . 

The French are passing courtly, ripe of wit; 

I Kind, but extreme dissemblers: you shall have 
; A Frenchman ducking lower than your knee. 

At the instant mocking ev’n your very shoe-tyes. 

Ford. 

39. 

Love must die gently. 

I hoped, your great experience, and your years, 

V, ould have proved patience rather to your soul. 

Than to break off in this untamed passion. 

| Howe’er the rough hand of the untoward world 
| Hath molded your proceedings in this matter, 
i Yet I am sure the first intent was love. 

Then since the first spring was so sweet and warm, 

}jpt it die gently; ne’er kill it with a scorn. Anon. 

40 . 

Poetic Diction. 

-worthiest poets 

Shun common and plebeian forms of speech, 
Every illiberal and affected phrase, 

To clothe their matter; and together tye 
Matter and form with art and decency. 

Chapman. 

41 . 

Author Vanity. 

i -the foolish Poet, that still writ 

j All his most self-loved verse in paper royal, 

! Or parchment ruled with lead, smooth’d with the 
pumice. 

Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings ; 

| Never so blest as when he writ and read 
i The ape-loved issue of his brain ; and never 
Bat joying in himself, admiring ever— 

Chapman. 


42 . 

Good wit to be husbanded 

' ■ 

-as of lions it is said, and eagles. 

That when they go, they draw their seres and talons 
Close up, to shun rebating of their sharpness: 

So our wit’s sharpness, which we should employ 
In noblest knowledge, we should never waste 
In vile and vulgar admirations. Chapman. 

43 . 

Impossibility of attaining, a bar to desire. 

Nothing is more ordinary, than for my Lady to love 
her Gentleman; or Mistress Anne, her father’s man. 
But if a country clown coming up hither, and seeking 
for his lawyer in Gray’s Inn, .should step into the 
walks, and there should chance to spy some master¬ 
ship of nature ; some famed Beauty, that for a time 
hath been the name; he would stand amazed, perhaps 
wish tnai his Joan were such, but further would not be 
stirred. Impossibility would 

stop more bold desires. 

And quench those sparks that else would turn to fires. 

Edmund Prestwick. 


44 . 


Theory of men's choice in a Beauty. 

1. —She has a most complete and perfect beauty ; 
nor can the greatest critic in this sort find any fault 
with the least proportion of her face, but yet me- 
thought I was no more taken with it, than 1 should be 
with some curious well-drawn picture. 

2. —That is somewhat strange. 

1.—In my mind, not at all; for it is not always that 
we are governed by what the general fancy of the 
world calls beauty : for each soul hath some predomi¬ 
nant thoughts, which when they light on ought that 
strikes on them, there is nothing does more inflame. 
And as in music that pleaseth not most, which with 
the greatest art and skill is composed ; but those airs 
that do resemble and stir up some dormant passion, to 
which the mind is addicted; so, I believe, never yet 
was any one much taken with a face, in which he did 
not espy ought that did rouse a.id put in motion some 
affection that hath ruled in his thoughts, besides those 
features which, only for the sake of common opinion, 
we are forced to say do please. E. Prestwick. 

C. L. 



i 


GENERAL REMINISCENCES 

OF 

THREE, THIRD, and THRICE. 

“ Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed— 

Thrice to thine and thrice to mine. 

And thrice again to make up nine.”— Shakspeare. 

The ordinal, cardinal, or numeral, Three, 
possesses stronger power of associating 
appi.cation than any other figure in history, 
°r literature. From t 1 ** 1 first notice of the 


J 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Creation, JElohim is understood to signify 
the Trinity. When the third day was 
created, the sun, moon, and stars, were set 
in the firmament. Christ’s resurrection was 
on the third day, and his crucifixion between 
two thieves Noah’s sons were Shem, 
Ham, and Japheth. Job’s daughters were 
Keziah, Jemima, and Kerenhappuck; his 
comforters were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zo- 
phar. Time is divided into three parts. 
The ancients rose at the third hour. The 
Brahmins have their Birmah, Vishnu, and 
Siva; the Persians their Oromanes, Mithra, 
and Mithras; the Egyptians their Osiris, 
Isis, and Orus; the Arabians their Allah, 
A1 Uzza, and Manah ; the Phoenicians and 
Tyrians their Belus, Urania, and Adonis; 
the Greeks their Jupiter, Neptune, and 
Pluto. Aristotle, Plutarch, and Macrobius, 
wrote on the doctrine of numbers. Clotho, 
Lachesis, and Atropos, were three Fates. 
The children that endured the fiery furnace 
were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 
Jupiter’s thunderbolt had three forks; 
Neptune’s trident, three prongs; Cerberus 
three heads. The Pythian priestess sat on 
a tripod.* There were the three Parcae; 
the three Furies ; three attributes of the 
sun, Sol, Apollo, and Liber; of the moon, 
Ilecate, Diana, and Luna. David prayed 
three times a day. The Hindoos make 
three suppressions of the breath when me¬ 
ditating on the triliteral syllable O’M. The 
Sabians prayed morning, noon, and night. 
Three bows of the head, and three prostra¬ 
tions are peculiar to some nations. In 
England, are king, lords, and commons. 
The ancients washed their eyes three times; 
drunk potions out of three cups. The 
Salians beat the ground three times in their 
dance. Three times were allowed for exe¬ 
crations, for spitting on the ground and 
sneezing. Juno Lucina was invoked three 
times in favour of childbirth. Three steps 
were allowed to ascend the throne or the 
altar. Persons dipped thrice into wells for 
cure. Persons w’ere touched thrice for the 
king’s evil. Three parts of the old world 
only were known. The three professions 
are law, divinity, and physic. Three chirps 
of a cricket is said to be a sign of death. 
Coleridge makes his mastiff bitch howl 
three times for his Lady Christabel. Ihe 
papist crosses himself three times. The 
raven’s croak, or the owl’s triad screech, 
indicates (it is said) ill omens. Three 
crows in a gutter betoken good to the be¬ 
holder. The funeral bell is tolled thrice 

• A milkinp-stool has three lejjs. It is eupersti- 
tiously left in the field to keep witches from injuring 
the cattle. 


for the death of a man. The third attack 
of apoplexy is thought fatal. The thud 
finger of the left hand bears the marriage 
ring. A Latin motto is tria una injuncta. 
The witches in Macbeth ask, “ When shall 
we three meet again There are signs of 
the Three Crowns, Three Pigeons, Throe 
Cups, Three Tuns, Three Brewers, Three 
Johns, Three Bells, and others, to an infi¬ 
nite degree. In the church service are 
the clerk, curate, and preacher; three 
priests serve at the papal shrine. In the 
courts of justice are the judge, the jury, and 
the culprit. In physic, the physician’s 
consultation is three. An arbitration is 
three. A dual public-house sign is, with 
the gazer added quaintly, “ We three 
loggerheads be.” The three warnings 
are celebrated. The Jews boasted of Abra¬ 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob. The United King¬ 
dom is England, (Wales included,) Ireland, 
and Scotland. Who has not read of Three- 
fingered Jack? of Octavius, Lepidus, and 
Anthony ? A nest of chests is three. The 
British toast is echoed by hip! hip! huz- 
zah ! Three signals decided the fate of 
Lucius Junius. In the third year of Cyrus 
the name of Belteshazzar was revealed to 
Daniel: his prophecy was, that “ three 
kings should stand up in Persia;” and 
Daniel mourned three weeks by reason of 
his vision. The beast that he saw, had 
three ribs in the mouth of it. The house¬ 
holder went about the third hour, and saw 
others standing idle in the market-place. 
Daniel’s petition was made three times. In 
the Revelations, the third part of the crea¬ 
tures which were in the sea and had life, 
died. Faith, Hope, and Charity, are three 
virtues. The priests’ abodes in Eziekel 
were three chambeBs. In the prophecy it 
says, “ A third part of the hair shall be 
burnt;*a third part fall by the sword; a 
third part scattered by the wind.” Demos¬ 
thenes says, “ Three years after, he met 
w'ith the same fate as Aeschines, and was 
also banished from Athens.” History unites 
an Aristides, a Cimon, and a Phocion. 
Peter’s denial was given by the cock crow¬ 
ing thrice. Homer, in his Frogs and Mice, 

says*, 

“ Three warlike sons adorned my nuptial bed. 

Three sons, alas ! before their father, dead.” 

Pope Alexander III., 1182, compelled the 
kings of England and France to hold the 
stirrups of his saddle when he mounted 
his horse. King Richard III. put an 
end to the civil wars between the houses 
of York and Lancaster, 1483. Peter III. 
was deposed 1762. Virgil, 566, lib. viii. 






























THE TABLE BOOK. 


says, Nascenti cui tres animas Feronia 
mater —ter letho sternendus erat: and 
again, tres ulnas —tribus nodis. Milton’s 
three fierce spirits were Ariel, Arioch, and 
Ramifcl. Lord Nelson’s ship, the Victory, 
! attacked the Trinidad.* Fairs are usually 
chartered for three days. Persons used to 
walk three times round Horn church. The 
pawnbroker has three balls. A hearth has 
a poker, tongs, and shovel.f The sentinel 
asks—“ Who comes there V thrice, before 
he dares level his firelock at the intruder. 
Three candles in a room are said to indi¬ 
cate death in the family. The bashaw wears 
three tails. The passion flower has three 
spires. 

Thus, it will be readily seen, how inti¬ 
mately the number three has been, and is, 
connected with events and circumstances, 
hypothetical and absolute. Were the sub¬ 
ject worth tracing further, scarcely a poetic 
or prose writer, but is liberal in the use of 
this number. Considering, however, that 
the adductions already given are such as to 
satisfy the most fastidious disciples of the 
square root, need I perform a triple evolu¬ 
tion in this threefold science of pure and 
| mixed numbers ? I conclude by apologis¬ 
ing for not having treated the subject like 
a lexicographer, in technical and alphabeti¬ 
cal routine. J. R. P. 

December , 1827. 


For the Table Book. 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 

"EX.tvffovrxi nptgctt sv ais nx otipvtrovrea 

Xitos ion of a xotrocXutltitrtrcti. 

Luc. Ev. c. xxi. v. 6. 

1 . 

Hark f again fo the onset—the portals gape wide— 
And the warriors stream forth in the rush of their 
pride. 

The cold reckless eye of tlie Roman glows red, 

At the sound of their deathlike and trumpetless tread ; 
For he knows that the workings of frenzy are there, 

! The triumph of death and the might of despair. 

Hearts—that wildly live on but to riot in pain— 

Lips—that laugh, as in scorn, at the links of the chain— 
And full many a plume shall yon eagle let fall, 

Ere she wing her fierce flight o’er the rift of the wall; 
Ere she soar on the dark cloud of conquest and rest, 

On the rock of that temple, the strength of her hest. 


• The Trcs Horas are explained in the Every-Day 
Book 

f For the use of which threepence, hearth-money, 
was formerly paid. 

I 


9 . 

Thy foes are around thee, fair city of peace!— 

Thy sons are fast sinking, the wicked increase— 

Yet proudly, ev’n now, thy high-place dost thou hold. 
Girt round with the pomp of their steel and their gold • 
And a pearl of rich price, on thine hill-top art thou. 
Meet to jewel the crown of a conqueror’s high brow. 
Yet deem not thy sons to that haughty array, 

Will fling thee unheeded, unbled for away. 

Shall the proud heathen tread where thy prophets 
have trod ? 

Shall the Flamen exult in the “ Holy of God ?” 

No—the hearts of thy children are one,—to hml back 
The merciless wrath of the Gentiles’ attack. 

For the home of their fathers towers yet in their eye. 

As they lived will they live, as they died will they die, 

3. 

But weak is thine armour, and worthless thy might, 

A fiercer than man strives against thee in fight, 

And in vain shall the chiefs of thy battle withstand 
The voice of his thunder, the bolt in his hand; 

His wrath knows no refuge, his might knows no bar. 
The stout spear he rendeth, and burns the swift car. 
Thou shalt crumble to nought in the day of his wrath. 
Like the reed trampled down in the whirlwind's wild 
path. 

4 . 

Weep, daughter of Judah ! that tempest hath come. 
And it iaugheth to scorn the mild vengeance of Rome, 
Weep, daughter of Judah ! a vengeance so dread 
Is bursting e’en now o’er thy desolate head. 

That the stern Roman eyes it with doubt and with 
fear. 

O’er the cheek of the conqueror there steals a so'ft tear j 
Aye! the heathen for thee feels a pang of regret— 

—One blaze—and thy sun shall for ever be set; 

5. 

One short flickering blaze;—and then passeth away 
The glory of years in the work of a day : 

The fair crown of Jacob lies trod in the dust. 

And shipwreck’d is now the strong hold of his trust; 
Fho’ the foxes have holes, and the fowls have a nest. 

Yet the “ seed of the Promised ” finds nowhere to 
rest; 

And despised shall he live on, in darkness and night. 
Till a Salem more blessed shall gladden his sight; 

The courts of whose house, in their measureless girth, 
Shafll compass the tribes and the thousands of earth ; 
Where none, save in triumph, their voices shall raise. 
And no trump shall peal forth save the trumpet of 
praise. 

In a realm far above, o’er that red eagle’s nest, 

W here the proud cease from wrong, and the poor are 
at rest. 


ii 


S2 2 









































THE TABLE BOOK. 


APOSTLE SPOONS. 

To the Editor, 

Dear Sir,—In Roger North’s Life of his 
brother, Sir Dudley North, (4to. London, 
1744,) occurs the following passage, which, 
in connection with the account you gave 
your readers (. Every-Day Book, vol. i. p. 
176,) of “ Apostle Spoons,” may be accept¬ 
able to you. 

Mr. North, after some opposition, was 
elected sheriff of London; and after stating 
this, his biographer thus proceeds : “ When 
all the forms of this shrieval instalment 
were over, Mr. North received the honour 
of knighthood . . . and, as the custom 

of feasting, lately laid aside, was now re¬ 
sumed, Mr. North took a great hall, that 
belonged to one of the companies, and kept 
his entertainments there. He had diverse 
very considerable presents from friends 
and relations, besides the compliments 
of the several companies inviting them¬ 
selves and wives to dinner, dropping their 
guineys, and taking apostles' spoons in the 
room of them ; which, with what they ate 
and drank, and such as came in the shape 
of wives. (for they often gratified a she- 
friend or relation with that preferment,) 
carried away, made but an indifferent bar- 
j gain. The Middle Templars, (because of 
his relation to the lord chief justice North, 
who was of that Society,) came with a com¬ 
pliment, and a purse of one hundred gui¬ 
neys, and were entertained. The mirth 
and rejoicing that was in the city, as well 
at these feastf a. o .'rivate entertainments, 
is scarce to be expressed ” 

In perusing this quaintly written volume, 
there occur two or three passages, which 
deserve to be ranked as aphorisms. I;or 
your own reading I here add them :— 

“ Better a loss at sea than a bad debt on 
land. The former has no worse conse- 
Iquence than itself; but the other draws 
.oss of time and pains, which might be era* 

! ployed to more profit.” 

“ Whoever serves a community, and 
does not secure his reward, will meet with 
quarrels instead of thanks, for all the good 
he may have done it.” 

Sir Dudley was wont to remark, “ Lay 
nothing to heart which you cannot help ” 
A most useful principle of life. 

j • •• 

I am, &c. 

IVhitehaven , J. G, 

Sept. 12, 1827. 


PATIENT COURTSHIP. 

For the Table Book. 

I knew a man that went courting his 
sweetheart the distance of three miles every 
evening for fourteen years, besides dodging 
her home after church, Sunday afternoons ; i 
making above 15,000 miles. For the first 
seven years he only stood and courted in 
the door-porch; but for the remaining 
period, he ventured (what a liberty after a 
septennial attachment!) to hang his hat on 
a pin in the passage and sit in the kitchen 
settle. The wedding—a consummation 
devoutly to be wished—was solemnized 
when Robert and Hannah were in their 
“ sear and yellow leaf.” They had no 
family “ to cry their fading charms into 
the grave.” Though their courtship had 
been long, cool, and deliberate, they were 
not the happiest couple in the village ; to 
that union of temper, which is so essential 
in wedded life, they were strangers. 

* * p 


OLD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS. 

“ In their death they were not divided.” 

2 Samuel i. 23. 

To the Editor 

Sir,—The following memorial I copied 
from a tablet, on the right hand side of the 
clergyman’s desk, in the beautiful little 
church at Hornsey. The scarceness of 
similar inscriptions make this valuable. 

S. T. L. 

“ Erected to the memory of Mary 
Parsons, the diligent, faithful, and 
affectionate servant, in a family during 
a period of 57 years. She died on 
the 22d day of November, 1806, 
aged 85. 

“ Also to the memory of Elizabeth 
Decker, the friend and companion of 
the above; who, after an exemplary 
service of 47 years in the same family, 
died on the 2d of February, 1809, 
aged 75. 

“ Their remains, by their mutual re * 
i fuest , were interred in the 3ami 
grave.” 

















THE TABLE BOOK. 


JDisStobm'cS 

CM? THE 

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS. 

No. XXXVI. 

Merely a cursory mention of all the im¬ 
portant discoveries in geometry, mathe¬ 
matics, and philosophy, for which we are 
indebted to the ancients, would form a 
large book ; yet a few of these particulars 
will be adverted to by way of concluding 
the series of articles under the present 
title. 

Ancient Philosophers. 

i 

i 

Thales was the first we know of who 
predicted eclipses. He pointed out the ad¬ 
vantages that must arise from a due obser¬ 
vation of the little bear or polar star; and 
taught that the earth was round, and the 
ecliptic in an oblique position. 

Pytheas also, by accurate observations at 
Marseilles, more than 300 years before 
Christ, determined the obliquity of the 
ecliptic, by means of the solstitial shadow of 
the sun upon a dial. He found the height 
of the gnomon was to the length of the 
shadow as 600 to 213 |; whence he con¬ 
cluded, that the obliquity of the ecliptic was 
23° 49'. When Gassendi was at Marseilles 
with the celebrated Peiresc, he reiterated 
the experiment, and found it very just. 

| Thales went to the Egyptians to be in¬ 
structed in geometry, and himself instructed 
them in that science. He showed them 
how to measure the pyramids by the length 
of their shades, and to determine the mea¬ 
sure of inaccessible heights and distances, 
by the proportion of the sides of a triangle, 
lie demonstrated the various properties of 
the circle; he discovered, respecting the 
isosceles triangle, that the angles at its base 
were equal; and he was the first who found, 
that in right lines cutting one another, the 
opposite angles are equal. 

Anaximander , the successor of Thales, 
was the inventor of the armillavy sphere, 
and of sun-horologes, or dials; he was 
likewise the first who drew a geographical 
map. 

Pythagoras was the first who gave sure 
- and fundamental precepts in music. Struck 
by the difference of" sounds which issued 
from the hammers of a forge, but came into 
unison at the fourth, and fifth, and eighth 
percussions, he conjectured that this must 
j r/ r oceed from the difference of weight in 


the hammers; he weighed them, and found 
he had conjectured right. Upon this he 
wound up some musical strings, in number 
equal to the hammers, and of a length pro¬ 
portioned to their weight; and 'found, that 
at the same intervals, they corresponded 
with the hammers in sound. Upon this 
principle he devised the monochord ; an 
instrument of one string, capable of deter¬ 
mining the various relations of sound. He 
also made many fine discoveries in geo¬ 
metry. 

Plato by his studies in mathematics was 
enabled to devise the analytic method, or 
that geometric analysis* which enables us to 
find the truth we are in quest of, out of the 
proposition itself which we want to resolve. 
He it was who at length solved the famous 
problem, respecting the duplication of the 
cube. To him also is ascribed the solution 
of the problem concerning the trisection of 
an angle; and the discovery of conic 
sections. 

Hipparchus discovered the elements of 
plane and spherical trigonometry. 

Diophantes, who lived 360 years before 
Jesus Christ, was the inventor of algebra. 
It was from this science that the ancients 
drew those long and difficult demonstra¬ 
tions which we meet with in their works. 
They are presumed to have aimed at con¬ 
cealing a method which furnished them with 
so many beautiful and difficult demonstra¬ 
tions ; and to have preferred the proving of 
their propositions by reasonings adabsurdum , 
rather than hazard the disclosure of the 
means by which they arrived more directly 
at the result of what they demonstrated. 
We meet with strong traces of algebra in 
the 1 3th book of Euclid. From the time of 
Diophantes, algebra made but small pro¬ 
gress, till that of Vietus, who restored and 
perfected it, and was the first who marked 
the known quantities by the letters of the 
alphabet. Descartes afterwards applied 
it to geometry. 

Aristarchus was the first who suggested 
a method of measuring the distance of the 
sun from the earth, by means of the halt 
section of the moon’s disk, or that phasis cf 
it wherein it appears to us when it is in its 
quadratures. 

Hipparchus was the first who calculatec i 
tables of the motion of the sun and moon, 
and composed a catalogue of the fixed stars 
He was also the first who, from the obsei- 
vation of eclipses, determined the longi- j 
tude of places upon earth : but his highest 
honour is, that he laid the first foundations 
for the discovery of the precession of the 
equinoxes. 


824 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


Archimedes discovered the square of the 
parabola, the properties of spiral lines, the 
proportion of the sphere to the cylinder, 
ahd the true principles of statico and hy¬ 
drostatics. His sagacity is evident from 
the means he adopled to discover the quan¬ 
tity of silver that was mixed along with the 
gold, in the crown of king Hieron. lie 
reasoned upon the principle, that all bodies 
immerged in water lose just so much of 
their weight, as a quantity of water equal 
to them in bulk weighs. Hence he drew 
this consequence, that gold being more 
compact must lose less of its weight, and 
silver more ; and that a mingled mass of 
both, must lose in proportion to the quan¬ 
tities mingled. Weighing therefore the 
crown in water and in air, and two masses, 
the one of gold, the other of silver, equal in 
weight to the crown ; he thence determined 
what each lost of their weight, and so solved 
the problem. He likewise invented a per - 
petual severe, valuable on account of its 
being capable to overcome any resistance; 
and the screiv that still goes by his own 
name, used in the elevating of water. He 
alone defended the city of Syracuse, by op¬ 
posing to the efforts of the Romans the 
resources of his genius. By means of ma¬ 
chines, of his own construction, he rendered 
Syracuse inaccessible. Sometimes he hurled 
upon the land forces stones of such enor¬ 
mous size, as crushed whole phalanxes ol 
them at once. When they retired from the 
walls, he overwhelmed them with arrows 
innumerable, and beams of a prodigious 
weight, discharged from catapults and ba- 
listae. If their vessels approached the fort, 
he seized them by the prows with grapples 
of iron, which he let down upon them from 
the wall, and rearing them up in the air, to 
the great astonishment of every body, 
shook them with such violence, as either to 
f:reak them in pieces, or sink them to the 
bottom. When they kept at a distance from 
the haven, he focalized fire from heaven, and 
wrapped them in sudden and inevitable con¬ 
flagration. He once said to king Hieron, 
'• Give me but a place to stand upon, and 
j will move the earth/’ The king was 
amazed by the declaration, and Archimedes 
gave him a specimen of his power by 
launching singly by himself a ship of a 
prodigious size. He built for the king an 
immense galley, of twenty banks of oars, 
containing spacious apartments, gardens, 
-ia)ks, ponds, and every convenience re¬ 
tired by regal dignity. He constructed a 
■»pnere, representing, the motions of the 
stars, which Cicero esteemed one of the 
inventions which did the highest honour to 


human genius. He perfected the manner 
of augmenting the mechanic powers, by the 
multiplication of wheels and pullies; and 
carried mechanics so far, that his works 
surpass imagination. 

Mechanics. 

The immense machines, of astonishing 
force, which the ancients adapted to the pur¬ 
poses of war, prove their amazing profi¬ 
ciency in mechanics. It is difficult to 
conceive how they reared their bulky 
moving towers : some of them were a hun¬ 
dred and fifty-two feet in height, and sixty 
in compass, ascending by many stories, 
naving at bottom a battering ram, of strength 
sufficient to beat down walls ; in the middle, 
a drawbridge, to be let down upon the 
wall of the city attacked, afforded ea§y 
passage into the town for the assailants; 
and at top a body of men, placed above 
the besieged, harassed them without risk 
to themselves. An engineer at Alexan¬ 
dria, defending that city against the army 
of Julius Caesar, by means of wheels, 
pumps, and other machinery, drew from 
the sea prodigious quantities of water, and 
discharged it upon the adverse army to 
their extreme discomfiture. 

The mechanical enterprise and skill of the 
ancients are evidenced by their vast pyra¬ 
mids existing in Egypt, and the magnifi¬ 
cent ruins of the cities of Palmyra and 
Balbec. Italy is filled with monuments of 
the greatness of ancient Rome. 

Ancient Cities. 

The finest cities of Europe convey no 
idea of the grandeur of ancient Babylon, 
which being difieen leagues in circumfer¬ 
ence, was encompassed with walls two 
hundred feet in height, and fifty in breadth, 
whose sides were adorned with gardens of 
a prodigious extent, which arose in terraces 
one above another, to the very summit or 
the walls. E'or the watering of these gar¬ 
dens there were machines, which raised the 
water of the Euphrates to the highest of 
the terraces. The tower of Belus, arising 
out of the middle of the temple, was of so 
vast a height, that some authors have not 
ventured to assign its altitude; others put 
it a't a thousand paces. 

Ecbatane, the capital of Media, was eight 
leagues in circumference, and surrounded 
with seven walls in form of an amphi 
theatre, the battlements of which were ol 
various colours, white, black, scarlet, blue, 
and orange ; all of them covered with siiiet 
or with gold. 












THE TABLE BOOH. 


Persepolis was a city, which all histo¬ 
rians speak of as one of the most ancient 
and noble of Asia. There remain the 
ruins of one of its palaces, which measured 
six hundred paces in front, and still displays 
relics of it's former grandeur. 

The Lake Mceris *nd the Pyramids. 

The lake Moeris was a hundred and fifty 
eagues in circuit, and entirely the work of 
one Egyptian king, who caused that im¬ 
mense compass of ground to be hollowed, 
to receive the waters of the Nile, when it 
overflowed its usual level, and to serve as 
a reservoir for watering Egypt by means of 
canals, when the river was not of sufficient 
height to overflow and fertilize the country. 
From the midst of this lake arose two py¬ 
ramids, of six hundred feet in height. 

*The other pyramids of Egypt, in bulk 
and solidity so far surpass whatever we 
know of edifices, that we should be ready 
to doubt their having existed, did they not 
still subsist. One of the sides of the base 
cif the highest pyramid measures six hun¬ 
dred and sixty feet. The free-stones which 
compose it are each of them thirty feet 
long. The moderns are at a loss to imagine 
by what means such huge and heavy 
masses were raised to a height of above 
four hundred feet. 

The Colossus of Rhodes. 

This was another marvellous production 
of the ancients. Its fingers were as large as 
statues; few were able with outstretched 
arms to encompass the 
passed between its legs. 


thumb. Ships 


Stupendous Statues. 

Semiramis caused the mountain Bagistan, 
between Babylon and Media, to be cut out 
into a statue of herself, which was seventeen 
stadia high, that is, above half a French 
league; and around it were a hundred 
other statues, of proportionable size, though 
less large. 

It was proposed to Alexander the Great, 
to make a statue of him out of mount 
A thos, which would have been a hundred 
and fifty miles in circumference, and ten 
miles in height. The design was to make 
him hold in his left hand a city, large 
enough to contain ten thousand inhabit¬ 
ants ; and in the other an urn, out of which 
should flow a river into the sea. 

Bridges—Glazed Windows. 

In the structures of the ancients, the 
hardness of their cement equals that of 


marble itself. The firmness of their high* 
ways has never been equalled. Some were 
paved with large blocks of black marble. 
Their bridges, some of which still remain, 
are indubitable monuments of the greatness 
of their conceptions. The Roman bridge 
at Card, near Nismes, is one of them. It 
serves at once as a bridge and an aqueduct, 
goes across the river Gardon, and connects 
two mountains, between which it is en¬ 
closed. It comprehends three stories; the 
third is the aqueduct, which conveys the 
waters of the Eure into a great reservoir, to 
supply the amphitheatre and city of Nismes. 
Trajan’s bridge over the Danube had 
twenty piers of free-stone, some of which 
are still standing, a hundred and fifty feet 
high, sixty in circumference, and distant 
one from another a hundred and seventy. 

Among the ornaments and conveniences 
of ancient buildings was glass. They de¬ 
corated their rooms with glasses, as mir¬ 
rors. They also glazed their windows, so 
as to enjoy the benefit of light, without be¬ 
ing injured by the air. This they did very 
early ; but before they discovered that man¬ 
ner of applying glass, the rich made use of 
transparent stones in their windows, such 
as agate, alabaster, phengites, talc, &c. 

Curious Mechanism. 

The works of the ancients in miniature 
were excellent. Archytas, who was contem¬ 
porary with Plato, constructed a wooden pi¬ 
geon, which imitated the flight and motions 
of a living one. Cicero saw’ the whole of 
Homer's Iliad written in so fine a character 
that it could be contained in a nutshell.* 
Myrmecides, a Milesian, made an ivory 
chariot, so small and so delicately framed, 
that a fly with its wing could at the same 
time cover it; and a little ivory ship of the 
same dimensions. Callicrates, a Lacede¬ 
monian, formed ants and other little ani¬ 
mals out of ivory, so extremely small, that 
their component parts were scarcely to be 
distinguished. One of these artists wrote 
a distich in golden letters, which he en¬ 
closed in the rind of a grain of corn. 

Microscopes, 8tc. 

Whether, in such undertakings as our 
best artists cannot accomplish without 
the assistance of microscopes, the ancients 
were so aided, is doubtful, but it is certain 
that they had several ways of helping and 
strengthening the sight, and of magnifying 


* In the Every-Day Book there is an account of tha 
means by which this performance can be effected. 




826 













THE TABLE BOOK. 


small objects. Jamblichus says of Pytha¬ 
goras, that he applied himself to find out 
instruments as efficacious to aid the hear¬ 
ing, as a ruler, or a square, or even optic 
glasses, were to the sight. Plu¬ 

tarch speaks of mathematical instruments 
which Archimedes made use of, to mani¬ 
fest to the eye the largeness of the sun ; 
which may be meant of telescopes. Aulus 
Gellius having spoken of mirrors that mul¬ 
tiplied objects, makes mention of those 
which inverted them; and these of course 
must be concave or convex glasses. Pliny 
says that in his time artificers made use of 
| emeralds to assist their sight, in works that 
required a nice eye ; and to prevent us 
from thinking that it was on account of its 
green colour only that they had recourse to 
it, he adds, that they were made concave 
the better to collect the visual rays; and 
I that Nero used them in viewing the combats 
of the gladiators. 

Sculpture. 

Admirable monuments remain to us of 
' the perfection to which the ancients carried 
the arts of sculpture and design. The 
Niob6 and the Laocoon, the Venus de Me- 
dicis, the Hercules stifling Antseus, that 
other Hercules who rests upon his club, the 
dying gladiator, and that other in the vine¬ 
yard of Borghese, the Apollo Belvedere, the 
maimed Hercules, and the Equerry in the 
action of breaking a horse on mount Qui- 
rinal, loudly proclaim the superiority of the 
ancients in those arts. These excellences 
are to be observed upon their medals, their 
engraved precious stones, and their cumeos. 

Painting. 

Of ancient painting the reliques are so 
few and so much injured by time, that to 
form a proper judgment of it, is at first dif¬ 
ficult Yet if due attention be paid to pic¬ 
tures discovered at Rome, and latterly in 
the ruins of Herculaneum, the applause 
which the painters of antiquity received 
from their contemporaries may seem to have 
been merited. Among the ancient paint¬ 
ings in fresco, still at Rome, are a reclining 
Venus at full length, in the palace of Bar- 
barini; the Aldovrandine nuptials; a Co- 
riolanus, in one of the cells of Titus’s baths; 
and seven other pieces, in the gallery of 
the college of St. Ignatius; taken out of 
a vault at the foot of mount Palatine; 
among which are a satyr drinking out of 
a horn, and a landscape with figures, both 
of the utmost beauty. There are also x 


sac ificial piece, consisting of three figures, 
in the Albani collection ; and an CEdipus, 
and a sphynx, in the villa Altieri; which 
all formerly belonged to the tomb of Ovid. 
From these specimens an advantageous | 
judgment may be formed of the ability of 
the masters who executed them. Others, 
discovered at Herculaneum, disclose a hap¬ 
piness of design and boldness of expres- 
sion, that could only have been achieved 
by accomplished artists. Theseus van- j 
quishing the minotaur, the birth of Tele- 
phus, Chiron and Achilles, and Pan and 
Olympe, have innumerable excellencies. 
There were found also, among the ruins of 
that city, four capital pictures, wherein 
beauty of design seems to vie with the 
most skilful management of the pencil. ! 
They appear of an earlier date than those 
spoken of, which belong to the first cen¬ 
tury ; a period when painting, as Pliny in- ; 
forms us, was in its decline. 

Mosaic. 

Of this work, which the Romans made 
use of in paving their apartments, a beauti¬ 
ful specimen, described by Pliny, was found 
in the ruins of Adrian’s villa at Tivoli. It 
represents a basin of water, with four 
pigeons around its brim ; one of them is 
drinking, and in that attitude its shadow 
appears in the water. Pliny says, that on 
the same pavement the breaking up of an ; 
entertainment was so naturally represented, 
that you would have thought you really 
saw the scattered fragments of the feast. 

Music. 

The ancients have the whole merit of 
having laid down the first exact principles 
of music; and the writings of the Pytha¬ 
goreans, of Aristoxenes, Euclid, Aristides, 
Nichomachus, Plutarch, and many others, 
even such of them as still remain, contain 
in them every known theory of the science. 
They, as well as we, had the art of noting 
their tunes, which they performed by means 
of letters either contracted, or reversed, 
placed upon a line parallel to the words, 
and serving for the direction, the one of the 
voice, the other of the instrument. The 
scale itself, of which Guy Aretin is the 
supposed inventor, is no other than the 
ancient one of the Greeks a little enlarged, 
and what Guy may have taken from a Greek 
manuscript, written above eight hundred 
years ago, which Kircher says he saw 
at Messina in the library of the Jesuists, 
wherein he found the hymns noted ast as , 


827 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


in the manner of Aretin. The ancient lyre 
was certainly t very harmonious instru¬ 
ment, and wa. 30 constructed, and so full 
of variety in Plato’s time, that he regarded 
it as dangerous, and too apt to relax the 
mind. In Anacreon’s time, it had already 
obtained forty strings. Ptolemy and Por¬ 
phyry describe instruments resembling the 
lute and theorb, having a handle with keys 
belonging to it, and the strings extended 
from the handle over a concave body of 
wood. There is to be seen at Rome an 
ancient statue of Orpheus, with a musical 
bow in his right harfd, and a kind of violin 
in his left. In the commentaries of Phi- 
lostrates by Vigenere, is a medal of Nero 
with a violin upon it. The flute was car¬ 
ried to so high a degree of perfection by 
the ancients, that there were various kinds 
ot them, and so different in sound, as to be 
wonderfully adapted to express all manner 
of subjects. 

Tert.ullian mentions an organ invented 
by Aichimedes. “Behold,” says Tertul- 
lian, “ that astonishing and admirable 
hydraulic organ of Archimedes, composed 
of such a number of pieces, consisting each 
of so many different parts, connected toge¬ 
ther by such a quantity of joints, and con¬ 
taining such a variety of pipes for the 
imitation of voices, conveyed in such a mul¬ 
titude of sounds, modulated into such a 
diversity of tones, breathed from so im¬ 
mense a combination of flutes ; and yet all 
taken together, constitute but one single 
instrument.” 

That the ancients knew and practised 
harmony is evident from Plato, Macrobius, 
and other early writers. Aristotle, speak¬ 
ing of the revolutions of the several planets, 
as perfectly harmonizing with one ano¬ 
ther, they being all of them conducted by 
the same principle, draws a comparison 
from music to illustrate his sentiments. 
“Just as in a chorus,” says he, “ of men 
and women, where all the variety of voices, 
through all the different tones, from the 
bass to the higher notes, being under the 
guidance and direction of a musician, per¬ 
fectly correspond with one another, and 
form a full harmony.” Aurelius Cassiodo- 
rus defines symphony to be “ the art of so 
adjusting the base to the higher notes, and 
them to it, through all the voices and 
instruments, whether they be wind or 
stringed instruments, that thence an agree¬ 
able harmony may result.” Horace speaks 
expressly of the bass and higher tones, and 
the harmony resulting ’from their concur¬ 
rence. It is true, however, that the ancients 
did not much use harmony in concert, 


One fine voice alone, accompanied wffn 
one instrument, regulated entirely by it 
pleased them better than mere music with¬ 
out voices, and made a more lively impres¬ 
sion on their feeling minds; and this is 
what even we ourselves every day expe¬ 
rience. 

The effects ascribed to the music of the 
ancients are surprising. Plutarch reports 
of Antigenidas, that by playing on the 
flute, he so roused the spirit of Alexander, 
that he started from the table, and flew to 
his arms. Timotheus when touching his 
lyre so inflamed him with rage, that draw¬ 
ing his sabre he suddenly slew one of his 
guests; which Timotheus no sooner per¬ 
ceived, than altering the air from the Phry¬ 
gian to a softer measure, he calmed his 
passions, and infused into him the tenderest 
feelings of grief and compunction for what 
he had done. Jamblichus relates like ex¬ 
traordinary effects of the lyres of Pythagoras 
and Empedocles. Plutarch informs us of 
a sedition quelled at Lacedemon by the 
lyre of Terpander; and Boetius tells of 
rioters having been dispersed by the musi¬ 
cian Damon. 

The delicacy of the ancient airs much 
surpassed ours; and it is in this respect, 
principally, that we may be said to have 
lost their music. Of their three kinds of 
music, the diatonic, chromatic, and the 
enharmonic, there exists now only the first, 
which teaches the dividing the notes into 
semi-notes : whereas the chromatic divide^ 
each note into three, and the enharmonic 
into four parts. The difficulty there was to 
find voices and hands proper to execute the 
chromatic kind, brought it first into neg¬ 
lect, and then into oblivion, and for the 
same reason the enharmonic, which was 
still more difficult, has not come down to 
us. All which now remains of the ancient 
music, is that which knows of no other 
refinement than the demi-note, instead of 
those finer kinds, which carried on the 
division of a note into threes and fours. 
The variety of manner in which the ancient 
music was performed, placed it in a rank 
of dignity superior to ©urs. Our modes 
are but of two kinds, the flat and sharp; 
whereas the ancients modified theirs into 
five, the principal of which were the Ionic, 
the Lydian, the Phrygian, the Doric, and 
the A'.olic ; each adapted to express and 
excite different passions: and by that 
means, especially, to produce such effects 
as have been just noticed, and which are 
incontestable from the authentic marner in 
which they have been recorded. 


823 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


Note —Here, if it were not necessary 
to close this series of papers, they would 
be extended somewhat’ further for the 
purpose of relating the long-reaching views 
of the ancients on other topics; but no¬ 
thing can conveniently be added save a 
passage from the author whose volume has 
supplied the preceding materials. “ Ilav- 
i ing received from our ancestors the product 
I of all their meditations and researches, we 
ought daily to add what we can to it, and 
by that means contribute all in our power 
to the increase and perfection of know¬ 
ledge.” 

Seneca, speaking eighteen centuries ago, 
of “ the inventions of the wise,” claims 
them as an inheritance. — “ To me," he 
says, “ they have been transmitted; for 
me they have been found out. But let us 
in this case act like good managers, let us 
improve what we have received; and con¬ 
vey this heritage to our descendants in 
better condition than it came to us. Much 
remains for us to do, much will remain for 
j those who come after us. A thousand 
I years hence, there will still be occasion, 
and still opportunity to add something to 
the common stock. But had even every 
thing been found out by the ancients, there 
would still this remain to be done anew—to 
put their inventions into use, and make 
their knowledge ours.” 


MANNERS IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—If the following extracts should suit 
the Table Book , they are at your service. 

Morley, November , 1827. J. S 

1637. The bishop of Chester, writing 
to the archbishop of York, touching the 
entertainment given by the Chester men to 
Mr. Prynne, when on his road to Caernar¬ 
von castle, has occasion to mention the re¬ 
ception given to Prynne by the wife of 
Thomas Aldersey, the alderman, relates, 
n That, on her examination, she swears 
tha* Peter and Robert Ince brought Prynne 
home to her house, where she was sitting 
with other gossips, and neither expected nor 
invited Prynne ; neither did she send for a 
drop of wine for him, or bestowed any 
other gift upon him, but the offer of a taste 
of a pint of wine , which she and her gossips 
were then a drinking .” 

New Discovery of the Prelate's Tyranny , 
p. 224. 


1637. There came in my tyme to the 
college, Oxford, one Nathaniel Conopios, 
out of Greece ; he was the first I ever saiv 
drink coffee , which custom came not into 
England till thirty years after. 

1640. Found my father at Bathe extra¬ 
ordinary weake ; I returned home with him 
in his litter. 

1652. Having been robbed by two cut¬ 
throats near Bromley, I rode on to London, 
and got 500 tickets printed. 

The robber refusing to plead, was pressed 
to death. 

1654. May. Spring Garden till now had 
been the usual rendezvous for the ladys and 
gallants at this season. 1 now observed how 
the women began to paint themselves , for¬ 
merly a most ignominious thing, and only 
used by prostitutes. 

Evelyn. 


1660. Jan. 16. I staid up till the bell¬ 
man came by with his bell just under my i 
window, and cried “ Past one of the clock, 
and a cold frosty window morning.” 

When friends parted, they said, “ God be 
with you.” 

My dining-room was finished with green 
serge hanging and gilt leather. 

Jan. 2. 1 had been early this morning 

to Whitehall, at the Jewel office, to choose 
a piece of gilt plate for my lord, in return 
of his offering to the king, (which it seems 
is usual at this time of year, and an earl 
gives 20 pieces in gold in a purse to the 
king,) I choose a gilt tankard, weighing 31 
ounces and a half, and he is allowed 30 
ounces, so I paid 12 s. for the ounce and half 
over what he is to have : but strange it teas 
for me to see what a company of small fees 
I was called upon by a great many to pay 
there, ivhich l perceive is the manner that 
courtiers do get their estates. 

September. I did send for a cup of tea 
(a China drink,) of which I had never drank 
before. 

November. To sir W. Batten’s to din¬ 
ner, he having a couple of servants married 
to-day; and so there was a great number 
of merchants and others of good quality, on 
purpose after dinner to make an offering, 
which, when dinner was done, we did; 
and I gave 105. and no more, though most 
of them did give more, and did believe that 
I did also. 

1661. Feb. Sir W. Batten sent my wife 
half a dozen pair of gloves and a pair of 
silk stockings and garters for her valentine* 















































■ 


THE TABLE BOOK. 


May. We went to Mrs. Browne’s, 
where sir W. Pen and I were godfathers, 
and Mrs. Jordan and Shipman godmo¬ 
thers. And there before and after the 
■’hristening we were with the woman above 
in her chamber. I did give the midwife 
10$. and the nurse 5s. and the maid 2s. 
But forasmuch I expected to give the name 
to the child but did not, I forbore then to 
give my plate, which I had in my pocket, 
namely, six spoons and a porringer of 
silver. 

July. A messenger brought me word 
that my uncle was dead, 1 rode over and 
found my uncle’s corps in a coffin, stand¬ 
ing upon joynt-stools in the chimney in the 
hall, but it began to smell, and so I caused 
it to be set forth in the yard all night, and 
watched by my aunt. In the morning my 
father and I read the will; after that done 
we went about getting things, as ribands 
and gloves, ready for the burial, which in 
the afternoon was done; we served the 
people with wine and other things. 

November. To church, and heard a sim¬ 
ple fellow upon the praise of church mu- 
sique, and exclaiming against mens wear¬ 
ing their hats on in church. 

Civet cats, parrots, and apes, sent as 
presents to ladies; and gentlemen lighted 
home by link-boys. Pepys. 


The faire and famous comedian, Roxa- 
lana, was taken to be the earle of Oxford's 
misse , as at this time they began to call 
lewd women. 

Dined at Chaffinch’s house warming. 

Evelyn. 


1666. February. This morning came 
up to my wife’s bedside little Will Mercer 
to be her valentine; and brought her name 
writ upon blue paper in gold letters, done 
by himself very prettily. But I am also 
this year my wife’s valentine, and it will 
cost me 51. I find that Mrs. Pierce’s little 
girl is my valentine, she having drawn me. 
But here I do first observe the fashion o: 
drawing of rmttos, as well as names : my 
wife’s motto was “ Most courteous, most 
fair;” mine I have forgot. One wonder I 
observed to-day, that there was no musique 
in the morning to call up our new married 
people, which was very mean methinks. 

1667. June. Find my wife making tea , 
a drink which her potticary tells her is 
good for her cold and defluxions. 

A flaggon of ale and apples drunk out of 
a wood cup as a Christmas draught. 

1669. May. My wife got up by 4 o’c. 
to goto gather May Dew , which Mrs.Tur¬ 
ner hath taught her is the only thing in the 
world to wash her face with. Pepys. 


1663. October. To Guildhall; we went 
Up and down to see the tables. By and 
by the lord mayor came into the hall to 
dinner , with the other great lords, bishops, 
&c. I set near Creed. We had plenty of 
good wine, but it was very unpleasing that 
we had no napkins, or knives, nor change 
of trenchers, and drunk out of earthern 
pitchers and wooden dishes. 

1664. Home to bed, having got a strange 
cold in my head, by flinging off my hat at 
dinner. 

To my lord chancellor’s (sir Orlando 
Bridgman, lord keeper,) in the garden, 
where we conversed above an hour, walk¬ 
ing up and down, and he would have me 
walk with my hat on. 

1665. At this time I have two tierces 
of claret , two quarter casks of canary, and a 
smaller vessel of sack ; a vessel of tent, 
another of Malaga , and another of white 
wine, all in my own cellar. 


1671. To lord Arlington’s, where we 
found M'lle QueronaiUe; it was univer¬ 
sally reported, that the fair lady was bedded 
one of these nights to the king, who was 
often here; and the stocking flung after the 
manner of a married bride; however, ’twai 
with confidence believed she was first made 
a misse, as they call these unhappy crea¬ 
tures, with solemnity at this time. 

1683. I went with others into the 
duchess of Portsmouth's dressing-roome 
within her bedchamber, where she was in 
her morning loose garment, her maids 
combing her, newly out of her bed, his 
majesty and gallants standing about her. 

1685. January 25, Sunday. Dr. Dove 
preached before the king. I saw this even¬ 
ing such a scene of profuse gaming , and 
the king in the midst of his three concu¬ 
bines, as I had never seen before, luxurious 
dallying and prophaneness. 

February 6. The king died. I can never 
forget the inexpressible luxury and pro- 
phanenesse, gaming, and all dissoluteness, 
and, as it were, total forgetfulness of God, 
(it being Sunday evening,) which this day 
se’nnight I was witnesse of. The king 
sitting and toying with his concubines 
Portsmouth, Cleavland, and Mazarine, &c. 
and a French boy singing love songs ; 
whilst about twenty of the great courtiers 
and other dissolute persons were at basset 
round a large table, a bank of at least 2000 
in gold before them. Evelyn. 


830 



























THE TABLE BOOK. 


€f)t Cottage tube rein ftobert asioomfielti toa* bom 

AT HONINGTON, IN SUFFOLK. 


Accompanying the portrait and papers 
of George Bloomfield, copied and referred 
to in the preceding sheet of the Table 
Book , was a drawing, taken in October 
last, of Robert Bloomfield’s birth-place. 
An engraving of it is here presented, in order 
j to introduce the following memorandum 
drawn up by George Bloomfield, and now 
lying before me in his hand-writing, viz. 

“The Poetical Freehold. 

“ February 4, 1822, was sold at Honing- 
ton Fox, the old cottage, the natal place of 
Robert Bloomfield, the Farmer s Boy. 

“ My father, a lively little man, pre¬ 
cisely five feet high, was a tailor, con¬ 
stantly employed in snapping the cat , that 
is, he worked tor the farmers at their own 
houses, at a shilling per day and his board. 
He was a gay knight of the thimble, and 
as he wore a fashionable coat with a very 
narrow back, the villagers called him 
George Narrowback. My mother they 
called Mrs. Prim. She was a spruce, neat 
body, and was the village school-dame. 
Her father found the money, and my father 
bought the cottage in the year 1754. He 


died in the year 1766, and, like many other 
landed men, died intestate. My mother 
married again. When I came of age she 
showed me the title-deeds, told me I was 
heir-at-law, and hoped she should finish 
her days there. I promised her she should ; 
but time rolled, and at length my wife, 
after two years of affliction with the 
dropsy, died, and left me with five infant 
children, head and ears in debt. To 
secure the cottage to my mother, I per¬ 
suaded my brother Robert to buy the title 
and give all my brothers and sisters then 
shares and me mine, and this money paid 
my debts. The Farmer s Boy was now 
the proprietor; but it was a poor freehold, 
for he did all the repairs, and my mother 
paid no rent. After my mother’s death, 
Isaac lived in it upon the same terms,—too 
poor to pay rent or be turned out. Isaac 
died, and left nine children. Bob kept the 
widow in the place, did all the repairs, and 
she, also, paid nothing. At length the 
bankruptcies and delays of the London 

booksellers forced Bob to sell l - 

“-The late noble duke ot Grafton 

gave my mother a gravestone Ibis is al 


3 H 


£31 



























the Table book. 


that remains to mark the village as the Prefixed to some MS. verses, written 
birth-place of (tiles, and all that now re- by George Bloomfield in 1808, is the 
mains in it belonging to the Bloomfields.” subjoined account of the occasion that 

G. B. awakened his muse. 

- “The April Fool. 

With a sentence or two, by way of con- “ When on the wrong side of fifty I 
tinuation to the appeal already made in be- married a second time! My best friends 
half of George Bloomfield, it was purposed declared it was madness to risk a second 
to conclude the present article; but just as family, &c. &c. We married 7th of Fe- 

the sheet was ready for the press a packet bruary, 1807. Early in 1808 it was dis- 

of his manuscript papers arrived, and ex- covered I should have an increase, and 
tracts from these will exemplify his cha- Charles Blomfield, Esq. asked me when it 
racter and his necessities. The following would happen. 1 answered, in April. 

address to one of his old friends is a fair ‘Sure,’ says he, ‘ it won’t happen on the 

! specimen of his talent for versifying :— First /’—1 felt the force of the remark— 
_ the probability of my being an April Fool 

lo Mr. Thomas Wisset, of Sapiston, — anc j wro t e the following lines, and sent 

Psalm Singer, Parish Clerk, and them to Mr. B., from whom I received a 


Sexton, &c. &c. 

Respectfully I would impart. 

In language most befitting. 

The sorrows of an aching heart. 

With care and trouble smitten. 

I’ve lost the best of wives, d’ye see. 

That e’er to man was given; 

Alas ! she was too good for me. 

So she’s remov’d to heaven. 

But while her happiness I trace. 

Fell poverty pursuing, 

Unless another takes her place, 

’Twill be my utter ruin. 

children’s clothes to rags are worn, 

Nor have we wit to mend ’em ; 

Their tatters flying all forlorn— 

Kind Providence, defend ’em. 

Dear Tom, thou art St. Andrew’s clerk. 

And glad I am to know it; 

Thou art a witty rhyming spark. 

The merry village poet. 

Make some fond woman to me fly, 

No matter what her form be ; 

If she has lost a leg or eye. 

She still with love may charm me. 

If she loves work, Oh! what delight, 

Whafjoy it will afford her. 

To darn our clothes from morn to night, 

And keep us all in order. 

Would some kind dame but hear my plaint, 
And would thou to me give her, 

St. Andrew !—he shall be my saint. 

And thou his clerk for ever. 

Dear Tom, may all thy joys increase, 

And to thee be it given, 

When singing here on earth sbaj e»"»se, 

To pitch the key in Heaven. 

George Bloomfield. 

Vc'v. 3, 1803. 


note enclosing another, value one pound. 
The note said, * My daughters are foolish 
enough to be pleased with your April Fool, 
and I am so pleased to see them pleased, I 
send the enclosed, &c.’ ” 

Trifles like these are only of importance 
as traits of the individual. The next is 
abstracted from a letter to an overseer, with 
whom George Bloomfield necessarily cor¬ 
responded, as may be surmised from the 
contents. 

To Mr. Hayward, Thetford. 

Bury St. Edmund’s, Nov. 23, 1819. 

Sir,—When a perfect stranger to you, 
you treated me with great condescension 
and kindness, I therefore enclose some 
lines I wrote and addressed to the guar¬ 
dians of the poor in this town. They have 
assessed all such persons as are not legally 
settled here to the poor and church rates, 
and they have assessed me full double what 
I ought to pay. What renders it more 
distressing, our magistrates say that by 
the local act they are restrained from in¬ 
terfering, otherwise I should have been 
exempt, on account of my age and poverty 
So I sent my rhymes, and Mr. Gall, one of 
the guardians, sent for me, and gave me a 
piece of beef, &c. I had sold the only 
coat I had that was worth a shilling, and | 
was prepared to pay the first seven shillings 
and sixpence, but the guardians seem to 
think, (as I do.) that I can never go on 
paying—they are confident the gentlemen 

i-f St. Peter’s parish will pay it for me_ 

bade me wait a fortnight, &c. The pressure 
of the times is so great that the poor blame 
the rich, and the rich blame the poor. 

-There is a figure in use called the 

hyperbole; thus we sometimes say bf an 
old man, “ he is one foot in the grave, and 

























THE TABLE BOOR. 


Pother out.’* I might say I am one foot 
in Tnetford workhouse, and t’other out.— 
The scripture tells me, that the providence 
of God rules over all and in all places, 
consequently to me a workhouse is, on my 
oxen account, no such very dreadful thing ; 
but I have two little girls whom I dread to 
imprison there. I trust in Providence, and 
I nope both rich and poor will see better 
days. 

Your humble servant, 

George Bloomfield. 

Among George Bloomfield’s papers is 
the following kind letter to him, from his 
brother Robert. The feeble, tremulous 
handwriting of the original corroborates its 
expressions of illness, and is a sad memorial 
of the shattered health of the author of the 
Farmer's Boy , three years before his death. 

“ Shefford, July 18, 1820. 
“ Dear brother George, 

“ No quarrel exists—be at ease. I 
have this morning seen your excellent letters 
to your son, and your poem on the Thet* 
ford Waters, and am with my son and 
daughter delighted to find that your spark 
[ seems to brighten as you advance in years. 

I You think that I have been weak enough 
j to be offended—there has been no such 
! thing ! I have been extremely unwell, and 
I am still a poor creature, but I now force 
myself to write these few' words to thank 
you for the pleasure you have just given 
me. 

“ My son, or my daughter, shall write 
or me soon. 

“ Yours unalterably, 

* Brother, and Brother Bard, 

“ Rob. Bloomfield.” 

It may be remembered that Giles, the 
'« Farmer’s Boy,” was Robert Bloomfield 
himself, and that his master, the “ Farmer,” 
was Mr. W. Austin of Sapiston. In re¬ 
ference to his home at the farm Robert 
wrote, of himself, 

** the ploughman smiles. 

And oft the joke runs hard on sheepish Giles, 

Who sits joint-tenant of the corner stool. 

The converse sharing, though in Duty’s school.” 

Farmer's Boy. 

The son of the benevolent protector of 
Robert in his childhood sunk under mis¬ 
fortune, and George records the fact by the 
following lines, written in 1820 

The Unfortunate Farmer. 

When Giles attuned his song in rural strains. 

He „ang of Sap’ston s groves, her meads, and plains; 


Described the various seasons as th^y 
Of homely joys and peace domestic told. 

The Farmer there, alas 1 no more bears rule, 

And no “joint-tenants” sit m “Duty’s school:’ 

No happy labourers now with humble fare 
His fire-side comforts and instruction share. 

No longer master he of those sweet fields, 

No more for him the year its bounty yields. 

Nor his the hope to see his children round 
With decent competence and comfort crown d. 

These scenes and hopes from him for ever flown, 

In indigent old age he lives to mourn. 

George Bloomfield subjoins, in explana¬ 
tion, on these lines , e< My reading in the Bui v 
paper of the 6th of Dec. 1820, an advertise¬ 
ment of an assignment for the benefit of 
creditors of the effects of Mr. Willian Au¬ 
stin, gave rise to the above. Mr. A. was 
the young master of Giles, when Giles was 
the Farmer s Boy; and the admirers of rural 
poetry, as well in the new as the old world, 1 
have been made acquainted with the Austin: 
family by means of the poem of that name | 
Mr. A. held the farm near thirty years, and 

’twas the same that his grandfather till’d. 

He has ten children, some of them very 
young. He has been by some accused of 
imprudence; but the heavy poor-rates,(he 
paid 36/. last year,) the weight of a numer¬ 
ous family, and the depreciation of the 
price of produce, were the principal causes 
of his fall. He has been a most indulgent 
father, a kind master, and a good neigh¬ 
bour.” 

Twenty years after writing the lines to 
the “ Psalm-singer, Parish Clerk, and Sex- 
ton’ , of Sapiston, George again berhymed 
him. Preceding the effusion, is the follow- 
ing 

Memorandum. 

“ My old friend Wisset has now entered 
his eighty-third year, and is blind, and 
therefore cannot write ; but he sent his kind 
regards to me by a young man, and bade 
him repeat four lines to me. The young 1 
man forgot the lines, but he said they were 
about old age and cold winter. I sent him 
the following:— 

Dear old Brother Bard, 

Now clothed with snow is hill and dale, 

And all the streams with ice are bound 
How chilling is the wintry gale I 

How bleak and drear the scene around 

Yet midst the gloom bright gleams appear. 

Our drooping spirits to sustain, 

Hope kindly whispers in the ear 

Sweet Spring will soon retorn again. 


833 














































THE TABLE BOOK. 


*Tis thus, old friend, with you and me 
Life’s Spring and Summer both are flown, 

The marks of wintry age we see, 

Our locks to frosty white are grown. 

O let us then our voices raise, 

For favours past due homage bring ; 

Thus spend the winter of our days. 

Till God proclaims a glorious Spring. 

George Bloomfield. 

January 23, 1823. 

The MSS. from whence the present 
selections have been hastily made, were ac¬ 
companied by a letter from George Bloom¬ 
field, written nearly a month ago. They 
were delayed by the person who transmitted 
the parcel till the opportunity of noticing 
them in this work had almost passed. All 
that could be done in an hour or two is before 
the reader; and no more has been aimed 
at than what appears requisite to awaken 
sympathy and crave assistance towards an 
aged and indigent brother of the author of 
the Farmers Boy. George’s present feelings 
will be better represented by his own letter 
than by extracting from it. 

2 , High Baxter Street , Bury St 
Edmond's, Dec. 5th f 1827. 

To Mr. Hone, 

Sir,—A gentleman desires me to write 
to you, as editor of the Table Book , it being 
his wish that a view which he sent of the 
little cottage at Ronington should appear 
in that very curious work. The birth-place 
of Robert Bloomfield I think may excite the 
interest of some of your readers; but, sir, 
if they find out that you correspond with a 
superannuated cold water poet , your work 
will smell of poverty. 

Lord Byron took pains to flog two of my 
brothers, as poachers on the preserves of 
the qualified proprietors of literature It is 
hought, if he had not been wroth with the 
Edinburgh Reviewers, these poor poachers 
might have escaped; they, like me, had 
neither birth nor education to entitle them 
to a qualification. 

If, sir, you ever saw an old wall blown 
down, or, as we have it here in the country, 
if the wall “fall of its own accord ,” you 
may have observed that the first thing the 
workmen do, is to pick out the whole bricks 
into one heap, the bats into another, and 
the rubbish into a third. Thus, sir, if in 
what falls from me to you, you can find any 
whole bricks, or even bats, that may be 
placed in your work, pick them out; but I 
much fear all will be but rubbish unfit for 
vour purpose. 


So much has been said, in the book 
published by my brothers, of “ the little tai 
lor’s four little sons,” who once resided in 
the old cottage, that I cannot add much 1 
that is new, and perhaps the little I have to 
relate will be uninteresting. But I think 
the great and truly good man, the late 
duke of Grafton, ought to have been more 
particularly mentioned. Surely, after near 
thirty years, the good sense and benevo¬ 
lence of that real nobleman may be men¬ 
tioned. When in my boyhood, he held 
the highest office in the state that a subject 
can fill, and like aH that attain such pre- J 
eminence, had his enemies; yet the more 
Junius and others railed at him, the more I 
revered him. He was our “ Lord of the 
Manor,” and as I knew well his private 
character, I had no doubt but he was “ all 
of a piece.” I have on foot joined the fox- 
chase, and followed the duke many an 
hour, and witnessed his endearing conde¬ 
scension to all who could run and shout. 
When Robert became known as the Farm¬ 
ers Boy , the duke earnestly cautioned 
him on no account to change his habits of 
living , but at the same time encouraged 
him in his habits of reading , and kindly 
gave him a gratuity of a shilling a day, to 
enable him to employ more time in reading 
than heretofore. This gratuity was always 
paid while the duke lived, and was con¬ 
tinued by the present duke till Robert’s 
death. 

Could poor Robert have kept his children 
in their old habits of living , he might have 
preserved some of the profits arising from 
his works, but he loved his children too 
tenderly to be a niggard; and, besides, he 
received his profits at a time when bread 
was six or seven shillings per stone: no 
wonder that with a sickly family to sup¬ 
port, he was embarrassed. 

The duke likewise strongly advised him 
not to write too much , but keep the ground 
he had gained, &c. As hereditary sealer 
of the writs in the Court of King’s Bencn, i 
the duke gave Robert the situation of under 
sealer, but his health grew so bad he was 
obliged to give it up; he held it several 
months, however, and doubtless many a 
poor fellow went to coop under Robert’s 
seal. It was peculiarly unfortunate hr 
could not keep his place, for I think Mr 
Allen, the master-sealer, did not live above 
two years, and it is more than probable the 
duke would have made Robert master- 
sealer, and then he would have had suffi¬ 
cient income. The duke’s condescension 
and kindness to my mother was very great, 
he learned her real character, and called on 


834 


























THE TABLE BOOK. 


her at her own cottage, and freely talked of 
gone-by times, (her father was an old tenant 
to the duke.) He delicately left a half 
guinea at Mr. Roper’s, a gentleman farmer, 
to be given to her after his departure, and 
when he heard of her death he ordered a 
handsome gravestone to be placed over her, 
at his expense, and requested the Rev. Mr. 
Fellowes to write an inscription. It is thus 
engraven:— 

Beneath this Stone 
Are deposited the mortal remains of 

Elizabeth Glover, who died Dec. 27th, 1803 

Her maiden name was Manbv, and she was twice 
married. By her first husband, who lies buned near 
this spot, she was mother of six children; the youngest 
; of whom was Robert Bloomfield, the pastoral Poet. 
In her household affairs she was a pattern of cleanli¬ 
ness, industry, and good management. By her kind, 
her meek, her inoffensive behaviour, she had concili¬ 
ated the sincere good will of all her neighbours and 
acquaintance; nor amid the busy cares of time was 
she ever forgetful of Eternity. But her religion was no 
hypocritical service.no vain form of words; it consisted 
in loving God and keeping his commandments, as they 
have been made known to us by Jesus Christ. 

Reader, go thou and do I'hewise. 

If ever I was proud of any thing it was 
of my mother, nor do I think, strong as is 
the praise in the above, it is overdone. 
For solid strength of intellect she surpassed 
all her sons, and had more real practical 
virtues than all of them put together. Kind 
Providence spared her to bless me till I 
was far on the wrong side of fifty. 

I must say a word or two on her sons, 
because Capel Loftt, Esq., in his preface to 
my brother Nat’s poems, has said too much 
about them, viz. “ Beyond question, the bro¬ 
thers of this family are all extraordinary 
men.’’ Now, sir, as I am the oldest of 
these brothers, I will tell first of myself. I 
wrote a little poem, when near seventy, on 
the “Thetford Spa;” but dreading those 
snarling curs, the critics , forebore to affix 
my name to it. Mr. Smith, of Cambridge, 
printed it gratuitously ; but as soon as it 
was discovered I was the author, my ac¬ 
quaintance styled me the cold water poet. 
1 think my title will do very well. Brother 
Nathaniel wrote some poems; unluckily 
they were printed and published here at 
Bury, and the pack of critics hunted down 
the book. Nat has had thirteen children, 
and most of them are living, and so is he. 
Brother Isaac was a machinist. John Boys, 
Esq. gave him in all twenty pounds, but he 
died a young man, and left his self-working 
pumps unfinished. Eight of his children 
are living. 


The old cottage sold to Robert had 
been in the family near fourscore years. 
It proved a hard bargain to Robert; my 
mother and Isaac occupied the cottage, 
and could not pay rent; and after the death 
of my mother, poor Robert was in distress 
and sold it:—the lawyers would not settk 
the business, and Robert died broken¬ 
hearted, and never received sixpence! 

The lawyers constantly endeavour to 
make work for the trade. I believe it 
to be true, as some say, that we are now as 
much /aw-ridden as we were /mViY-ridden 
some ages ago. I like Charlotte Smith’s 
definition of the Law Trade. Orlando, in 
the “ Old Manor House,” says to Carr, the 
lawyer, “ I am afraid you are all rogues 
together;” Carr replies, “More or less, 
my good friend;—some have more sense 
than others, and some a little more con¬ 
science—but for the rest, I am afraid we 
are all of us a little too much professional 
rogues: though some of us, as individuals, 
would not starve the orphan, or break the 
heart of the widow, yet, in our vocation, 
we give all remorse of that sort to the 
winds.*’ My last account from Robert’s 
family says, the lawyers have not yet set¬ 
tled the poor old cottage ! 

Nat and I only survive of the little 
tailor’s “extraordinary” children — quite 
past our labour, and destitute of many 
comforts we used to enjoy in youth. We 
have but one step farther to fall, (i. e.) into 
the workhouse! Yet in the nature of 
things it cannot be long ere death will 
close the scene. We have had our day, 
and night must come. I hope we shall 
welcome it as heartily as Sancho in Don 
Quixote did sleep, “ Blessed be he who 
first invented sleep, it covers a man all over 
like a cloak.” 

I shall indeed be agreeably disappointed 
if ^ny one should bestow any thing upon 
Nat, or 

Sir, your humble obedient servant. 

Geo. Bloomfield. 

George Bloomfield is in his seventy- 
third year, and surely this fact, with the 
contents of the preceding columns, will be 
sufficient to excite commiseration in feel¬ 
ing and liberal minds. Mr. Faux, a re¬ 
spectable resident at Thetford, in Norfolk, 
is represented to me as being his friend. 
George Bloomfield’s own address at Bury 
St. Edmund’s is prefixed to his letter 
above. Either to Mr. Faux for him, or to 
himself direct, the remittance of a little 
money immediately would be highly ser¬ 
viceable. Something, however, beyond that 


835 

































THE TABLE BOOK. 


>s clearly requisite, and his statement of 
(ns brother Nathaniel’s equal necessities 
mould be considered at the same time. 
There are names dignified by rank and 
talents in the list of individuals who ad¬ 
mire the works of Robert Bloomfield, and 
should this sheet fall into their hands it is 
natural to presume that some of them may 
seek out and assist his surviving brothers 
in sorrowing old age. This, however, may 
not happen, and is not therefore to be 
elied upon. 

The case of the family of the Bloomfields, 
altogether, is distressing. As this is a 
season for present-making and social-meet¬ 
ing, i venture to suggest that no gift can be 
setter bestowed than on those who are in 
the utmost need; nor will the pleasures of 
a convivial party be lessened, if, while 
I “the glasses sparkle on the board,” a sub¬ 
scription be volunteered towa ds keeping 
the last two brothers of Robert Bloomfield 
from the workhouse during their few re¬ 
maining years of life. I have done my 
best to make their distress p .blicly known, 
and it remains with individuals to do their 
best to relieve it. Anything left at Messrs. 
Hunt and Clarke’s, 4, York-street, Covent 
Garden, shall be appropriated as the donors 
may direct. A meeting , and a few active 
.ndividuals, would efiect much. 

1st January , 1828. * 


CrabrUrnS 

EAST AND WEST. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—T send you a short and plain de¬ 
monstration, that by travelling eastward or 
westward round the globe at a given rate, 
(if it were practicable to do so,) a man 
might experience a greater or lesser num¬ 
ber of days and nights, than if he were to 
remain still in the same spot. This, I may 
venture to say, is a fact that very few 
people are aware of, and few would believe, 
until it were proved. 

As “ this goodly frame, the earth,*’ turns 
round upon its own axis once in twenty- 
four hours, and as the circumference of the 
globe is divided into 360 degrees, conse¬ 
quently every part of the globe’s surface 
must travel round its axis at the rate of 
fifieen degrees in one hour; or, which is 
the same thing, one degree in four minutes. 
Having premised this, we will suppose that 
a man sets off at seven o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, just as the sun rises above the horizon, 
and travels westward in the sun’s ecliptic 


one degree before it sets, he wiH have light 
four minutes longer than if he were to re¬ 
main at the place from whence he set out 
and his day, instead of being twelve hours 
long, (dividing the twenty-four hours into 
twelve day and twelve night,) and closing 
at seven o’clock, will be twelve hours and 
four minutes, and close at four minutes past 
seven. He continues to travel in the same : 
direction, and with the same velocity, dur¬ 
ing the night, (for he must never rest,) and 
that also will be four minutes longer than 
it would have been had he remained at the 
place where the sun set till it again rose; 
because, as he is travelling after the sun 
when it goes down, and from it as the 
morning approaches, of course it will be 
longer in overtaking him : he will be then 
two degrees from the starting place or goal, 
which you please, for we intend to send 
him completely round the world, and the 
sun will not rise the second morning till 
eight minutes past seven. His travel 
continues at the same rate, and he again 
has the sun four minutes longer, which 
does not set on the second day till twelve 
minutes past seven : this closes the third 
day. The next morning the sun rises not 
till sixteen minutes past seven ; then he 
has travelled four degrees, and his day and 
night have each been four minutes longer 
than if he had been stationary. Now we 
will suppose another man to have gone 
from the same place at the same moment, 
(viz. seven o’clock,) taking the opposite 
direction. He travels east to meet the sun, 
and at the same rate of travel as our west¬ 
ward bound wight. The sun will go down 
upon him four minutes sooner than if he i 
had remained at the place from which he ‘ 
started, and eight minutes sooner than i 
upon the other man : his day will close at 
fifty-six minutes past six. He goes on 
from the sun as it sinks, and towards it as 
it rises, and he will have light four minutes 
earlier than if he had stopped when the 
sun went down till it again rose, eight 
minutes sooner than he would have seen it 
at the starting post, and sixteen minutes 
sooner than the opposite traveller; this is 
at the end of the second day. He travels 
on ; light again deseits him four minutes 
earlier, viz. at forty-eight minutes past six 
at the end of three degrees, and the secona 
morning the sun will rise at forty-four 
minutes past six, sixteen minutes earlier 
than at the place he started from, and 
thirty-two minutes earlier than with the 
other man, with whom on the same morn¬ 
ing it does not rise till sixteen minutes past 
seven. It is plain therefore, that while the 










































THE TABLE BOOK. 


western traveller has only seen two nights eastern traveller will have more days and 
and two days, the eastern has enjoyed the nights than the western ; those of *h« 
same number of each, and more than half former being proportionally shorter than 
an hour of another day; and it is equally those of the latter. The following shows 
plain that if they continue to travel round the commencement and length of each day 
the globe at the same rate of motion, the to both travellers : — 

Eastern Traveller’s 


2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 
9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 
21 
22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 


Western Travellfr 
1st day begins at 


7 o’clock, morning. 

Is 

8 minutes past 7. 

o 

16 

- i . 

3 

24 

--7. 

4 

32 

7. 

5 

40 

7. 

6 

48 

7. 

7 

57 

7. 

8 

4 

8. 

9 

12 

-8. 

10 

20 

-8. 

11 

28 - 

8. 

12 

36* 

8. 

13 

44 

8. 

14 

52 

8. 

15 

— 

-9. 30 degrees. 

16 

8 

9. 

17 

16 

9 

18 


7 

52 minutes past 0. 


-24 - 

-32 - 

-40 - 

-48 - 

-56 - 

-4 _ 

- 12 - 

- 20 - 

-28 - 

-36 - 


- 44 

- 52 


- 9. 

- 9. 

- 9. 

- 9. 

- 9. 
10 . 
10 . 
10 . 
10 . 
10 . 
10 . 
10 . 
11 . 


00 degrees. 


19 

20 
21 
22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 


44 
36 - 
28 - 
20 - 
12 - 
4 - 
56 - 
48 - 
40 - 
32 - 
24 - 
16 - 
8 - 


52 - 
44 - 
36 - 
28 - 
20 - 
12 - 
4 - 
56 - 
48 - 
40 - 
32 - 
24 - 
16 - 
8 - 


b . 

6 . 

6 . 

6 . 

6 . 

6 . 

5. 

5. 

5. 

5. 

5. 

5. 

5. 

5. 

4. 

4. 

4. 

4. 

4. 

4. 

4. 

3. 

3. 

3. 

3. 

3. 

3. 

3. 

3. 


At the end of this degree, the sixtieth, the 
sun rises upon the eastern traveller at three 
in the morning, he having had thirty days 
and thirty nights. At the same degree it 
does not rise upon the western traveller till 
eleven in the morning, he having had the 
same number of days and nights. When, 
therefore, the morning of his thirty-first 

Western Traveller’s 
32nd day will break at 8 min. past 11, morn 
33 - ’ ~ 


34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 
2 

w3 

44 

45 

46 


16 

24 

32 

40 

48 

56 

4 

12 

20 

28 

36 

44 

52 


11 

11 . 

11. 

11 . 

11 . 

11 . 

12 . 

12 . 

12 . 

12 . 

12 . 

12 . 

12 . 

1 at noon, 
degrees, 


day is just breaking, the eastern travelle r 
has had the sun eight hours. They have 
both then had an equal number of days 
and nights complete, but the eastern will 
have had eight hours of another day more 
than the western. Let us try it a little 
further. The 


Eastern Traveller’s 
32nd day will break at 52 min. past 2, morn, 
33 -- 


90} 


34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

45 

46 


44 

-36 

-28 ■ 

-20 

- 12 

- 4 

- 56 

-48 

-40 

-32 

-24 

-16 

-8 


2 . 
- 2 . 
- 2 . 
- 2 . 
- 2. 
- 2 . 
- 1. 
- 1. 


-1. 

- 1 . 

- 1 

-1. 

- 1 


i. 

























































































































































































































THE TABLE BOOK. 

There appears to be two hours’ difference every fifteenth day. 


Western Traveller’s 
61st day will break at 3, i» m. 

76-5 

91 -" 

7 he men would now be together at the 
other side of the globe, and would see the 
sun rise at the same moment, but he who 

Western Traveller’s 
106th day will break at 9 at night. 

121 - 11 . 

136-1, morning. 

151-3. 

166 --5. 

J81 7. 360 degrees. 

They will now be at the spot where they 

started from, the western traveller having 
seen two days and two nights less than the 
eastern.* 

N.G. S. 

i 


(0fij Customs. 

For the Table Book. 

HAGMENA 

The hagmena is an old custom observed 
in Yorkshire on new year’s eve. The 
keeper of the pinfold goes round the town, 
attended by a rabble at his heels, and 
knocking at certain doors, sings a barbarous 
song, according to the manner “ of old 
king Henry’s days;” and at the end of 
every verse they shout “ Hagman Heigh.” 

When wood was chiefly used by our 
forefathers as fuel, this was the most pro¬ 
per season for the hagman, or wood-cutter, 
to remind his customers of his services, 
and solicit alms from them. The word 
“ hag ” is still used among us for a wood, 
and the “ hagman ” may be a compound 
’ name from his employment. Some give it 
a more sacred interpretation, as derived 
from the Greek the “ holy month,” 

when the festivals of the church for our 
Saviour’s birth were celebrated. Formerly 
i on the last day of December, the monks 
' and friars used to make a plentiful harvest 
by begging from door to door, and reciting 
a kind of carol, at the end of every stave 
of which they introduced the words “ agia 
j mene,” alluding to the birth of Christ. A 
very different interpretation has, however, 
been given to it by one John Dixon, a 

* In this way, by hurrying the Jews round the globe 
at a given rate, their Sabbath might be made to fall 
apon same day as the Christinas'. 

I 

i 


Eastern Traveller’s 
61st day will break at 11 at night. 

76-9. 

-7. 

had travelled eastward would have teen a 
day and a night more than the other. 

Eastern Traveller’s 

106th day will break at 5, p. m. 

121-3. 

136-1, noon. 

151-11, A. M. 

166-- 9. 

7. 

Scotch presbyterian parson, when holding 
forth against this custom, in one of his 
sermons at Kelso—“ Sirs, do you know 
what hagman signifies ?—It is the devil to 
be in the house : that is the meaning of its 
Hebrew original.” It is most probably a 
corruption of some Saxon words, which 
length of time has rendered obsolete. 

Old St. Luke’s Day 

On this day a fair is held in York for all 
sorts of small wares, though it is commonly 
called “ Dish Fair,” from the quantity of 
wooden dishes, ladles, &c. brought to it. 
There was an old custom at this fair, of 
bearing a wooden ladle in a sling on two 
stangs, carried by four sturdy labourers, 
and each labourer supported by another. 
This, without doubt, was a ridicule on the 
meanness of the wares brought to this fair, 
small benefit accruing to the labourers at it. 
It is held by charter, granted 25th Jan., 17th 
Hen. VII. 

St. Luke’s day is also known in York by 
the name of “ Whip-Dog Day from a 
strange custom that schoolboys use there, 
of whipping all the dogs that are seen in 
the streets on that day. Whence this un- ! 
common persecution took its rise is uncer¬ 
tain The tradition of its origin seems very 
probable; that, in times of popery, a priest, 
celebrating mass at this festival in some 
church in York, unfortunately dropped the i 
pix after consecration, which was forthwith 
snatched up suddenly and swallowed by a 
dog that laid under the altar. The profan¬ 
ation of this high mystery occasioned the 
death of the dog ; the persecution, so begun, 
has since continued to this day, though 
now greatly abridged by the interference of 
some of the minor members of the honour¬ 
able corporation, against the whole species 
in that city. 

D. A.M. 


181 


838 







































































THE TABLE BOOK. 


CUAPMAN’S “ALL FOOLS.” 

For the Table Book. 

In Chapman's “A’ll Fools,” 1605, (as 
quoted, by Charles Lamb, in Table Book , 
vol. i. 192,) is the following passage, under 
.he title of “Love’s Panegyric.”— 

- — “ ’tis nature’s second Sun, 

Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines ; 

And as without the Sun, the world’s Great Eye, 

All colours, beauties, both of art and nature. 

Are given in vain to man; so without Love 
All beauties bred in women are in vain. 

All virtues born in men lie buried ; 

For Love informs them as the Sun doth colours,” &c. 

Chapman might be acquainted with 
Italian poets, but at all events the coin¬ 
cidence between the above and the follow - 
ing canzon, by Andrew Navagero, is re¬ 
markable. Navagero was the friend of 
Boscan, the Spanish poet: they became 
acquainted at Grenada, while Navagero 
was there ambassador from Venice. Bos¬ 
can died before 1544; and, as he himself 
confesses, he learnt the sonnet and other 
Italian forms of poetry from Navagero. 

Love the Mind's Sun. 

Sweet ladies, to whose lovely faces 
Nature gives charms, indeed, 

If those ye would exceed 
And are desirous, too, of inward graces ; 

Ye first must ope your hearts’ enclosure. 

And give Love entrance there. 

Or ye must all despair 
Of what ye wish, and bear it with composure. 

For as the night than day is duller, 

And what is hid by night 
Glitters with morning lignt 
In all the rich variety of colour; 

So they, whose dark insensate bosoms 
Love lights not, ne’er can know 
The virtues thence that grow. 

Wanting his beams to open virtue’s blossoms. 

Our version is made from the original in 
Dolce’s Collection of Rime Diverse , i. 98. 
It ought to be mentioned, that Boscan’s 
admission of his obligations to Navagero 
is to be found in the Introduction to the 
second book of his works. 

December, 1827. J. P. C. 


NORWICH MOCK ELECTIONS. 

« 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—At Costessy, a small village, three 
miles on the west side of Norwich, there is 
An annual mock guild on Whit Tuesday. 


It takes its name from the annual mayor s 
feast at Norwich, being called the City 
Guild. The corporation at Costessy is 
composed of the poor inhabitants under the 
patronage of the marquis of Stafford, who 
lias a beautiful seat in this village. On 
this day a mock mayor is annually elected; 
he has a proper and appropriate costume, 
and is attended by a sword'-bearer, with a 
sword of state of wood painted and gilt, 
two mace-bearers with gilt maces, with a 
long array of officers, down to the snap¬ 
dragon of Norwich, of which they have a 
passable imitation. Their first procession 
is to the hall, where they are recognised by 
the noble family who generally support 
the expenses of the day, and the mock 
mayor and corporation are liberally re- ' 
galed from the strong-beer cellar. They 
then march, preceded by a band of music, 
to the steward’s house, where the mock 
solemnities take place, and speeches are 
made, which, if not remarkable for their 
eloquence, afford great delight by their 
absurd attempts at being thought so. The 
new mayor being invested with the in¬ 
signia of his office, a bright brass jack-chain 
about his neck, the procession is again re¬ 
newed to a large barn at some distance, 
where the place being decorated with 
boughs, flowers, and other rural devices, 
a substantial dinner of roast-beef, plum¬ 
pudding, and other good things, with 
plenty of that strong liquor called at Nor¬ 
wich nogg—the word I have been told is 
a provincial contraction for “ knock me 
down.” 

The village is usually thronged with 
company from Norwich, and all the rural 
festivities attendant on country feasts take 
place. The noble family before mentioned 
promote the hilarity by their presence 
and munificence. The elder members of 
the body corporate continue at the festal 
board, in imitation of their prototypes in 
larger corporations, to a late hour; and 
some of them have been noticed for doing 
as much credit to the good cheer provided 
on the occasion, as any alderman at a turtle 
feast. There is no record of the origin of 
this institution, as none of the members of 
the corporation have the gift of reading or 
writing, but there are traces of it beyond 
the memory of any person now living, and 
it has been observed to have increased in 
splendour of late years. 

The fishermen’s guild at Norwich has 
for some years been kept on the real guild- 
day. The procession consists of a great 
number, all fishermen or fishmongers, two 
of whom are very remarkable. The firs* 

























THE TABLE BOOK. 


is the mayor: the last I saw was a well¬ 
looking young man, with his face painted 
and his hair powdered-, profusely adorned 
with a brass chain, a fishing-rod in his 
hand, and a very large gold-laced hat; he 
was supported on the shoulders of several 
of his brethren in a fishing-boat, in which 
he stood up and delivered his speech to 
the surrounding multitude, in a manner 
that did not disgrace him. The other 
personage was the king of the ocean. 
What their conceptions of Neptune were, 
it is as difficult to conceive as his appear¬ 
ance might be to describe. He was repre¬ 
sente ' by a tall man, habited in a seaman¬ 
like manner, his outward robe composed of 
fishing-nets, a long flowing beard ill ac¬ 
corded with a full-dress court wig, which 
had formerly been the property of some 
eminent barrister, but had now changed its 
element, and from dealing out law on the 
land, its mystic powers were transferred to 
the water. In his right hand he carried 
his trident, the spears of which were 
formed of three pickled herrings. His 
Tritons sounded his praise on all kinds of 
discordant wind instruments, and iEolus 
blew startling blasts on a cracked French 
horn. The olfactory nerves of the auditors 
who were hardy enough to come in close 
contact with the procession, were assailed 
by “a very ancient and fish-like smell.” 

! The merriment was rude and very hearty. 

P. B. 


#16 Xtuition Customs. 

For the Table Book. 

. Paul’s Walkers—Hired Witnesses. 

In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. 
a singular custom prevailed of the idle and 
dissolute part of the community assembling 
in the naves or other unemployed parts of 
.urge churches. The nave of St. Paul’s cathe¬ 
dral bote the name of Paul’s Walk ; and so 
little was the sanctity of the place regarded, 
that if the description by an old author* is 
not exaggerated, the Royal Exchange at four 
o’clock does not present a greater scene of 
confusion. I carry t'.'e comparison no far¬ 
ther ; the characters assembled in the church 
appear to have been very different to those 
composing the respectable assembly alluded 
to. The author referred to thus describes the 
place : “ The noyse in it is like that of bees. 



It is the generall mint of all famous lies, 
which are here like the legends popery first 
coyn’d and stampt in the church. All in¬ 
ventions are empty’d here and not a few 
pockets.” “ The visitants are all men 
without exceptions; but the principal inha¬ 
bitants and possessors are stale knights, and 
captaines out of service; men of long ra¬ 
piers and breeches.” 

From the following passage in Hudibras* 

I should judge that the circular church in 
the Temple was the resort of characters of 
an equally bad description : 

“ Retain all sorts of witnesses. 

That ply i’ th’ Temples, under trees, 

Or walk the round , with knights o’ th* posts 
About the cross-legg’d knights, their hosts; 

Or wait for customers between 
The pillar-rows in Lincoln’s Inn.” 

The cross-legged knights, it is almost 
needless to add, are the effigies of the 
mailed warriors, which still remain in fine 

f reservation. The “ pillar-rows in Lincoln’s 
nn,” I apprehend, refer to the crypt, or 
open vault, beneath Inigo Jones's chapel 
in Lincoln’s Inn, originally designed for an 
ambulatory.^ It is singular to reflect on 
the entire change in the public manners 
within two centuries. If coeval authorities 
did not exist to prove the fact, who would 
believe in these days, that, in a civilized 
country, men were to be found within the 
very seats of law ready to perjure them¬ 
selves for hire? or that juries and judges 
did not treat the practice and the encou¬ 
raging of it with a prompt and just severity ? 

St. Thomas’s Day Elections. 

Previous to a court of common council, 
the members were formerly in the habit of 
assembling in the great hall of the Guild¬ 
hall. When the hour of business arrived, 
one of the officers ,of the lord mayor’s 
household summoned them to their own 
chamber by the noise produced by moving 
an iron ring swiftly up and down a twisted 
or crankled bar of the same metal, which i 
was affixed behind the door of the princi¬ 
pal entrance to the passage leading to that 
part of the Guildhall styled* in civic lan¬ 
guage, the inner chambers. The custon. 
was disused about forty years ago. The 
iron, I understand, remained uritil the de¬ 
molition of the old doorway in the last 
general repair of the hall, vfchen the giants 
descended from their stations without hear 


* Part III., Canto III., p. 213. ed. 1084. 
t Vide a paper by l£. J. C. i» Gent’s Mag. vol. x* 
p. I, 5S9. 


840 






































THE TABLE BOOK. 


mg the clock strike, and the new doorway 
was formed in a more convenient place. 
With the old-fashioned gallery, the inva¬ 
riable appendage to an ancient hall, which, 
until that period, occupied its proper place 
over the entrance, was destroyed that terror 
of idle apprentices, the prison of Little 
Ease. This gallery must be still remem¬ 
bered, as well as its shrill clock in a curious 
carved case. Its absence is not compen¬ 
sated by the perilous-looking balcony substi¬ 
tuted for it on the opposite side, an object 
too trifling and frivolous for so fine a room 
as the civic common* hall. 

E. I. C. 

A DEFENCE OF SLANG. 

For the Table Book. 

“ To think like wise men, and to talk 
like common people,” is a maxim that has 
long stood its ground. What is the lan¬ 
guage of “ common people ?” slang — 
ergo, every body ought to talk it. What 
is slang ? Many will answer that it con¬ 
sists of words used only by the lowest and 
most ignorant classes of society, and that 
to employ them would be most ungenteel. 
First, then, we must inquire a little what 
it is to be genteel , and this involves the 
question, what is a gentleman ? Etymo¬ 
logically, every body knows what is the 
meaning of the term; and Dekker, the old 
English play-poet, uses it in this sense, 
when in one of his best dramas he justly 
calls our Saviour 

“ The first true gentleman that ever breathed.” 

Dekker’s greatest contemporary, in refer¬ 
ence to certain qualities he attributes to 
“ man’s deadliest enemy,” tells us, though 
>ve are not bound to take his word for it, 
unless we like it, 

“ The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman 

in which he follows the opinion long before 
expressed by the Italian poet Pulci, in his 
Morgunte Maggiore , (canto xxv. st. 161.) 

Che get atilezza e bene anche in inferno. 

Pulci seems so pleased with this disco¬ 
very, (if it be one,) that he repeats it in 
nearly the same words (in the following 
canto, st. 83.) 

Non credcr tie lo inferno anche fra noi 

Gentilezza non sia. 

The old bone-shoveller in Hamlet main¬ 
tains that your only real and thorough 


gentlemen are your ft gardeners, ditchers,, 
and grave-makersso that, after all, the 
authorities on. this point are various and 
contradictory. If it be objected that slang 
(otherwise sometimes called Jlush) is em¬ 
ployed very much by boxers and prize¬ 
fighters, teachers and practisers of “ the 
noble science of self-defence,” one answer 
may be supplied by a quotation from Aris¬ 
totle, which shows that he himself was well 
skilled in the art, and he gives instiuctions 
how important it is to hit straight instead 
of round, following up the blow by the 
weight of the body. His words upon this 
subject are quoted (with a very different 
purpose certainly) in the last number of 
the Edinburgh Review , (p. 279.) So that 
we need only refer to them. Another “ old 
Grecian” might be instanced in favour of 
the use of slang, and even of incorrect 
grammar; for every scholar knows (and 
we know it who are no scholars) that Aris¬ 
tophanes in the first scene of his comedy, 
named in English The Clouds, makes his 
hero talk bad Greek, and employ language 
peculiar to the stable : the scholiasts assert 
that Phidipptdes ought to have said, even in 
his sleep, u uhnun instead of tx.iix.uf, 
which he uses. However, we are perhaps 
growing too learned, although it will be 
found in the end, (if not already in the 
beginning,) that this is a learned article, 
and ought perhaps to have been sent for 
publication in the Classical Journal. 

What we seek to establish is this :— that 
the language of the ignorant is the language 
of the learned; or in less apparently parr- 
doxical terms, that what is considered slang 
and unfit for “ ears polite,” is in fact a 
language derived from the purest and most 
recondite sources. What is the chief re¬ 
commendation of lady Morgan’s new 
novel ?—for what do ladies of fashion and 
education chiefly admire it? Because the 
authoress takes such pains to show that she 
is acquainted with French, Italian, and 
even Latin, and introduces so many apt 
and inapt quotations. What is the prin¬ 
cipal advantage of modern conversation ? 
That our “ home-keeping youths ” have no 
longer “ homely wits,” and that they inter¬ 
lard their talk with scraps and words from 
continental tongues. Now if we can show 
that slung is compounded, if) a great degree, 
of words derived from German, I'rench, 
Italian, and Latin, shall we not establish 
that what is at present the language of the 
ignorant is in fact the language of the 
learned, and ought to be the language em¬ 
ployed by all gentlemen pretending to 
education, and of all ladies pretending tc 


841 



































THE TABLE BOOK. 


blue-stocking attainments ? We proceed to 
do so by a selection of a few of the piin- 
cipal words which are considered slang or 
/lush, of which we shall show the etymology. 

Blowin —“ an unfortunate girl,” in the 
language of the police-offices. This is a 
very old word in English, and it is derived 
from bluhen, German, to bloom or blossom. 
Some may think that it comes from the 
German adjective blau. The Germans 
speak of a blue-eye , as we talk of a black- 
eye, and every body is aware that blowin* 
are frequently thus ornamented. 

To Jib —a term in boxing. It means, to 
clasp an antagonist round the neck with 
one arm, and to punish him with the othtr 
| hand. It is from the Italian Jibbia, a clasp 
| or buckle. The Italian verb aj/ibiare is 
I used by Casti precisely ifi this sense:— 
Gli affibia un gran ceffon. (Nov. xliii. st. 
65.) 

Fogle —a handkerchief—properly and 
strictly a handkerchief with a bird’s eye 
pattern upon it. From the German vogel, 
a bird. 

Gam —the leg. Liston has introduced 
this word upon the stage, when in Lubin 
Log he tells old Brown that he is stiffish 
about the gams.” We have it either from 
the French jambe, or the Italian gamba. 

Leary —cunning or wary. Correctly it 
ought to be written lehry. The derivation 
of it is the German lehre, learning or 
warning. The authorities for this word are 
not older than the time of James I. 

Max —gin. Evidently from the Latin 
maximus , in reference to the strength and 
goodness of the liquor. 

To nim —to take, snatch, or seize. It is 
used by Chaucer—“ well of English un¬ 
defiled.” It is derived from the Saxon 
niman, whence also the German nehmen, to 
take. We have it in the every-day adjec¬ 
tive, nimble. The name of the corporal in 
Shakspeare’s Henry V. ought to be spelled 
Nim, and not Nym, (as the commentators 
ignorantly give it,) from his furtive propen¬ 
sity. 

Pal —a companion. It is perhaps going 
too far to fetch this word from the Persian 
palaker , a comrade. It rather originates in 
the famous story told by Boccacio, Chaucer, 
Dryden, &c. &c. of the friendship of Pala- 
mon and Arcyte ; pal being only a familiar 
abbreviation of Palamon, to denote an in¬ 
timate friend. 

To prig —to rob or steal. It is doubtful 
whether this word be originally Spanish or 
Italian. Preguntar in Spanish is to demand, 
and robbing on the highway is demanding 
money or life. Priega in Italian is a pe¬ 


tition—a mode of committing theft without 
personal violence. In Engbsh ll c word 
to prig is now applied chiefly to picking ! 
pockets, owing to the degeneracy of modern 
rogues : a prig is a pick-pocket. 

Sappy —foolish, weak. Clearly from the 
Latin sapio—Incus a non lucendo. 

Seedy —shabby—worn out: a term used 
to indicate the decayed condition of one 
who has seen better days : it refers princi¬ 
pally to the state of his apparel: thus a 
coat which has once been handsome, when 
it is old is called seedy , and the wearer is 
said to look seedy. It*is only a corruption 
of the French ci-devant —formerly; with 
an ellipsis of the last syllable. It has no 
reference to running to seed, as is com¬ 
monly supposed. 

Spoony —silly or stupid—is used botn as 
a substantive and as an adjective. Some 
have conjectured that it owes its origin to j 
the wooden spoon at Cambridge, the lowest 
honour conferred by that university, the 
individual gaining it being entitled to no 
other, rather from his dulness than his ig¬ 
norance. Its etymology is in fact to be 
found in the Italian word saporU, soap; 
and it is a well-known phrase that “a stu¬ 
pid fellow wants his brains washing with 
soap-suds.” 

Spree —fun, joke—is from the French 
esprit, as every body must be aware in an 
instant. 

Togs —dress—from the Latin toga, the 
robe worn by Roman citizens. Toggery 
means properly a great coat, but it is also 
used generally for the apparel. 

We might go through the whole vocabu¬ 
lary in the same way, and prove that some 
terms are even derived from the Hebrew, 
through the medium of the Jews; but the 
preceding “ elegant extracts ” will be suffi¬ 
cient. It is to be regretted that the Rev. 
J. H.Todd has been so hasty in publishing 
his second edition of Johnsons Dictionary, 
or he might, and no doubt would, after 
what we have said, include many words 
not now to be found there, and which we 
contend are the chief ornaments of our 
vernacular. Perhaps it would be worth 
his while to add a supplement, and we 
shall be happy to render him any assist 
ance. 

December, 1827. Phii.ologus. 


DIVINATION BY FLOWERS. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—There is a love custom still observed 
in the village of Sutton Bangor, Wilts.— 


842 














— .. 

THE TABLE BOOK. 


Two flowers tnat have not blossomed are 
paired, and put by themselves—as many 
pairs as there are sweethearts in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and tall and short as the respec¬ 
tive sweethearts are. The initials of their 
names are attached to the stamens, and they 
are ranged in order in a hayloft or stable, 
m perfect secrecy, except to those who 
manage and watch their ominous growth. 
If, after ten days, any flower twines the 
other, it is settled as a match ; if any flower 
turns a contrary way, it indicates a want of 
affection; if any flower blossoms, it denotes 
I early offspring ; if any flower dies suddenly, 
it is a token of the party’s death; if any 
flower wears a downcast appearance, sick¬ 
ness is indicated. True it is that flowers, 
from their very nature, assume all these 
positions; and in the situation described, 
their influence upon villagers is consider¬ 
able. I was once a party interested, now 

I am 

A Flowerbud. 


WALTHAM, ESSEX. 

To the Editor. 

Sir,—The following epitaph is upon a 
plain gravestone in the church-yard of 
| Waltham Abbey. Having some point, it 
! may perhaps be acceptable for the Table 
Book. I was told that the memory of the 
worthy curate is still held in great esteem 
by the inhabitants of that place. 

Rev. Isaac Colnett, 

Fifteen years curate of this Parish, 

Died March 1, 1801—Aged 43 years. 

Shall pride a heap of sculptured marble raise. 

Some worthless, unmourn’d, titled fool to praise. 
And shall we not by one poor gravestone show 
Where pious, worthy Colnett sleeps below ? 

Surely common decency, if they are de¬ 
ficient in antiquarian feeling, should induce 
the inhabitants of Waltham Cross to take 
some measures, if not to restore, at least to 
preserve from further decay and dilapida¬ 
tion the remains of that beautiful monument 
of conjugal affection, the cross erected by 
Edward I. It is now in a sad disgraceful 

state. 

I am, he. 

Z. 


FULBOURN, CAMBRIDGE. 

All Saints’ and St. Vigor’s Bells 

To the Editor. 

On a visit to a friend at Fulbourn we 
strolled to the site whereon All Saints’ 
church formerly stood, and his portfolio 
furnished me with the subjoined memo¬ 
randa, which by your fostering care may 
be preserved. 

I am, sir, &c. 

Cambridge, May, 1826. T N. 

Trinity Sunday, 1766. 

This morning at five o’clock the steeple 
of All Saints’ church fell down. An act ot 
parliament passed the 22d May, 1775, to 
unite the service in St. Vigor’s church, and 
to enable the vicar and churchwardens to 
sell the materials and the bells, towards re¬ 
pairing the church of St. Vigor’s — the 
amount was 150/. 0$. 6d. The two broken 
bells were sold towards the expenses; the 
other three, with the two of St. Vigor’s, 
and the saints’ bell, were new cast by E. 
Arnold at St. Neot’s Hunt’s, and six new 
bells were put up on the 9th of May, 1776. 
The subscription amounted to 141/.; the 
bells cost 262/. 2s. 3d.; the frames 45/., 
the six new ropes 1/. 15s.; making together 
the sum of 308/. 17$. 3d. 

The poor inhabitants were so attached 
to the old bells, that they frequently watched j 
them in the evening, lest they should be 
carried away and sold; for the broken bells 
lay among the ruins of All Saints’ church. 
At last their fears subsiding, they neglected 
their watching, and the churchwardens set 
a waggon in Monk’s barn, (hard by,) and 
carried away two of them in the night, de- 
livering them to the Cambridge waggon foi 
St. Neot’s, and returning before morning, 
which occasioned the following 

Ballad. 

There are some farmers in Fulbourn town, 

They have lately sold what was not their own ; 

They have sold the bells, likewise the church, 

And cheat the poor of twice as much. 

And 0 1 you Fulbourn farmers O I 

Some estate there was left, all for the poor. 

They have robb’d them of half, and something more, 
Such dirty tricks will go hard on their sides. 

For the d—1 will have them, and 3inge their hides. 

And O ! you Fulbourn farmers O ! 

Before the bells they could be sold. 

They were forc’d to swear, as we’ve been told, 

They forswore themselves—then they cried. 

For this, my boys, we shall be tried. 

And 0 ! you Fulbourn Cannon 01 


843 














THE TABLE BOOK. 


Tlfiergold Twig, and young Twig—the whining 

dissenter. 

Says one to the other, this night we will venture ; 
And says little Gibble-Gabble, I long for to go. 

But first I will call my neighbour Swing-toe: 

And O! you Fulbourn farmers 0 I 

In the dead of the night this thievish crew 
Broke into the church, as other thieves do. 

For to steal the bells and sell them all, 

May the d—1 take such churchwardens all; 

And 0 1 you Fulbourn farmers O I 

This ba'lad is said to have been the pro¬ 
duction of one William Rolfe, a labourer. 
It was probably written soon after the act 
passed. The new peal was brought home on 
the 9th of May, 1776, so that it was not a 
year from the passing of the act to the cast*? 
mg of the bells. 

| After the bill had been perused by coun-? 

sel, Mr. Edward Hancock, the rector's 

churchwarden, conducted it through both 

houses of parliament without the expense 

of a solicitor; sir John Cotton, one of the 

members for the county, forwarding it in 

the different stages through the House of 

Commons. So earnest were the populace 

about the bells, (when they were satisfied 

they were to have a new peal of six,) that 

after they were loaded they drew them a 

furlong or more before the horses were put 

to the waggon. The tenor was cast in G 

sharp, or old A. Mr. Edmund Andrews 

Salisbury rode on the great bell, when it 

was drawn up within the steeple, and his 

was the first death this bell was rung for; 

he was buried 8th July, 1776. The motto 

on this bell is— 

* 

“ I to tbe church the living call— 

And to the grave I summon all.” 

Mr. Charles Dawson was the author of 
the complete peal of Plain Bob , called 
i “ The Fulbourn Surprise ,” with 154 bobs, 
and two singles, and 720 changes. The 
peal was opened December 7, 1789. 

ST. THOMAS’S DAY. 

Mr. Day’s Short Day. 

Mr. Thomas Day, of D-1, Wilts, 

used, when living, to give his workmen on 
St. Thomas’s Day a holiday, a short pint 
of his ale, an ounce of short-cut tobacco, 
and a short pipe, in remembrance of his 
name. “ For,” said he,—in a couplet de¬ 
cidedly his own,— 

‘ Look round the village where ye may ; 
u the shortest day, to-day.” 

PuCERON. 


A PAGE FROM MY NOTE BOOK. 

For the Table Book. 

Election Bribery. 

The first instance that occurs of this 
practice was so early as 13 Eliz., when one 
Thomas Longe (being a simple man of 
small capacity to serve in parliament) ac¬ 
knowledged that he had given the returning 
officer and others of the borough for which 
he was chosen four pc*jnds, to be returned 
member, and was for that premium elected. 
But for this offence the borough was 
amerced, the member was removed, and 
the officer was fined and imprisoned.—4 . 
hist. 23. Hale of Pari 112. Com.Journ. . 
10 and 11 May, 1571. 

Wonder-working Precedents. 

“ Unless,” said vice chancellor Leach, 
(11th March, 1826, in Mendizabal v. Ma¬ 
chado,) “ Unless I am bound hand and foot 
by precedents, / will not follow such a 
piactice.” 

Mem. 

Blackstone, speaking of apprenticeships, 
says, “ They are useful to the common¬ 
wealth, by employing of youth, and learn- , 
ing them to be early industrious.” 

The same author says, “These payments 
(alluding to first fruits) were only due if 
the heir was of full age, but if he was 
under the age of twenty-one being a male , 
or fourteen being a female, the lord was en¬ 
titled to the wardship of the heir, and was 
called the guardian in chivalry.”— Comm. 
book ii. c. 5. p. 67. 

Dower. 

The seisin of the husband, for a transi¬ 
tory instant only , when the same act which 
gives him the estate conveys it also out of 
him again, (as where, by a fine, land is 
granted to a man, and he immediately ren¬ 
ders it back by the same fine,) such a seisin 
will not entitle the wife to dower: for the 
land was merely hi transitu , and never 
rested in the husband, the grant and render 
being one continued act. But if the land 
abides in him for the interval of but a single 
moment , it seems that the wife shall be en¬ 
dowed thereof.— Black. Comm, book ii 
c. 8. p. 132. 

The author adds in a note : “ This doc¬ 
trine was extended very far by a jury ir. 
Wales, where the father and son were both 


844 





















THE TABLE BOOK. 


nanged in one cart, but the son was sup¬ 
posed to have survived the father, by ap¬ 
pearing to struggle longest; whereby he 
became seised of an estate in fee by su r vi- 
orship, in consequence of which seisin nis 
vidow had a verdict for her dower.’*— Cro. 
Eliz. 503* 

An unintentional Imitation extem¬ 
pore of the 196 M and 7th stanzas of the 
2d canto of Don Juan. 

A mother bending o’er her child in prayer, 
t An arm outstretch’d to save a conquer’d foe. 

The daughter’s bosom to the father’s lips laid bare. 

The Horatii when they woo’d the blow 
That sav’d a nation’s blood, a young girl fair 
Tending a dying husband’s bed of woe. 

Are beautiful; but, oh, nor dead nor liv'mg. 

Is aught so beautiful as woman wrong’d forgiving. 

For there she is, the being who hath leant 
In lone confiding love and weakness all 
On us—whose unreproaching heart is rent 
By our deed ; yet on our cheek but fall 
A tear, or be a sigh but spent. 

She sinks upon the breast whence sprang the gall 
That bitter’d her heart’s blood, and there caressing. 
For pain and misery accords a blessing.- 

Note for the Editor. —“ An unintentional 
imitation” may sound something like a 
solecism, although a very little reflection 
will prove it to be far otherwise. I had 
been reading Don Juan till I had it by 
heart, and nightly spouted to the moon 
Julia’s letter and the invocation to the 
isles of Greece. I had a love fracas; a 
reconciliation, as one of the two alternative 
natural consequences, took place, and the 
! foregoing were part of some propitiatory 
measures that effected it. At the time of 
writing them I had no more ide^. of imi¬ 
tating Byron, than has my Lord Chief Justice 
Best, in his charge to the jury in a news¬ 
paper cause, or crim. con. I wrote them 
rapidly, scarcely lifting my pen till they 
were finished, and certainly without bestow¬ 
ing a word or thought on any thing, except 
the image I pursued; but my mind had 
received a deep impression from my late 
reading, and my thoughts assumed the form 
they did from it, unknown to me. Some 
months afterwards,I was reciting the passage 
1 from Byron alluded to; I had heaid some¬ 
thing like it; I repeated it; I was more 
struck; I rack’d my brain and my lady s 
letter-box, and made this discovery. 

J. J. K. 


Original fJoftrp. 

For the Table Book. 
CHRISTMAS. 

Old Christmas comes again, and with him brings. 
Although his visits are in times austere. 

Not only recollections of good things. 

But beareth in his hands substantial cheer : 
Though short and dark the day, and long the night. 
His joyous coming makes all faces bright. 

And when you make your doors and windows fast. 

And to your happy cheerful hearth retire, 

A paradise is yours, safe lrom the blast. 

In the fair circle gathering round the fire ; 

Whilst these, with social converse, books, and wine. 
Make Winter’s rugged front almost divine ! 

W. M. W. 


SONNET. 

An Autumnal Midnight. 

I walk in silence and the starry night; 

And travellers with me are leaves alone, 

Still onward fluttering, by light breezes blown. 
The moon is yet in heaven, but soon her light. 

Shed through the silvery clcuds and on the dark 
Must disappear. No sound I hear s;*ve trees 
Swayed darkly, like the rush of fat-qff seas 
That climb with murmurs loud the rocky steep. 
There wakes no crowing cock, nor watch-dog’s baik 
I look around, as in a placid dream 
Existing amidst beauty, and I seem 
Relieved from human weakness, and from sleep, 

A happy spirit ’neath the boundless heaven, 

To whom not Day alone but Night is give* ! 

W. M. W. 


• On a similar taking by the contingency of drown¬ 
ing, Fearne, the elegant writer on “ Contingent 
Remainders,” has an admirable argument—a master¬ 
piece of eloquent reasoning.— Edit. 


SEASONABLE STANZAS. 

Winter, with hoary locks and frozen face. 

Hath thrown his naked sceptre from his hand ; 

And he ha-th mended now his sluggish pace. 

Beside the blazing yule-block fire to stand. 

His ice-bound visage ’ginneth to expand ; 

And, for the naked pine-branch which he swayed. 

He, smiling, hath a leaf-gTeen sceptre planned ; 

The ivy and the holly he doth braid. 

Beneath whose berries red is many a frolick played. 

Now not in vain hath been the blooming spring, 

The fruitful summer and the autumn sere ; 

For jolly Christmas to his board doth bring 
The happy fulness of the passed year ; 

Man’s creeping blood and moody looks to cheer. 
With mirthful revel rings each happy dome; 

Unfelt within the snows and winds severe ; 

The tables groan with beef, the tankards foam. 

And Winter blandly smile* to cheer tne British home. 

w. m. w. 


815 







































THE TABLE BOOK. 


©rtgntal $oetrp. 

For the Table Book. 

The accompanying lines were written in 
allusion to that beautiful Gem of Dagley’s 
which Mr. Croly (page 21 of the vol.) sup¬ 
poses a Diana, and which Tassie’s Cata¬ 
logue describes as such. I have, however, 
made bold to address her in her no less 
popular character of 

EURYDICE. 

* Ilia quidem dum te fugeret per flumina praeceps 
Immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella 
Servantem ripas altA non vidit in herb&.” 

Virg. Georg. IV. 

Art can ne’er thine anguish lull. 

Maiden passing beautiful! 

Strive thou may’st,—’tis all in vain ; 

Art shall never heal thy pain : 

Never may that serpent-sting 
Cease thy snow-white foot to wring. 

Mourner thou art doom’d to be 
Unto all eternity. 

Joy shall never soothe thy grief} 

Thou must fall as doth the leaf 
In thine own deep forest-bower. 

Where thy lover, hour by hour. 

Hath, with songs of woodland glee. 

Like the never-wearied bee. 

Fed him on the fond caress 
Of, thy youth’s fresh loveliness. 

Youth !—’tis but a shadow now;— 

Never more, lost maid, must thou 
Trip it with coy foot across 
Leafy brooks and beds of moss ; 

Never more, with stealthy tread, 

Track the wild deer to his bed. 

Stealing soft and silently. 

Like the lone moon o’er the sea. 

Vain thy lover’s whisper’d charm ; 

Love can never death disarm; 

Hush’d the song he oft hath sung,— 

Weak his voice, his lyre unstrung. 

Think, then, if so hard to heal 
Is the anguish thou dost feel. 

Think—how bitter is the smart 
When that wound is in the heart 1 

‘ • « • 

Hampstead ,. 


Notice. 

The Index, &c. to the present volume 
of the Table Book will conclude the work . 

I respectfully bid my readers Farewell! 

* 



SPORTS AND PASTIMES 

OF 

THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 

Perhaps I may be excused for noticing 
the forthcoming octavo edition of “The 
Sports and Pastimes of England,”— 
a work of very curious research and re¬ 
markable information, written and pub¬ 
lished in quarto by the late Mr. Joseph 
Strutt. 

The Octavo Edition will be printed 
in a superior manner, on fine paper, with 
at least 140 Engravings. It will be pub¬ 
lished in Monthly Parts, price One Shilling 
each, and each part, on an average, will 
contain fourteen engravings. Above half 
of the drawings and engravings are al¬ 
ready executed, and other means are taken 
to secure the punctual appearance of the 
work. The printer is already engaged or. 
/t, and the first part will certainly appeal 
before the first of February. 

A copious Index will be prepared 
and the work be edited by 

January 1 , 1828 W. Honk. 

















— — " ■ • ■ - ■ - - - — ' ' ' " ' "" ' - 1 - - 


GENERAL INDEX, 


Abduction, curious respite from execu¬ 
tion for, 621 

Abersliaw, Jerry, 4S8, 489 
Abingdon, old parish accompts of, 241 
Aborigines, 638 

Abraham, heights of, in Derbyshire,482 
Abridgment of a library by Pilpay, 124 
Accidents to one man, 478 
Accompaniment to roasting, 516 
Accommodation extraordinary, 281 
Acquaintance table, 189 
Actors—acting of old men by children, 
677. See Plays 

Admiral, lord high ; office and seal of, 287 
Adoption of children in France, 110 
“ Adrasta,” old play, 161 
Advertisement; at Ghent, 30; letter in 
consequence of one, 30; singular one, 
525, 670, 722, 775 

Advice, danger of giving, 165. See 
Counsels 

Affectation, less prevalent among women 
than formerly, 179 

African young woman’s compliment to 
her lover, 94 

Age, reason for not reckoning, 590 
Agriculture, British, derived from the 
Homans, 197 

“ Ahab,” by S. R. Jackson, 249 
Air, and exercise for ladies, 105; philo¬ 
sophy of, 666 

Airay, Thomas, Grassington manager, 
notice of, 35, 538 

Albany and York, duke of, 47; the 
dukedom of Albany, 205 
Albemarle, duke of, creditable patronage 
by, 382 

Alcock, Rev. Mr., the waggish clergy¬ 
man, 317 

Alderson, Hut., of Durham, 183 
Ale, Prynne “put into the road of 
writing” by, 363; old English, 590; 
antiquity of beer, 787 
Alfred, tomb of, 781 
Alia Bhye, East Indian princess, 674 
“ All Fools,” old play, 96 
Allan-a-Maut, engraving, 58 
Allen, Rev. Mr., fatal duel fought by, 361 
Alleyn, the actor, “ master of the bears 
and dogs,” 249; the Roscius of his 
day, 738, (note) 

Alliteration, clever specimen of, 78 


Ally, a good one, 316 
Almanacs; Liege, 137; curious notices 
in French almanacs, 270 
Alms-houses, [workhouses;] none before 
the Reformation, 196 
Amadeus, duke of Savoy, 711 
Ambassadors, former custom of, 332 
“ Ambitious Statesman, (The)” old play, 
690 

Atnilcas the fisherman, 734 
Amsterdam, notices of, 493, 644 
Amuratli, sultan, effect of music on, 115 
Anaximander, and other ancients, 824. 
See Ancients. 

Ancients and moderns, discoveries of, 
443, 456, 474, 505, 515. 521, 537, 585, 
602, 617, 633, 650, 666, 730, 776, 785, 
808, 824 

-; mode of writing of the 

ancients, 512; superiority of their 
music, 515; casualties among, 701 
Ancient Britons, See Wales. 

Andalusia, deadly irritation of winds iu, 
137 

“ Andronicus,” old play, 642 
Angel help, 376 

Angling, notices concerning, 330 
Angouleme, duchess of; anecdote of, 5 
Animals, theories on generation of, 810 

-; a common effect of attempting 

to domesticate wild ones, 309; con¬ 
nection between muscular power and 
speed, 309; experiment of music upon, 
346 

Animated nature, 522 
Anne, queen, 536 
Antipathies, instances of, 509 
“ Antipodes, (The)” old play, 352, 595 
Antiquarian Hall, engraving and memoir 
of, 70 

Antique bronze found in the Thames, 134 
Anty Brignal and the Begging Quaker, 
795 

Aphorisms; by Lavater, 140; by other 
persons, 414, 494, 505. See Counsels. 
“Apostle Spoons,” 823 
Apothecary or Dramatist, 620 
Apparitions, curious narrative of, 355 
Apprentices, former maxims for, 281, 
282; to be found in sufficient wigs, 631 
Archimedes, and other ancients, 825. 
See Ancients. 


o 

i> I 


847 


















GENERAL INDEX. 


Architecture, brought in by the Nor¬ 
mans, 197 

“Arden of Feversliam,” old play, 112 
Aremburg, duke of, his love of the arts. 
5 

Argyll, customs of, 464 
Aristarchus, and other ancients, 824. 
See Ancients. 

Aristotle, former bondage to, 444 

Arithmetical notices, 380 

Armorial bearings; of ambassadors, 332; 

having emblems of the devil, 350 
Armories, formerly possessed by private 
lords and gentlemen, 196 
Arms [of the human body,] one stated to 
be broken by the tlirobbings of rheu¬ 
matism, 71 

Armstrong, Dr., notice of, 469 
“ Arraignment of Paris,” old play, 256 
Arran, earl of, his letter on duke of 
Buckingham’s death, 263 
Arrens, near Marseilles, interring the 
carnival at, 136 

Artist’s (Young), letter from Switzer¬ 
land, 214; letter of one to his son, 479 
Arts, benevolent application of protits 
from, 255 

Arts and Sciences, skill of the ancients 
in. See Ancients. 

Arum, herb called, 599 
Ash, (mountain) an antidote to witch¬ 
craft, 337 

Ashburton Pop, 592 
“ Asparagus Gardens, (The) ” 596 
Assignats, (French) engraving, 519 
Astronomy, curious tract on, 540; an¬ 
cients’ knowledge of, 811. See 
Ancients. 

Astrologers, account of Hart, 68 
Atheism, scandals to, 801 
Attraction, 585 

Aubrey, John, curious collection by, 195 
Audley, Hugh, usurer, life of, 450 
Augustus, anecdote of, 530 
AuId Robin Gray, ballad of; history of, 
100, 101 

Aurora Borealis, opinions on, 731 
Authors; Mrs. Charkereading her manu¬ 
script to a bookseller, engraving of, 63 ; 
suggestions to authors, 124; their two 
wishes, 140; peculiarities of in com¬ 
posing, 341; prolific authors, 363 
Authors, difficulties of, 476, 501; vanity 
of, 546, 820 

Autograph of Charles Lord Howard of 
Effingham, 287 

Avarice, sorts of, 453. See Misers. 
Avenues of trees near Scheveling, 645 
Avon Mill, Wilts, 587 

Babylon, 825 

Bacchus, bronze head of, found in the 
Thames, 134 


Bachelors; bachelor’s desk, 512; budge 
bachelors, 533; miserable home of ba¬ 
chelors, 549; pocket-book of one, 617 
Bacon, gammon of, at Easter, 195 

-, lord ; his judgment on books, 

109; his method of condensing thought, 
341 

-(Friar) and his servant, 317 

Badajos, (the dean of) 162 
Bag, duel with, 10 

Bagdad, effect of music after capture of, 

115 

Baker, Miss Polly, fiction of, 45 
Bakewell, in Derb.; monuments, &c., in 
church of, 513 

Baldwin, Samuel, singular burial of, 206 
Ballads, licenses for printing, 393 
“ Ballad Singer,” 747 
Bank, (country) capital for, 30 

-side bear garden, 245 

Banquet given by Whitelock to queen of 
Sweden, 276 

“-of the dead,” 672 

Bans, happy, 472 

Baptizing, customs touching, 426 

Barbers; description of a barber, 121; 

Dudley, barber, at Portsmouth, 203 
Bargest, the spectre hound, 742 
Barley-break, an old pastime, 19 
Barnard, lady Ann, poetess, 100 
Barnes, Joshua, epitaph for, 430 
Barre, (Du) madame, and the Liege 
almanac, 137 

Barrington, George, notice of, 490 
“ Bastard, (The) ” old play, 500 
Bate, Rev. Mr., three duels fought by, 
361 

Bath chairman, mock funeral of, 21 
Bathing, utility of, 410; (earth), 695 
Battalia, Francis, a stone-eater, 178 
Battle; prize-fighting formerly sometimes 
with swords, 248; “Battle of the 
Poets,” 204; “ Battle of Alcazar,” old 
p^ay, 243 ; field of battle, 331 
Battle-bridge, remains of an elephant 
found near, 40 

B iyswater, projected improvement at, 108 
Bazaar, (Soho) 77 

Bear garden, (old) Southwark, 245; of 
elector of Saxony, 245 
Bear and Tenter, boys’ play, 596 
Bears, habits of, 599 

Beards on women, superstition about, 426 
Beauty, compliment to, 172; ingenuous 
disclaimer of, 621; beauties at church, 
801 

Beaux not always mere coxcombs, 333; 

English and French, 801 
Beckenham, Kent, 383; bridge in road 
to, 351 

Bed, (celestial) 695 

Bede (venerable) a hot Spicer, 6f 7 

Beer, antiquity of, 787 


848 














GENERAL INDEX. 


Bees; “Parliament of Bees,” old play, 
67 ; a boy bee-eater, curious account 
of, 373 

Beeston, clerk of, 210 
Beethoven, musician, memoir of, 516 
Begging Quaker, &c., 795 
“ Begin again,” 211 

Behnes, Air., his bust of duke of York, 47 
Belfast, Easter custom at, 253 
Belgrade, siege of, 78 
Bell, (diving) origin and notices of, 382 

-, (Tommy) engraving of, 326 

Bellows end bellows-makers, 716 
Bells. See Ringing. 

“ Belphegor,” old play, 690 
Berne, description of, 214 
Berners, dame Julia, treatise on field 
sports by, 196 
Best of a bad matter, 381 
Beverley, a strong porter, 6S9 
Beverley, St. John of, 687 
Bhye, Alia, amiable character of, 674 
Bibliomaniac ridiculed, 109 
Bibo’s (General) tale, 258 
Bibury, rector of, 251 
Bielfield, baron, his account of the dance 
of torches, 54 
Bigotry punished, 279 
Bilbocquet, a royal amusement, 588 
Bill of fare, 436 

“Billet(Crooked)’’ on Penge Common, 335 
Billingsgate, old satire on, 84 
Billy Botts, notice and engraving of, 151 
Biisington Priory, tenure of, 308 
Birds; waterfowl at Niagara, 681; Dr. 
Fuller’s account of one, 558; Sandy’s 
method of ha'ching their eggs, 755. 
See Storks, &c. 

Bird-catcher, engraving of, 295 

-seller, engraving of, 255 

-; a play in which all the characters 

are birds, 67; particulars respecting 
birds, 294, 296. See Parrots, Star¬ 
lings. 

Birmingham old conjurors, 117 
-, clubs of, 489 ; manufactures, 

&c. of, 712 

Bisiiops; one misled by a saint, 208; 
“bishop of Butterby,” 183; resigna¬ 
tion of one, 466 

Black jacks and warming pans, 8 

—--letter books, curious criticism on, 

213 

Blacking, notices about, 632 
Blacksmiths; their endurance of fire, 
158; Gretna-green blacksmith, 216 
Blackthorn, old custom of, 534 
Blake, W, hostler, engraving of, 438 
Bleeding; for one’s country, 45; practised 
by a woman, 71; former frequency of, 
240: in silence and psalmody, ib. 

Blind Hannah, engraving of, 111 
-Willie, of Newcastle, 231 


Blood, circulation of, notices about, 776 
Bloody hand, (the) 129 
Bloomfield, George, poet’s brother, en¬ 
graving of, 815 

---, Robert, poet, notice of, 815 

“ Blurt, Master Constable,” old play, 784 
“ Blythe Cockpen,” and the merry mon¬ 
arch, 206 

Boar’s head, custom concerning, 43, 195 
Bodmin, royal joke on, 174 
Bodies, elements of, 521 
Bogs, remarks on timber in, 93 
Bolton, John, of Durham, 619 
Bonaparte; his grand procession to Notre 
Da me, 252; his system of over-govern¬ 
ing, 367 ; at Torbay, 594 
Boaes, curious account of breaking of 
one, 71; embalming of, 2SS; advice for 
breaking, 670 
Bon- fire, singular one, 381 
Booker, Rev. L., notice of, 496 
Books; pleasures and consolation of, 8, 
109; old, with new titles, 34; one 
dedicated to the author, 63; proper 
standard of, 124; (black letter) naif 
criticism on, 213; when first made of 
paper, 254; lending of, 557, 558; my 
pocket-book, 616; device taken from a 
book of prayers, 722, (note). S'e 
Doomsday book. 

Booksellers, an author reading a manu¬ 
script to one; engraving, 63 
Boots, Billy, engraving of, 151 
Boots, importance of sliape of, 670 
Boswelliana, 542 

Bowel complaints, receipt for, 542 
Bowring, Mr., his “ Popular Servian 
Poetry,” 265 

Boys; at school, 75; on errands, 75; 

account of a boy bee-eater, 373 
Braco, Lord, and a farthing, 535 
Bradenstoke Priory, 116 
Brandon, Gregory, hangman, 764 
Brass-works, 715 

“ Brazen Age, (The)” old play, 224 
Bread seals, used by ladies, 45 
Breach of promise, curious case of, 90 
Breakfast, singular dishes at, 309 
Breaking of an arm bone by rheumatism, 

71 

Brecon, minstrelsy society at, 169 
Breeds, (mixed) curious complaint of, 313 
Brentford Hannah, [Blind Hannah,] en¬ 
graving of, 111 

Brewer’s drayman, character of, 187 
Brewing, private, 386 
Bribery, in England, by foreigners, 422 
“ Bridal, of Caolchairn,” 392; public, 601 
Bride, description of one, 148 
“ Bride, (The)” old play, 481 
Bridesman, 147, 148 
Bridlington, irregular stream near, 115* 
custom at, 705 


£49 


















UEJSEKAL INDEX. 


Bristol, Lent custom at, 313; opulence 
and inns at, 536; prince George of 
Denmark at, 53G; high cross at, 772 
Britannia’s sup-porter, 206 
British Museum, pleasures and facilities 
of, 56 

-poetesses, by Mr. Dyce, 98 

-portraits, sale catalogue of, 118 

Britons, (ancient). See Wales. 
Bromholm, former pilgrimage to, 196 
Bromley, bishop's well at, 447; engraving 
of the church-door, 463; extraordinary 
ringing at, 678 

Bronz antique, found in the Thames, 
134 

Brockcs, Mr. J., dissection of king’s 
ostrich by, 309 

“ Brose and Butter,” a favourite royal 
air, 206 

Brothers, younger not allowed formerly 
to pursue trades, 197 
Brough in Westmoreland; twelfth night 
customs at, 13; March fair at, 159; 
church, 409 

Brougham, Mr., his speech on the found¬ 
ing of the London university, 298 
Brouwer, a painter, notice of, 5 
Bruce, lord Edward, notices about, 527 
Brummelliana, 333 
“ Brutus of Alba,” old play, 7/0 
Bryan, Daniel, a brave old seaman, 316 
Brvdges, sir E., epitaph on bis daughter, 
554 

Buckles, notices » f, 713 
Budeup, (the learned), blunder of, 621 
Budge, [Fur] notices about, 532; budge- 
baehelors, 533; Budge-row, 533 
Buiidingestimates should be doubled, 590 
Bunyan’s Holy War dramatized, 426 
Burial in gardens, 644. See Funerals 
Burkitt, Dan., au old jigger, 553 
Bust tavern, Bristol, 436 
Butler, (Hudibras), hint adopted by, 619 
Buttons, notices about, 712 
Buying and selling, 520 

Cabalistic learning, 424 
Cabbage and tailors, 236 
Cabbage-trees, vast height of, 650 
Cairo, characteristic salutation at, 99 
Calvin and Servetus, 779 
Camberwell Grove, 405 
Campbell, Mr. T., speech of at Glasgow, 
37 9 

Campbells, the, 389 
Cann, Abraham, wrestler, 664 
Canons, near Edgeware, former celebrity 
of, 311 

CAPITAL extempore, 654 
Capital for banking, 30 

-punishments, 228, 230 

Capon, William, scene painter, notice of, 
769 


Caps and hats, fashionablo days for new 
ones, 239 

Captain and lieutenant, mortal duel be¬ 
tween, 362 

Cards, fortune-telling, 37 

Carew, lady Elizabeth, 98 

Carlisle, customs at, 601 

Carnival, ceremony of interring, 136,137 

Carthago, Nova, its present to Scipio, 133 

Carts, dignity of, 85 

Castle-building. 232 

-baynard, tale of, 535 

Coombe, tickling trout at, 331 



Casualties of the ancients, 701 
Cataracts of Niagara, 680 
Catherine de Medicis, vow of, 238 
Catherinot, a French pamphleteer, 364 
Catholic German universities, 62 
Caverns, tremendous one, 625 
Cawston church, poor’s box in, 374 
Centenaries ; medal for the centenary of 
the diet of Augsburgh,, 575; centenary 
of the revolution, 672 
Ceremonies, a true paper currency, 110 
Cesar and Amilcas, 733 
“ Chabot, Adm. of France,” old play, 417 
Chafin, Rev. Mr., his anecdotes about 
Cranbourue Chase, 16 
Chains, hanging in, 489 
Chairman (Bath) mock funeral of, 21 
Chairs (arm,) 393; curious ones, 632, 725 
Challenges, a poetical solicitor’s answer 
to one, 362. See Duels. 

“ Challenge to Beauty,” old play, 663, 725 
Chambers, James, the poor poet, 218 
Chancellor, (lord) office of, 365 
Chancerj’, 270; despatch in, 365 
Chandler, Alary, a poetess, 100 
“Changes, (The)” old play, 209 
Characters; of servants at hirings, 89; 
national, in compliment, 93, &c.; tend¬ 
ency of former lessons to meanness of 
character, 282; character of the old 
gentleman, 59; of Kimberley, a Bir¬ 
mingham conjuror, 118; of the barber, 
121; of Airs. Aurelia Sparr, 170; of 
Agrestilla, 179; of the drayman, 186; 
a literary character, 205; of “ the 
good clerk,” 281; of the Durham pit¬ 
men, 326 

Cliarke, Airs., her autobiography, 63; 

farther notices, 129 
Charlemagne, privilege granted by, 277; 

misfortunes in family of, 613 
Charles I., curious anecdote concerning, 
351; and treaty of Uxbridge, 675 

-II., character of, 274; anecdotes 

of, 351, 366, 430; procession on his 
restoration, 667; his court, 830 

-V., bribery of English parliament 

by, 422 

Charlestown, ugly club at, 234; duelling 
society at, 360 


850 


































UENEKAL index. 


Charost, M. de, a royal favourite, 670 
Chartres, duke of, notice of, 519 
Cliarybdis and Seylla, conflicting de¬ 
scriptions of, 321, 353 
“ Chaste Maid in Cm apside,” old play, 
128 

Chastity of Scipio, 133 
Chateaubriand, viscount de, anecdote of, 
622 

Chatham, earl of, 406 
Chatsworth, 482 

Coaworth, Mr., duel with lord Byron, 361 
Cheapside Turk, inquiry for, 97 
Cheese and stones, comparative digesti¬ 
bility of, 178 

Chemistry of tiie ancients, 786, 7S7, 808 
Chequers at public-houses, 433 
“ Cherry woman ” of long since, engrav¬ 
ing of, 343 

Chest, a wo> derfullv capacious one, 353 
Chester, mysteries of, treated by Mr. 

Sharp, 7; custom at, 721 
Chester field, lord, bleeding for his coun¬ 
try, 45 

Chiari and rival dramatists, 420 
Children, lost, proper means for recover¬ 
ing, 9; adoption of, in France, 110; 
former austere treatment, of, 197; 
customs relating to, 425; children ami 
mother, 635; children and split trees, 
superstition concerning, 647 ; affection 
tor, 660 

Chi item Hundreds, account of, 325 
Chimneys, rate before the Reformation, 
195; smoky, how cured, 2*6 
Chinese ceremonies of salutation, 94; 
idol, 314 

Christening, customs at, 426 
Christian Malford, plague at, 691 
Christina queen of Sweden, curious colla¬ 
tion given to, 276 

Christmas customs, 195, 196; pie, 677 
Christ’s sepulchre and resurrection, 242 
Chrysanthemum Indicum, 783 
Churches; church processions, 196; 
church-houses before the Reformation 
described, 196; few built in the cor 
rect line, 197; throughout Europe, 
pope’s gra,nt to Italian architects for 
building, 197; organs first used in, 237 ; 
(see Organs;) visiting the churches, 
239; curious old church aecoinpts, 241; 
remarks on beautifying, 427; custom 
of strewing with rushes, 553 See 
Fonts. 

Church-yards, beautiful one at Grass- 
mere, 553 

Cibber, (Colley) life of his daughter, 63 
Cigar divan of Mr. Gliddon, 751 
Cinderella, origin of, 774 
Circle, squaring the, 813 
Circulation of the blood, 776 
Cities, ancient, 825 


“ City nightcap,” old play, 280 
Civil zation promoted by trade, 520 
Clare, Elizabeth, her intense attachment, 
229 

Clarence, duke of, lord high admiral, 289 
dukedom of Clarence, 205 
Classes of mankind, how many, 228 
Clemency, policy of, 201 
Cleopatra’s pearl, 809 
Clergy, luxurious dress of, 532; weekly 
expenses of a clergyman, 556; devoted 
attachment of one to his flock, 656 
Clergyman, a waggish one, 317; duels 
fought by, 361 ; office of lord chan¬ 
cellor formerly held by, 365 
“ Clerk, (the good)” 281 
Clerk’s desk, 512 

Clerkehwell, ancient river Fleet at, 38 
Clerks and parsons, anecdotes about, 331 
Clocks, difference between, accounted 
for, 619 

Closing the eyes, 428 
Clothes, economical allow mce for, 334 
j Clubs, the ugly, 132, 234; parliament, 
140; the silent, 234; the duellists’ in 
Charlestown, 361 ; at Birmingham, 459 
Coaches, in 1684, 85; coach and steam 
travelling compared, 131 
Coachman, considerate, 4*7 
Coats, how speedily made, 457 
“Cock and i'ynoi” public-house, 67! 

Coin, (old silver) how to read inscrip¬ 
tions of, 226 

Coke, sir Edward, immense fan used by, 

197 

Colas, a celebrated diver, 324 
Cole, Mr, J., his “Antiquarian Trio,” 
263, 265 

Colliers of Durham, account of, 326 
Colossus of Rhodes, 826 
Colours, the Isabella colour, 279; philo- j 
sophy of, 617 

Columns, engraving of a curious British 
one, 175 

Comets, philosophy of, 650 
Commerce, tendency of, 520 
Companies, certain uses of, 115 
Compliments, 98; a natural compliment, 
172; compliment to a young laird, 542 
Condemnation, criminal, stupefaction at¬ 
tending, 229 

Confession of Augsburgh, medal about, 
575 

Conjurors, (Birmingham) 117 
Conscience, force of, 69, 201 
Constable’s “ Miscellany,” 67 
Controversy, 494 

Convents, ambition of the nuns in, 239 
Cooke, Rev. T., inquiry about, G8; notice 
of, 203 

Cookery aided l>v music, 516 
Cookeslev, Mr., p&rrun of Mr. W. Gifford, 

26 


851 

























GENERAL INDEX. 


Cooks for the royal table, 189 
Copernican system, 633 
Copper mines, valuable, in Cornwall, 329 
Cordeliers, tlieir lists of candidates how 
arranged, 349 
Cordon, sanitary, 661, 662 
Corineus, a Trojan giant, 722, 723 
Cornwall, valuable mines in, 329; suf¬ 
fered little in recent pressure, 330; 
parsons and clerks in, 331; wrestling 
in, 664 

Corporations, anatomy of, 262; fools kept 
by, 591 

Corpuscular philosophy, 537 
Corral—a poor cottager, 806 
Cortusius Lodovick, a lawyer, funeral of, 
350 

Cottagers, singular difficulties of one, 
607, &c. 

Coulour, in Golconda, celebrated for dia¬ 
monds, 414 

Counsels and cautions, 494, 505, 590, 653. 
686, 823 

Counter, tradesman’s duty behind, 283 
Country, bleeding for, 5; parties and 
p’easures, 179; little known, 354; for¬ 
mer manners of country gentlemen, 
196; country (native), 819; dances, 430 
Court banquet, innocent gaiety at, 276 
Courtier, shrewd, 203; humiliation of 
one, 501 

Courts of justice, contrast of feelings in, 
229 

Courtship, patient, 823 
Covent Garden,gam biing-houses formerly 
in, 43 

Coventry, pageant vehicle and play at, 6 
Coward, Nathan, glover and poet, 544 
Cowper, the poet, two letters of, 376 
Crabbe, poet, criticism on, 342 
Crabbing for husbands, 6^7 
Cranbourne Chase, notice and engraving 
of emigration of deer from, 15; town 
and parish of Cranbourne, ib.; bloody 
cffray in the chase, 16; origin and 
history of the chase, 18 
Craven, (Skipton in) theatrical company 
in, 35; legend of, 258 
Craven, notices of, 536, 775; stories of 
the Craven dales, 741, 802 
Creditors, unblu hing impudence of one, 
334 

Cresses, green-grocers’ devices with, 304 
Cries, London ; engraving of the “ young 
lambs” seller, 198; of the bird-seller, 
255; of the cherry-woman, 343; of the 
old water-carrier, 367; old London, 630 
Criminals, capital, feelings of before and 
after hanging, 228 
Criticism, killing, 740 
Cromwell, Oliver, anecdote of, 10 
Crown lands, under Elizabeth, 290, 291 
Cruelty relenting at music, 115 


Crusades, effects of, 196 
Crystal summer-house, 541 
Cuckoo-pint, a plant, 599 
Cumberland, weddings, 397; customs of, 
601, 694 

Cups, gold and maple, exchange of at 
coronations, 308 

Cup and ball, a royal amusement, 588 
Cushion dance described, 81 
Customers, how to be considered, 283; a 
spruce mercer and a lady customer, 
284; invitation of customers, 314 
Cyrus, his love of gardening, 6-14 

Dabshelim, king of India, library of, 124 
Dairy poetiy, 533 

Damages for breach of promise by a 
negro, 90 

Dan by, earl of, and the revolution, 671 
Dancing, goose-dancing described, 41; 
the dance of torches, 54; cushion 
dance, 81; Mav-day dance of milk¬ 
maids, 279; particular wedding dances, 
397; country dances, 430; profound 
study of minuets, 446; dancing round 
the harrow, 513 

Darwin, Dr., his “ Botanic garden,” 644, 
(note.) 

Davenant, sir W., his description of 
London, 84 

“ David and Bethsabe,” old play, 305 
“ David’s Sow, (As drunk as)” explained, 
190 

Davy, (old) the broom-maker, 640 
D'Arcy, Mr. J., and the revolution, 672 
Death; “Death’s Doings,” 120; horror 
at mention of, 212; description of a 
deathbed, 213; banquet of the dead, 
258; custom of laying salt on the 
dead, 262; singular disposal of a royal 
corpse, 288; singular phantasms or 
figures of the dead, 355 
Death and virtue, dialogue between, 
424; superstitions touching death, 464 
Decimals, 382 

Decker, the dramatist, excellence of, 179 
Dedication, curious, 63 
Deer, emigration of from Cranbourne 
Chase, notice and engraving of, 15; 
driven from the Highlands, 377; their 
abhorrence of sheep, ib., 378 
“ Defeat of Time, (The)” 582 
Defoeana, 282, 313 
Delaval (Sir) and the monk, 300 
Democritus, notice of, 810 
Denton castle, seat of Fairfax, 344 
Deposits, a well-kept one, 622 
Derbyshire, notices respecting, 420, 482, 
655,661, 672 
Descent, canons of, 446 
“ Desolation of Eyam, (The)” 655 
Despotism, virtuous, 674 
“ Devil’s Law Case, (The)” old play, 4S0 














GENERAL INDEX. 


Devil’s punch-bowl in Surrey, 487 
“ Devil,” often assumed as a surname, 
with corresponding arms, 349 
Devonshire, butterfly hunting in, 339; 
wrestling, 622, 66'4 

-, duchess of, compliment to, 

172 

•-, earl of, and the revolution, 

671 

Dial, ancient, 424 
Diamond cut diamond, 325 
Diamonds, where and liow found, 414 
Diarrhaea, receipt for, 542 
Diligence and delight, 365 
Diligence (French) described, 506 
Dining on Coke, 446; royal dinner time, 

790 

Dinner, mysterious privacy of, 212 
Diophantes and other ancients, 824. See 
Ancients. 

Directions; pious direction posts, 270; 

a particular direction, 338 
Discoveries of the ancients and moderns, 
456, 474, 505, 521, 537, 585, 602, 617, 
633, 650, 666, 730, 776, 785, 808, 824 
Discount for cash, 142 
Disease, philosophical observation under, 
356 

Diseases, passing patients through trees 
for, 647 

Dishes for the royal table marked, 189 
Disputation to be avoided, 494 
Distillation, ancients’ knowledge of, 808 
Ditton, (Thames) great resort of anglers, 
330 

Diver of Charybdis, account of, 353 
Diving-bell, origin and notices of, 382 
Diversions, political origin of some, 596 
Doctor degraded, 734 
Doctors, dilemma against, 41 
“ Dodypol, Doctor,’’ old play, 449 
D ge of Venice, marriage of, 226 
Dolcoath, valuable mine in Cornwall, 329 
Domitian, (the emperor) inscription for, 

791 

“ Don Quixotte,” old play, 643 
Doomsday-book, dissertations on, 305 
Dorking, Leith hill, near, 473 
Dormer, judge, 203 

Dover Cliffs, humane warning against,225 
Dover pig, 780 

“ Downfall of May-games,” 273 
-of Robert, earl of Hunting¬ 
don, old play, 400 
Draining the fens, effect of, 72 
Dramatists; rival Italian damatists, 420 ; 
dramatist or apothecary, 620; Drama, 
See plays. 

Drayman, brewer’s, description of, 187 
Drayton, his sarcasm on trade, 282 
Dreams, a black dream, 477 
Dresden, elector’s bear-garden at, 245 
Drunk as David’s Sow,” 190 


Drunkards, the place they go to, 270; 
warning to, 412 

“ Duchess of Suffolk,” old play, 292 
Duddlestone, John, of Bristol, 536 
Dudley [a barber] of Portsmouth, 203 
Duels; singular mode of duelling with a 
bag, 10; interesting account of duel"-, 
360; poetical answer to a challenge, 
362; of Sir E. Sackville and Lord E. 
Bruce, 527, &c. 

Dulwich college, and the founder, 248, 
249, 335 

Dumplings,Norfolk, by whom to beea en, 
178 

Dunchurch cow and calf, 776 
Dungeons for prisoners formerly in castles 
and monasteries, 196 
Durfey, Tom, notice of, 739 
Durham, engraving of Tommy Sly of, 
166; Hut. Alderson bellman of, en¬ 
graving, 183; Elvet bridge in, engrav¬ 
ing, 207; ecclesiastical survey of see 
of, 208; account of the pitmen in 
county of Durham, 326; visit of James 
I. to the city, 340; Durhamiana, 619 
Dustman, happy compliment by, 172 
Du ch compliments of salutation, 99; 
Dutch royal gardens, 644; Dutch trees, 
fisheries, &c., 6‘44 r &c.; Dutch customs, 
696 ; Dutch gallantry, 801 
Dyce, Alexander, his specimens of 
British poetesses, 99 

Early rising, 398 
Earning the best getting, 494 
Earth-bathing, 695 
Earthquakes, opinions on, 731 
East Indies, amiable native monarch in, 
674 

East Grinstead old play bill, 69 
Easter, antipathy to the Jews at, 195; 

Easter ceremonies, 239, &c., 251, 277 
Eating, advice against excess of, 41; 

fire-eaters, 157; stone-eaters, 177 
Ecbatane, city of, 825 
Echo, (moral) 619 

Eclipse, [race-horse] engraving and ac¬ 
count of, 309, &c. 

Economy, equally necessary with indus¬ 
try, 173; curious instance of, 453. See 
Misers. 

Edmonton, inhospitable styles of, 455 
Education, how conducted before the 
Reformation, 195; lamented by a mu¬ 
latto, ib. 

“ Edward the Third,” old play, 440 
Eels, (Bush) 526 

Effingham, Lord Howard of, his auto¬ 
graph, 287 

Eggs, peculiar mode of hatching, 755; 

artificial hatching by the ancients, 787 
Egyptians in France, description of, 239 
Eidon, lord anecdote of, 446 


853 















GENERAL INDEX. 


El Dorado of literature, 371 
Electricity, 733 

Elephant, remains of, found near Battle- 
bridge, 40 

Elizabeth, queen, simile used by, 110; 

washing poor’s feet by, 240 
Elm-tree, celebrated one, 625 
Klvet bridge, Durham, 207 
Emblems and mottos, 45; emblems used 
by servants at hirings, 87, 102 
Emigration, hi ghland, 575 
Emperors and kings, ill-fated ones, 612, 
613 

“ English Monsieur,’’ 579 
I Epilepsy, disorder of great minds, 818 
| Epi taphs; by Dr. Lowtli on his daughter, 
69 ; extempore one on a French general, 
317; others, 422, 424, 430, 466, 488, 
491, 505. 513, 539, 542, 544, 551, 554, 
555, 562, 563, 564, 597, 619, 669, 677, 
693, 791 

Erasmus, notices of, 514, 584 
Errors, clerical, 317 
Esop in Russia, 643 
Eternity, 818 
Ether, doctrine of, 666 
Ethiopians, mode of salutation by, 98 
Etiquette, cut down by civilization, 110; 
nearly fatal excess of, 369; Spanish, 
541 

Etymology; of various English words, 
237; of words of necessity from the 
German, and of those of luxury from 
the French, ib. 

Evelyn, extracts from, 829, &c. 

“ Every Man in his Humour,” original 
scene of, changed, 151 
Ewart’s old port, 172 • 

Excuse, a good one, 398 
Executioner, 763 

Execution, case of revival after apparent 
execution, 228; former frequency of, 
490 

Excursions of tradesmen, limits of, 284 
Exercise and air recommended to ladies, 
105 

Ex-Thespianism, 691 
Eyam in Derb., notices of, 655, &c., 729 
Eyes; closing the eyes, 428; guard 
against an evil eye, 706 
Eyre, chief justice, notice of, 490 

Facetiae, 8u0 

Fairs, former importance of, 103 
“ Fairies, tale of the,’’ 582 
“Faithful Shepherd, (The)” old play, 
677 

“Faithful Shephe!dess, (The)” old play, 
724 

Falcon tavern, site of, 249 
Falls of Niagara, 680 
Families, former discipline in, 197; sin¬ 
gular abandonment of family, 212; 


picture of desolation in, 328; ill-fated 
royal ones, 613; Wilkie’s picture of 
one, 669 

Fanatic, (fasting) 67 

Fans, former size and application of, 197 

Fare, bill of, 436 

Fares of ticket porters, 10 

Farmers in J7S2, and in 1822, 232 

Faro Straits, 322, 323 

Farthings, 189; ono found by a lord, 535; 

the broad farthing, 668 
Fashion, a gentleman’s, 585 
Fasting, extraordinary, 67; fast-pudding 
and Friar Bacon, 317 
“ Fatal Jealousy,” old play, 704 
“Fatal Union, (The)’’ 771 
Fate, plea and answer respecting, 414 
“ Father’s Home, (A)” 85 
Father and son, 430 
Favourites, a singular one, 670 
“ Fawn, (The)” old play, 626 
Feast, a fearful one, 260 
Feathers, 71 

February, advice for, 126 
Fees, the best of^ 270 
Feet, washing of, at Vienna, 239 ; and at 
Greenwich by queen Elizabeth, 240 
Felons, sensations of, before and after 
hanging, 228 
Female friendship, 182 
Fens, goose-herds in, 70; effect of drain¬ 
ing in, 72 

Ferguson, Sir A., letter from Sir Walter 
Scott to, 668 

Figures and numbers, 380 

-of the dead, singular narrative of, 

355 

Filching, cure of, 557 
Filey, in Yorkshire, 733 
Filial custom, 313 
Fill-up, (a), 782 
Fingers, numbering by, 381 
Fire, water mistaken for, 681 
Fires in London, 699; “ burning the 
witch,” 705 

Fire-damp, explosions of, 328 
Fire-eaters, 157 
Fish-street, (Old) 84 
Fish, royal reason for not eating, 558 
Fishermen, sarcasms upon, 285; Lucan’s 
description of one, 733 
Fishing-towns, Dutch and English, 646 
Fitzgerald, Col., and Col. King, duel be¬ 
tween, 362 

“ Five days Peregrination,” &e., 560 
Floet river at Clerkenw r ell, 38 
Fletcher, Dickey, 792 
“ Floating Island, (The)” 690 
Flogging, formerly, at Oxford, 197 
Flora, games of, 271; indictment and 
trial of Flora, 273 

Flowers, singular atten'ion to, by the 
pitmen, 327 ; Time’s source of pleasure 


854 







































r 


GENERAL INDEX. 


from, 583; mode of preserving, 716; 
winter flowers, 783 
Fly-berry plant, 72 
Fly-boat, (the Malden) 694 
Font, of Harrow Church, 79; of Becken¬ 
ham church, 3S3; of West Wickham 
church, 407 ; of Grassmere, 550 
Foot-ball, formerly played in London 
streets, 85 

Fop and wit, union of, 333 
Forces, doctrine of, 5S5 
Forests,ancient and decayed, in Scotland, 
576, 577. See Trees. 

Forrest, -, author of “Five Days’ 

Peregrination,” 560 

Fortune; cards for telling fortunes, 37; 
how to be commanded, 174; fortune 
favours the brave, or butterfly hunt¬ 
ing, 339 

“ Fortune by Land and Sea,” old play, 
150 

Fownes, Thomas and bis fox-hounds, 17 
Fox, the quaker, 381 
Fractures, singular advice about, 670 
Franklin, Dr., anecdote of, 45 
Fraock Elan, isle of, 389 
Fraser, Simon, brother of lord Lovat, 317 
French; nobility, 66; valentines, 103; 
adoption of children by, 110; transmi¬ 
gration of French noblesse. 121; cere¬ 
monies in France, 136, 251; present 
jumble of ranks among, 181; former 
hospitality to travellers, 198; nation¬ 
ality of, 252, 253; decorum of in 
crowds, ib.; almanacs, statements of, 
270; diligence, description of, 756 
Friar Bacon and his servant, 317 
Friendship; destroyed by advice, 165; 

on the nail, supposed meaning o f ', 3S2 
Fritters in France and England, 136 
Fruit, market for at London and Paris, 
479 

Funerals; mock, of a Bath chairman, 21; 
of a French general by a British sailor, 
316; a cheerful one, 350; customs 
touching, 467, 550, 601, 743; consola¬ 
tion from funeral processions, 654 
Furniture of old times, 706 
Furs; tippets and scarfs, 532 
Futurity, peep into, 37 

Gage, viscount, his fete of the quintain, 
502 

Gallantry, Dutch, 801 
“ Game at Chess,” old play, 161 
Gaming, curious notice about gambling 
houses, 43; gaming for funeral ex¬ 
penses, 382 

Gammon of bacon, Easter custom of, 195 
Gaols. See Prisonn. 

Gardens; summer garden of Peter the 
Great, 643; love of gardens, 644; 
Dutch royal garden, 644 


Garlands, May-day, 271, 272, 275; fune¬ 
ral, 467, 550 

Garrick plays, selections from, contributed 
by Mr. C. Lamb, 56, 67, 80, 96, 112,128, 
150, 162, 178, 192, 209, 224, 243, 256, 
280, 291, 3U4, 320, 338, 352, 368, 394, 
400, 417, 440, 449, 467, 480, 500, 514, 
530, 547, 578, 595, 610, 642, 663, 676, 
690, 704, 724, 737, 770, 784, 800, 817 
Geese in the fens, management of, 71; 

goose-dancing in Scilly islands, 41 
Geikie, Mr., a meritorious artist, 58 
Gems of the twelve months, 161 
Genders, 556 

Genius; unrewarded, 158; chance a great 
patron of, 211; distresses of men of, 
476; genius and good temper, 621 
Gentleman, (The Old) character of, 59 
“ Gentleman Usher.” old play, 500 
“ Gentleman of Venice,” old play, 467 
Gentry; heralds formerly kept by, 195; 
former manners and oppressions of, 
196; austere treatment of their child¬ 
ren, 197 

George, prince of Denmark, notice of, 536 
George I., anecdote of, 203 

-- ll , and his cooks, 189 

Germain, lord George, anecdote of, 205 
Germany, universities in, 62 
Glints in lord mayor’s show, 719 
Gibbs, alias Htick’n, Dr., 277 
Gibbeting, 490 

Gibbon’s “ Decline and Fall,” 558 
Gifford, William, death, and memoir of, 
22 

Gifts; new-year, 7; wedding,39/ 

Gilding without gold, 713 
Gilpin, (Mrs.,) riding to Edmonton, 454 
Gimtnal ring, engraving, 415 
Gin act, effect of passing, 539 
Ginger beer, receipt for, 236 
Gipsies, health and happiness of, 105; in 
Epping Forest, 428 
Gipsy [a stream] in Yorkshire, 115 
Gladiators in England, 248 
Glass windows, rare before the Reforma¬ 
tion, 196; discovery of, 781; skill of 
the ancients in, 809, 812, 826 
Gleaning or leasing cake, 5S7 
Glenstrae, laird of, 233 
Gliddon, Mr., cigar divan of, 551 
Glisseg, in Wales, the happy valley, 176 
Glorious memory, (the) 6 4 
Gluttony, instances of, 589; glutton and 
echo, 619 

“ God keep you,” old salutation, 195 
“ God save the King,” author of, 113 
Goethe, his philosophy of life, 199 
Gog and Magog of Guildhall, 719 
Gold found in Scotland and Cornwall, 
329; skill of the ancients in arts re¬ 
lating to, 786 

“Golden A;e, (The)” old play, 339 


855 














GENERAL INDEX. 


Golden tooth, learned disputes about, 227 
Goldoni and rival dramatists, 420 
Gone or going, 387 

Good-eating pernicious, 139; domestic 
dialogue on good living, 411 
Good Friday, 239, 241 
Good nature and good temper, 021 
Good rick, St., a bishop misled by, 208 
Goodrick, sir H., and the Revolution, 672 
Goose-fair at Nottingham, 504, (note.) 
Gossip and Stare, the, 445; comment on 
literary gossip, 668 

Gostling’s Mr., account of Hogarth’s tour, 
566 

Gout, notices on, 740 
Government, simplicity and wisdom of, 
623, &c. 

Gozzi, Italian dramatist, 420 
Graham, Dr., lecturer, 085 
Grammar explained, 478 
Granger, Rev. Mr., the Linnaeus of British 
portraits, 255 

Grapes in Covent Garden, &c., 484. See 
also 430, 728 

Grasshopper on Change, explana ion of, 
583, 584 

Grassington theatricals, 538, 717 
Grassington manager, [T. Airay] 35 
Grassmere, beauty of, 553 
Gratitude in birds, 296 
Gravity mistaken for wisdom, 197 
Gravity, doctrine of, 585 
Great Unknown discovered, 153, &c. 
Greatness, tax on, 819 
Green, W., artist and author, 555 
Green-grocer’s devices, 304 
Greenland, English sailors in, 315 
Greenock Adam and Eve, antiquity of, 
269 


Gregory, old name for the hangman, 765 
Gregory, (Old) selfishness of defeated, 120 
Gresham, sir Thomas, a deserted child, 
583 

Gresham committee, notice by, about lost 
children, 9 

Gretna green, blacksmith and marriages, 
216, 218; parsons, 477 
Grey, lady Jane, table book of, 2 
Grief, expressive silence of, 230 
Grinstead, (East) old play bill, 69 
Grosvenor, earl, and Mr. Gifford, 29 
Groves; on a picturesque one, 404; groves 
and high places, 404 
“ Guardian, (The)” old play, 209 
Guards, Swiss, monument of, engraving, 
127 


Guildford races, 767 
Guildhall, curious explanation of, 798 
Guilty, stupefaction on verdict of, 229 
Guinea sovereigns, 790 
Gunpowder, antiquity of, 810 
Guns; air-guns, 666; notices concerning, 
guns, 713 


Gwennap, in Cornwall, productive mine 
in, 329 

Hackerston’s cow, 539 
H igue, fine woods near, 644 
llagman Ileigh, new year’s eve custom, 4 
Hairdresser. See Barber. 

Halfpennies, 189 

Hall, (Antiquarian) of Lynn, engraving 
and notice of, 70 

-•, Thomas, his “Funebria Flora?,” 273 

Ilam and Stilton, 90 

Hammond, the poet, notice of, 470 

Hampstead, Shepherd’s Well at, 191 ; 

the place of groves, 405 
Hands; peculiarity of the barber’s hand, 
123; the bloody hand, 129; reason for 
preferring the right hand, 140 
Handkerchief, white cambric, 561 
Hanged and unhanged, mankind divided 
into, 228 

Hanging in chains, 489; inducement to 
hanging, 542; hanging the shuttle, 525 
Hangman and his wages, 763 
Hannah, (Blind) notice and engraving of, 
111 

Hard fare, 177 

-labour, varied by different tread¬ 
mills, 378 

Hare’s foot, an antidote to witchcraft, 
337 

Harp, notices of, 168 
Harpham, St. John’s well at, 687 
Harris, James, 556 
Harris, Renatus, organist, 130 
Harrow church, engraving of its old font* 
79 

Harrow, dancing round the, 513 
Hart, the astrologer, 68 
Harvest-catch, in Norfolk, 581 
Hatred, to be insured by advice, 165 
Hats; substitute for the shovel hat, 605 
Hawking, ladies formerly devoted to, 196 
Hay-bfmd, origin of, 771 
Health, importance and means of, 105, 
139 

Heart, perpetual motion of, 686; case 
containing Lord Bruce’s heart, 527; 
instance of heart-burial, 529; disposal 
of sir W. Temple’s heart, 644 
Heat, how counteracted at S am, 541 
Heaving, in wrestling, expla ne 1, 665 
“Hectors, (The)” old play, 610 
Hedgehog, celestial, 314 
Hell-bridge, in the Highlands, 458 
Henley, (Orator) advertisement of, 722 
Henley, in Arden, custom in, 88 
Henry II., character of, 491 

-- III. of France, amusements of, 

‘588 

-IV., anecdotes of, 201 

-VIII. and his peers, 700 

-IX., notice of, 370 


856 




























GENERAL INDEX. 


Heralds formerly in the train of nobility 
and gentry, 195 

Herefordshire, now-moon custom in, 197 
Heriot, curious register concerning, 409 
Hermits, 711 

Hero, singular one of an old play, 193 
Heroism and humanity, 316 
Herrings, curing and virtues of, 285 
Herve, Peter, artist, letter respecting, 424 
Hervey, Rev. J., notices of, 697 
Hey for Honesty,” old play, 611 
Heywood, Thomas, his excellence as a 
dramatist, 151, 179 
Hide park, or a tanner’s villa, 382 
“ Hierarchie of Angels,” old play, 193 
High admiral, (lord) office and seal oi, 287 
Highlands; legend of, 145; weddings, 
146; tartans nearly obsolete in, 147; 
customs in, 233, 272; deer and sheep 
in, 377; contempt for table luxuries 
in, 378; highland scenery, 388. High¬ 
lands; See Scotland. 

Highwaymen nearly extinct, 489 
lliil, sir John, physician, notice of, 740 
Hill, Rev. Mr., killed in a duel, 361 
Hindoo husbandmen, 348 
Hipparchus, and other ancients, 824. 
See Ancients. 

Hippocrates, curious advice of, 670 
Hiring of servants at statutes, 86, 102 
History of Rome, doubt.on, 621 ; pleasing 
passage of history, 635 
Hobby horses, obsolete toys, engraving 
of, 343 

Hobday, Mr., artist, exhibition of, 344 
Hobson, (old) pleasant conceits of, 210 
Hoby, sir Edward, 289 
“ Hoffman’s Tragedy, or Revenge for a 
Father,” old play, 784 
Hogarth, and engraving from his picture 
ot lord Lovat, 119; curious notices of, 
559, &c. 

Holidays; how spent in Ireland, 346; 
their utility, 347; the benevolent 
Greek philosopher, 348 
Holland, customs of, 696. See Dutch. 
Ilolt, John, a great ringer, 679 
Holwood, seat of Mr. Pitt, engraving and 
notices of, 726, 735 
Holly tree, carrying of, at Brough, 13 
Home, a father’s, 85; spells of home, 108; 
praises of, 548 

Hood, T., sonnet to, 534; Plea of the 
Fairies, bv, 584; “Whims and Oddi¬ 
ties” of, 744 

Iloppins, David, a singular parodist, 5S5 
Horace, pious parody of, 584 
Horse Craven se, 775 
Horns, emblems of kingly power, 624 
llornechurch, 42 

Horses ; engraving and account of the 
race-horse Eclipse, 309, &c.; their 
swiftness connected with great mus¬ 


cular power, ib .; difference between 
theoretic standards aud occasional ex¬ 
cellence, 310; insurance of, 311; great 
weight of the heart of Eclipse, ib .; 
singular examination of horses, 330; 
marks of age of, 593 
Horsedealing, latitude of deceit in, 520 
Horsham gaol, 461 
Horticulture recommended, 644 
Hostler, derivation of, 437 
Hot meals, 157 
Hotels. See Taverne. 

Hounds, first fox-hounds in the west, 
18 

Hour-glasses for pulpits, 243, 251 
Houses and accommodations of old times, 
706; country-houses lead to poor- 
houses, 590 

Howard of Effingham, lord, [lord high 
admiral] autograph of, 287, &c. 

Howitt, William and Mary, their Poems, 
623, 655 
Human life, 199 

Humanity and heroism, 316; humanity 
sometimes nearly lost in forms, 369 
Humour, definition of, 559 
Hunter, John, the anatomist, 309 
Hunting; description of buck-hunting in 
Cranbourne Chase, 17 
“Huntingdon Divertisement,” old play, 
705 

Huntsman, Mr. Woodford’s, 510 
Husbandman, (The retired) engraving, 
423 

Husbandmen in India, 348 
Husbands, a happy one, 635; crabbing 
for husbands, 646; evidence of affec¬ 
tion for one, 686. See Wives. 

Hut, Alderson, of Durham, 183 
Hydrophobia, 748 

Hvatt, Sophia, her poetical enthusiasm, 
‘359 

Hy-jinks, a Scotch amusement, 234 
Hygrometer, new, 13 
Hypochondria, 460 

I, the pronoun, danger of wearing it out, 
171 

Ideas, (innate) 474 
Idols, (Chinese) 314 
Illusion, pleasures of, 793 
Imagination; its transforming power, 5, 8 
Immersion instead of interment, 206 
Imperial drink, receipt for, 236 
Imperial fate, 612 
Improvisatore, extraordinary, 211 
Inch, derivation of, 189 
India, library of the king of, 124; hus¬ 
bandmen of, 348 

Indians—and William Penn, 623, &c.; 
adventure of some, 681; Indians at 
Court in 1734, 761 

“ Indictment of Flora,” a dialogue, 273 













GENERAL INDEX. 


Indulgences (popish) not always ill 
applied, 207 

Industry vain without thrift, 173 
“ Infant genius,” 744 
Infants, offerings to, 425; picture of a 
deserted one, 583 
Inishail, isle of, 388 
Innate ideas, 474 
Innocent (Pope) III., 374 
Inns, rare before the Reformation, 193; 
poor’s boxes formerly at, 196, 374 

-of the Romans, &c., 433, 434, 439; 

seeking lost sign of one, 619; good 
ones the result only of great travelling, 
686; inn yards, 755 

Inscriptions on old silver coin, how to 
read, 226 

Intellect, march of, 39, 341 
Intemperance, corrected by echo, 619 
Interlaken, beauties of, 214 
Interment, superseded by immersion, 206 
Invasion and volunteers, 442 
Ireland, bogs in, 93; customs in, 253, 262, 
426; custom of lord-lieutenants of, 
332; Irishmen on a holiday, 346; 
Irish tobacco pipes, 799 
Islington, rights of parish of, 610, 808 
Italian architects, pope’s grant to, for 
building churches, 197 
Italian dramatists, 420 

Jack the Viper, 796 
Jack Ketch a gentleman, 763 
“ Jack Drum’s entertainment,” old p^ay, 
208 

Jack-o’-Lent, 135 

Jamaica, speculation for warming pans 
in, 8 

James I., rudeness of his court to wo¬ 
men, 195; at Durham, 340 

-II„ notices of the Stuart papers 369 | 

January, general prescriptions for, 41 
Japanese inode of salutation, 94 
Jeffries, Judge, a judge of music, 131 
Jeggon, Dr., anecdote of, 414 
Jemmal ring, 415 
Jennens, Charles, notice of, 740 
Jerningham, Mr., notice of, 101 
Jests; great merit of suppressing offen¬ 
sive ones, 140; effect of wealth on 
their success, 174 
Jews, Easter custom against, 277 
Jew’s harp, 430 

John, (St.) a custom on St. John’s eve, 
464; St. John of Beverley’s Well at 
Harpham, 687 

“John (King) and Matilda,” old play, 
56, 402 

Joliu Bull, specimen of, 188; indecorum 
and rudeness of in crowds, 253 
•Johannites, notice of, 775 
Johnson, Dr., “an odd kind of a chiel, 
542 


Jones, Rev. M, Berkshire miser, 604 
Joy, madness from excess of, 256 
Jubilee, (Revolution) 672 
Judges, hunting their own venison on 
circuit, 34; immense fans formerly 
carried by, on circuit, 197 ; a singular 
decree of one, 446; curious descrip: ion 
of one, 542; a candid judge, 590; 
juries the better judges, 590 
Juries, the better judges, 590; decisions 
of juries, 7S1 
Justice, (impartial) 203 
Justices of peace, former furniture of 
their balls, 196; arithmetical estimate 
of, 366; female, 700 
Juxton, bishop, notice of, 510 

Kaim, Swedish traveller, description of 
Niagara, 680 

Keats, the poet, 405; epitaph on him¬ 
self, 539; notices of, 600, 629 
Kelly, Miss, notices respecting, 442, 448 
Keston Cross, 431 
Ketch, Jack, 763 

Kicking, in wrestling, barbarous, 664. 665 
Kimberley, Francis, Birmingham con¬ 
juror, 118 

King, (The) and the private gentleman, 
3 66 

King, Col., and Col. Fitzgerald, duel be¬ 
tween, 362 

-Dr., his pun, 126 

Kings and empero s, ill-fa f ed ones, 612, 
613; kii gs in Africa, 790 
“ King’s Arms,” 430 
Kirkby, 633 

Kirby Malhaindale church yard legend, 
258 

-Moorside, death of duke of Buck¬ 
ingham at, 263 

Kircher, his account of a marvellous 
diver, 353 

Kissing, in Ireland, on Easter Mondav, 
253 

Knowledge, defends from the juggle of 
forms, 110; even a little of it useful, 
379; importance of a knowledge of the 
world, 412 

Labour, hard, greatly varied by different 
treadmills, 378 
Labour and luck, 494 
Lncteals in a mole, 510 
Ladies, in winter like tea-kettles, 76; air 
and exercise for, 105; lady of the hill, 
146; character of Mrs. Aurelia Sp ur, 
amaiden lady, 170; the lady and trou¬ 
badour, 227; the white lady, 359. See 
Women. 

Lang, David, the Gretna-green black¬ 
smith, 216 

Lairds, compliment to a young one, 542 
Lamb, Mr. C., lively lotto?- to, 97 


658 

































GENERAL INDEX. 


Lambert, (parliamentary) monument to, 
261 

a Lambs (Young) to sell,” a London crv, 
198 

Lamond of Cowel, tradition of, 233 
Lancaster, dukes of, 50; and York, 
houses of, ib. 

Landlady, agreeable, 5G2 
Language, without words, 234; English, 
distinct derivations of, 237; genders 
in, 556 

Lansberg, Matthew, Liege almanac by, 

137 

Lanterns, court order for, in the streets, 

207 

Laplander’s mode of salutation, 93 
Lapstone, beating the, 43 
Lark, the evening, 311 
Last tree, 44; last deer of B' aim Doran, 
377 

“ Late Lancashire Witches, (The)” old 
play, 97 

Lauron, Marcellos, artist, 255 
Lavater, aphorisms by, 137 
Laurence Kirk snuff-boxes, 754 
Law of kindness, 662 
Lawsuit, effect of, 67 
Law and poetry, 446; remark on law¬ 
books, 781 
Lawyers, two, 652 
Leaping, curious instance of, 554 
Learning, and large libraries, 109; for¬ 
merly united with pedantry, 197; a 
mulatto deploring bis education, 313; 
a little learning not dangerous, 379 
Leathart, Mr., “Welsh Penillion of,” 168 
Leaves scorched by summer-showers, 5-11 
Lee Penny, The, engraving, 486 
“Legends, Scottish,” 388 
Leceistershire, custom of, 262 
Leeds, duke of, (earl of Danbv), vindica¬ 
tion of, 672 

Lendi, M. B„ new hygrometer by, 13 
Lent, customs in, 313 

- Jack o’, puppet formerly thrown at, 

135 

Leith Hill, near Dorking, 473 
Lettered stones, curious ancient one, 176 
Letters, address on one, 338 
Lettsom, Dr., notice of, 557 
Lewis, St., disposal of his body, 2S8 
Ley bourne, W. de, first Englishman 
styled admiral, 288 
Liars, incredible, 734 
Libels, actions for, formerly rare, 195; 
dramatic libel, 201 

Libraries, cautions about forming, 109; 

that of tiie king of India, 124 
Licenses, for enacting plays, 34; for 
printing play-bills, 292, 293 
Liege almanac, 137 

Lieutenant and captain, dreadful duel 
between, 362 


Life, 199; recovered after hanging, 228; 

description of, 819 • 

Light, philosophy of, 618, 811 
Lilly, his account of the astrologer Ilan, 
68 

Limbs, advice in case of one broken, 670 
Linnet fancy, 294 

Liston, William, crier of, “young lambs,” 
198 

Liston, Mr., 739 

Literature, a great bargain of, 370 ; a 
literary character, 205; foolish labour 
in, 428, 797 
Living well, 430 

Lloyd. T. Esq., curious pillar restored 
by, 176 

Loadstone, opinions on, 732 
Loaf-stealing,an old Christmas game, 196 
Loddon church, poor’s box in, 375 
j London, described in 1634, 84; modern 
improvements in, 107; musicians in¬ 
corporated in, 114; cries, see Cries; 
university, founding of, 297; notice of 
London watermen, 314; London mer¬ 
chants a hundred years since, 325; 
London holydays, 347; fruit markets 
of London and Paris, 483; old London 
cries, 630; a London watchman, 676; 
fires in London, 699; Londiniana, 708; 
giants in Guildhall, 719. See Bank- 
side, Battle-bridge, Clerkenvvell, Co¬ 
vent Garden, Islington, &c. 

“London Chanticleers,” old play, 128 
Long, sir Walter, of Draycot, his style 
of travelling, 197 

Longevity, clerical, striking case of, 12; 

longevity of a Highlander, 521 
“Looking Glass for England and Lm- 
don,” old play, 321 
Lord chancellor* office of, 365 

-highadmiral, powers and seal of, 287 

Lord Mayor’s show, giants in, &c., 719 
Lords and ladies, vegetable, 599 
Lost children, notice about, 9 
Lottery’, madness from success in, 256 
Lovat, lord, engraving of, 119; claimant 
to the title, 317 

Love; loves of the negroes, 90; music 
requested for a love dialogue, 257; 
refinements of Spanish love, 369 
“Love for Love’s sake,” old play, 368, 
394 

“Love Tricks,” old play, 500 
Love, David, walking stationer, 503 
Lovers, hostility of time to, 583 
“Love’s Dominion,” old play, 642 
“Love’s Metamorphosis,” old pbiy, 547 
Lowth, bishop, his epitaph on liis daugh¬ 
ter, 69 

Loyola, Ignatius, and his boot, 670 
Luck and labour, 494 
Lucerne, monument of the Swiss Guards 
at, 127 


859 














GENERAL INDEX, 


Lying; why Thames Pitton called lying 
Ditton, 330; how to he reformed, 366 
Lynn, Antiquarian Hall of, 70; Bdly 
Boots of, 151; May-day at, 271 
Lyttleton, sir George, notice of, 709 

Mac Colda, Alaister, 389 

-Macdonald, John, a Highlander,521 

- Donalds and Campbells, 389 

-Gregor of Glenstrae, 233 

-Phadian, captain, 391 

Maeham, discoverer of Madeira, 138 
Macrae, captain, and sir George Ramsay, 
fatal duel between, 362 
Madeira, discoverer of, 138 
“ Mad Dog,” 747 

Madness, raving, from a lottery prize, 256 

Madrid, carnival in, 137 

Magpies, superstition relating to, 191; 

anecdote of one, 718 
Maid of Honour, curious patent to one, 
621 

“Maid Marian,” letter respecting, 419 
Malacca, salutation in, 98 
Mallet, David, notice of, 469 
Malmsbury abbey school,tradition about, 

116 

“Mamamouehi,” old play, 530 
Man, description of, 819 
“Man in the Moon,” tract called, 540 
Mankind, only two classes of, 228 
Manners in Oliver Cromwelds time, 10; 
before the Reformation, 195; of old 
times, 706, 829 

Manufactures, celerity of processes of, 
457; of Birmingham, 712 
Manuscripts, an author reading one to a 
bookseller, engraving, 63; curious ac¬ 
count of Stuart manuscripts, 369; cu¬ 
rious restoration of one, 622 
Maps, a curious old one, 253 
March, first of, 283; fair, at Brough, 159 

-of intellect, 60 

Marden, (Milton and) hundred of, 289 
Mariner, (an ultra) 508 
Mark, St., customs on St. Mark’s eve, 
464, 494, 540 

Markets, (fruit) of London and Paris, 
483 

Marlow, poet, merit of, 663 (note.) 
Marot, Clement, French poet, notice of, 
797 

Marriages, a new plan for, 11; account 
of late duke of York’s, 53; breach of 
promise of marriage, 90; in Highlands, 
146; at Gretna Green, 216; of the 
doges of Venice, 226; perplexing ones 
in relationship, 238; vulgarity of a 
court lady’s consenting to marriage, 
369; Welsh, 371; Cumberland, 397; 
curious case of re-marriage, 409; the 
Gimmal Ring, 415; a happy marriage, 
472; Gretna Green parsons, 477 ; old 


customs at, 534, 588,601; ungallant 
toll on brides, 536; marriage under 
the protectorate, 667 
“Married Beau, (The)” old play, 725 . 
Marseilles, custom at, 136; interesting 
history of, 270 

Martin, St., and the Devil, 499 
Mary, Peter, and, 546 
“ Master of the bears and dogs,” 249 
Master of the revels, license by, 30, 34 
Masters, an amiable one, 205 
Matlock, 482 

Matrimony. See Marriages. 

Maturin, conversations of, 341 
Maundy Thursday, 239. &c. 

Maxims of meanness, 281, 282 
Mav-day, customs on, 271, &c., 279, 314, 
629 

Mayor’s feast, temp. Elizabeth, 723 
Mazarine, cardinal, easy patronage by, 
203 

Meals ; hot meals, 157; taken with mys¬ 
terious privacy, 212 

Meanness formerly taught for mora 1 ^, 
281, &c. 

Mechanical power, 457; ancients’ know¬ 
ledge of, 811, 825, 826 
Medals; a commemoration medal of diet 
of Augsburgh, 575 

Medicine, skill of the ancients in, 786, 
787 

Melancthon and Calvin, 782 
Melons, varieties and weights of, 485 
Memory with stupidity, instance of, 700 
Memorandum books, 1 
Menage, advice of, touching poetry, 670 
Mendip mines and Miners, 762 
Mercer of London, old picture of, 285 
Merchandise, unfavourable tendencies of, 
282 

Merchants, (London) a hundred years 
since, 325 

Merrow, in Surrey, 767 
Metastasio, memoir of, 211 
Meum et Tuum, 539 
Mic^, field, for preventing injuries from, 
648 

Michaelmas day, customs on. 646 
Microscopes, whether known to the 
ancients, 826 
Milk, in America, 654 
Milky Way, the, 602 
Mill, the haunted, 652 
Millhouse, Robert,his Poem«, 495 
Milton, hundred of, 288, 290 
Mines; workers in coal-mines described, 
327; fatal explosion in, 328; in Great 
Britain, 329; descent into, 483; Men¬ 
dip mines and miners, 762 
Ministers, cheap patronage by, 203 
Minstrels, curious regulations for, 168 
Mint, test of old silver coin at, 226 
Minuets, laborious study of, 446 








































GENERAL INDEX 


Miron, Francis, boldness and impunity 
of, 201 

Misers, notices of, 450, 453, 473, 491, 535, 
604 

Misery,_a bond of affection, 817; trial 
through, 818 

Miseries of travelling, 131 
Miss, designation of, 830 
Mitcheson, Tommy, of Durham, 558 
Moderns and ancients, discoveries of, 
443, 455, 474, 505, 515, 521, 537, 585, 
602, 617. 433, 650, 666, 730, 776, 786, 
808, 824 

Moeris, (Lake) in Egypt, 826 
Moles, lacteals in, 510 
Mompesson, Rev. W., and wife, 655, &c. 
Monarchs, most ancient of, 582; ill-fated 
ones, 612, 613; a pure and exemplary 
one, 674 

Monasteries, frequent andpiousbleedings 
in, 240 

Money, rareness of due care of, 453 
Monkey, gallant comparison with, 701 
Monks. See Monasteries. 

Monmouth, duke of, 765 
Monson, William, alias Billy Boots, 151 
Montmorenci,Ann, anecdotes of, 501, 518 
Month’s mind, a mass for the dead, 242 
Month’s, twelve gems of the, 160 
Moon, new, customs on, 197 
Moon, philosophy of, 651; tincture of 
moon, 741; moonlight view of Niagara, 
686 

Moore, T., the Poet, remarks on, 341, 342 
Moorfields and Laundresses, 85 
Mops or Statutes for hiring servants, 86, 
102 

Morals, former system of, for tradesmen, 
282, &c. 

More, sir T., notice of, 365, 766 
Mortality through duels, stated, 360 
Mosaics of the Ancients, 827 
Mother-wit better than learning, 286 
‘‘Mothering Sunday,” 313 
Mother and her children, 635 
Mottos and emblems, 45 
Mount Vernon, why so called, 309 
Mountain ash, an antidote to witchcraft, 
337 

Mug-houses, described by a foreigner, 189 
Mulattos, curious lamentation of one, 313 
Mulgrave family, founder of, 382 
Mullally, Jack, an Irish landlord, 347 
Mummies, 786 

Music; anecdotes of, 113; comparison of 
some much-admired, 114; musicians 
incorporated, ib.; some effects of mu¬ 
sic, 115; in churches, 131; notice of 
the harp, 168; mischievous musical 
crash, 174; effects of, on rudeness and 
ignorance, 231; changes in church 
music, 243; requested for a beautiful 
love-dialogue, 2:7; of birds particu¬ 


larized, 295; experiment of, on ani¬ 
mals, 346; superiority of the ancient, 
515, 827; musical anecdotes, 516; 
memoir of Beethoven, 517 ; the music 
which old Time delights in, 582 
Muskerry, lord, his receipt to cure lying, 
366 

Mustard and cress seeds, devices with, 
304 

My Pocket Book, 610 
Mysteries,dramatic, performed at Coven¬ 
try, engraving of, 6; dramatized, 471 

Nails and nail-makers, 715 
Nail, to be a friend upon the, 382 
Names, of places, explained, 78; curtail¬ 
ment of baptismal names, 193; substi¬ 
tution of classical for baptismal ones, 
349; the name of “devil,” often assumed, 
ib.; scriptural, &c M 798 
Nash, T., on herrings, in 1599, 285 
Nationality, 5S0 
Nature, animated, 522 
Navarino, description of, 686 
Necromancy, 162 

Negroes, loves of, 90; salutation of two 
negro kings, 99 

Nelson, lord, punctuality of, 398 
Nettleton, custom at, 43 
New-moon, customs on, 197 
New-year, ode to, set to music, 3; cus¬ 
toms on, 4 

Newcastle, Blind Willie of, 231 

-, duchess of, notices of, 99, 139 

Newsman, description and engraving of, 
31 

Newspapers, varieties and interest of, 31, 
33; reading the newspaper, engraving, 
399; newspaper orthography, 525; 
classification of readers of newspapers, 
699. See Advertisements. 

Newstead abbey, female enthusiast at, 
359 

Newtonian philosophy and the ancients. 

See Ancients. 

Niagara, cataracts of, 680 
Nicolai, M., bookseller, morbid phantasms 
of, 355 

Nightingale, poet’s mistake about, 294 
Nimeguen, two ravens at, 44 
Nixon’s prophecies, notice of, 526 
Nobility, French, remarks on, 66 
Nominative case, 141 
Norfolk dumplings, digested by a stone- 
eater, 178 

Norfolk, custom in, 581 
Normans, what derived from, 197 
Northumberland, custom in, 329, 425 
Norwich Guild, 723 

Notre Dame, grand Easter ceremony in, 
251 

Nottingham, custom at, 504 (note); Not¬ 
tingham and the revolution, 671 
































OXNEKAL INDEX. 


Nottingham, earl of, 28S 
Numbers and fgures, 380 
Nunneries, girls formerly educated in, 
195 

Oaks, fine ones in Holland, G44 
Oddities of Genius, 212 
“Oddities, Whims and,” by T. Hood, 744 
Offerings to infants, 425 
Offices, estimates of value of, 452 
Offices and trades specified in Dooms 
day-book, 308 

Oglethorpe, general, notice of, 7G1 
O’Kelly, Col., his celebrated race horse 
and parrot, 311 

Old age, a fair price for burning it out at 
the stake, 343 

-gentleman, (the) character of, 59 

-women, ridicule of, De Foe’s cen¬ 
sure of, 10 

“Oid England for ever,” pamphlet called, 
591 

Opinions, former authority of, 444 
Opium-eater, the, notices of, 553 
‘ Oranges, Tiie Three,” play ca!h d. 420 
Oran-outang, extraordinary one, 378 
Orde, Mr., an amateur artist, 255 
Organs, celebrated ones, 130; address to 
a barrel organ, 403; notices of, 2d7 
Orleans, duchess of, ingenuous disclaimer 
by, 621 

Osnaburgh, bishopric of, 49 
Ostend, siege of, 279 
Ostler, derivation of, 439 
Ostrich, (the king’s) dis-ection of, 309 
O ho, earl of York, 49 
“Ougli,” (the syllable) many ways ot 
pronouncing, 344 
Ounce, derivation of, 189 
“ Outlandish knight,” 65 
Oxford, mayor of, 309 
Oyster cellars, entertainment of, 434 

Padua, cheerful funeral at, 350 
Page's lock, near Hoddesdon, curious 
chair at, 632 

Pageant vehicle and plav, representation 
of, 6 

Painters, scene for, 328 
Painting on cloth and glass, by the an- 
eieDts, 787, 809. 827 

Palindrome explanation and instance of, 
499 

Pamphleteers, a singular one, 364 
Paper books not before the tenth cen¬ 
tury, 254 

Papers, (Ssuart) curious account of, 369 
Parents’ affection,635,660. Sec Children. 
Parenthesis, explanation of, 286 
Paris garden, Southwark. 245 
Paris and Loudon, fruit markets of, 483 
Parish accompts, 241 
Parishes, abuses in, 427 


Parliament, clubs, 140; anecdote of royal 
aversion to, 350; bribery of, by Charles 
V., 422 

“ Parliament of Bees,” old play, 304 
Parodies, pious, of Horace, 584 
Parr, Dr, early model of, for style, 599 
Parrots, Col. O’Kelly’s most remarkable 
one, 311 

Parsimony. See Misers. 

Parsons and clerks, anecdotes about, 331. 
See Clergymen. 

Parsons, Joe, the samphire-gatherer, 226 
Parties of pleasure, a successful one, 276 
Party of pleasure, interesting, 559 
Passion-week, 239, &c. 

Pastoral and tragi-comedy, definitions of, 
725 

Patients, philosophical observation of 
their diseases by, 356 
Patriotism, fervour and judgment of, 201 
Patronage, (cheap) 203 
Paulian, (Father) his account of a stoue- 
eater, 177 

Pavy Labathiel, 677 

Pawning, valuable resource of, 453 

Peak’s hole, 421 

Peal (dumb) of Grandsire Triples, 678 
Pearce, Dr. Zachary, H. Walpole’s ridi¬ 
cule of, 5 ; anecdote of, 466 
Pearl, Cleopatra’s, 809 
Pedantry formerly the associate of learn¬ 
ing, 197 

Peep into futurity,” 37 
l’egge. Rev. S., revolution centenary ser¬ 
mon of, 672, 673, 763 
Pemberton, sir J., lord mayor, 424 
Penge Common, “ Crooked Billet ” on, 
335 

Penn, William, and the Indians, en¬ 
graving, 623 

Penny, (The Lee) an antique, description 
of, 486 

Pens, how carried anciently, 254; their 
introduction, ib. 

Penthauey, Anthony, a. miser, notice of, 
473 

Pepys, extracts from, 829, &c. 

“ Perhaps,” its iinportauce iu the sciences, 
124 

Perfection, the steps of, 525 
Pesce, Nicolo, the diver, aud the royal 
gold cups, 353 

Peter the Great, summer garden of, 643 
Peter-house college, anecdote touching 
546 

Phantasms, singular case of, 355 
Philadelphia, origin of, 624 
Philippos, 767 

Philippine Islands, salutations in, 98 
“ Phillis of Segros,” old play, 400 
Philosophy; of ancients and moderns. 
See Ancients. Philosophy of a fairv, 
584 


862 





















GENERAL INDEX. 


Phipps, William, founder of the Mul- 
grave family, 382 
Phlebotomy. See Bleeding. 

Phrenology, 165 

Physicians, curious jealonsv of some, 
137; a benevolent one, 557; two phy¬ 
sicians, 652 
Pickpockets, 530 
Pickworth, Mr. C., letter to, 717 
Picture dealer, trade catalogue of, 118 
Pie, Christinas, 667 
Pikeman, or turnpike-man, 756 
Pilgrimages, intense interest of “Pilgrim’s 
Progress,” 109; pilgrimages formerly 
in England, 196; a curious one, 238 
Pilpay’s abridgment of a library, 124 
Pine apples, 483 

Pipe sludge, or prejudice against new 
water-conveyance, 367 
Pipes, Irish tobacco, 799 
Piscatoria, 733 

Pitt, Mr. W., notices of, and of his seat 
at Holwood, 728 

Places, names of some explained, 78; 

high places and groves, 404 
Plague at Eyam, 655, &c., 729 
Planets, illustration of, 373; material of 

one, 540 

Planting in Scotland, 577 ; planting re¬ 
commended, 644, 649 
Platina, the historian, anecdote of, 349 
Plato, mode of studying, 501; Plato and 
other ancients, 824. See Ancients. 
Plays; representation of a pageant vehicle 
and play at Coventry, 6; licence for 
enacting plays, 34; curious play-bills, 
69, 129, 292, 318; origin and progress 
of theatrical representation, 153; not 
a third of old dramatic treasure ex¬ 
hausted, 179; supposed libels in, 201, 
202; an author’s correct estimate of 
one, 286; one of nine days’ represen¬ 
tation, 369; a straightforward critic 
upon, 402; at Linton and Grassington, 
538; play-wrighting, 620; acting of 
extraordinary children in plays, 677; 
performance of plays at Christian Mal- 
ford, 691; definition of pastoral and 
tragicomedy, 725; expedients and 
difficulties of players, 691; selections 
contributed by Mr. C. Lamb from the 
Garrick plays, 417, 440, 448, 467, 4S0, 
500, 514, 530, 547, 578, 595, 610, 642, 
663, 676, 690, 704, 724, 770, 784, 800, 
817; Garrick’s collection ot. See 
Garrick plays. 

Plea of the Fairies,” 584 
Pleasures of Illusion, 793 
“ Potting Parlour, (The)’ 671 
Plough Monday, 41 
Plurality of Worlds, doctrine of, 602 
Poaching, vindication of, 472 
“ Poetesses, (British)” by Mr. Dyce, 98 


Pockets, pickpockets, and pocket-hand¬ 
kerchiefs, 530 


Poetry, Bowring’s popular Servian poetry, 
265; poetry and fact, 323; thou and 
you in, 530; rule for criticism, 670; 
diction of, 820 

Poets; advice to one from one younger, 
124; estimate of various poets, 341; 
minor poets not useless, 342; distresses 
of, 476; an athletic poet, 554; reward 
of an ingenious one, 530; encourage¬ 
ment to poets, 760 
Poland, custom in, 160 
Politeness, 621 

Polkinghorne, a famous wrestler, 664 
Polypi, 811 

Poor’s boxes, notices and engravings of, 


374 


— rates, none before the Reformation, 
196 


Pope, Alexander, notice of, 469 
Port wine, Ewart’s excellent, 172 
Portaferry, Easter custom at, 253 
Porter recommended, 206 
Porters, (ticket) regulations and fares 
of, 10 

Portraits, British, Rodd’s sale catalogue 
of, 118; picture of takiug, 640 
Portuguese mysteries, 571 
Posts, (road) scripture texts on, 270 
Potatoes, proper treatment of in frost, 9 
Potter, Dr., university flogger, 197 
Pound, derivation of, 189 
Powell, the fire-eater, 157 

-, Mr., a notorious duellist, 361 

Preacher (Puritan) 818 
Prescription of money, instead of physic, 
557 

Presents, new-year’s, 4; wedding, 397, 
601; to infants, custom of, 425 
Pretender, curious paternal notices of, 
372 

Pride, remarks on, 714; instances of, 790 
Priests in France, former hospitality of, 
195 

Princesses, mode of carrying, 50i 
Printing, licenses for, 292, 293 
Prison walls, 364 
Prisons, ancient and modern, 460 
Private and public, 366 
Prize-fighting, with swords formerly, 248 
Processions at funerals, 654 ; at the re¬ 
storation, 667; on centenary of the 
revolution, 673 

Professors in German universities, 62 
Prognostications, effect of a few success¬ 
ful ones, 138 

Promise, breach of, curious case of, 90 
Pronoun, first personal, not to be worn 
out, 171 

Pronunciation, at the old Grassington 
theatre, 36; extreme irregularity of 
the English, 344 


SG3 


o 

O 


K 
































GENERAL INDEX. 


Property, fixed aud moveable, remarks 
on, 173 

Protestant German Universities, 62 
Prynne, William, notice of, 363 
Public-houses, 433, 434, &c., 440 
Public and private, 366 
Publishers, how dispensed with, 364 
Puddle-dock, duke of, 560 
Pudsey, bishop, notice of, 208 
Pulpits furnished with hour-glasses and 
clocks, 243, 251; pulpit desk, 512; 
pulpit in the rock, 662 
Punch bowl, Devil’s, 487 
Punctilio, Spanish, 541 
Punctuality recommended, 398 
Punishments, capital, solemnity and ter¬ 
ror of, 228, &c. 

Puns, not unnatural in grief as well as 
joy, 56 

Purple of the ancients, 732, (note.) 
Purvis, William, or “ B iud Willie,” the 
minstrel, 231 

Pye, Mr., curious anecdote from, of 
Charles I., 350 
Pye-stealer detected, 210 
Pyramids of Egypt, 826 
Pythagoras, power of his music, 516; 
Pythagoras and other ancients, 824. 
See Ancients. 

Pytheas and other ancients, 824. See 
Ancients. 

Quakers; The Three Quakers, 439; 
quakers under William Penn, 623, 
&c.; origin of the term quaker, 629 
“ Quarter of an hour before,” 398 
Qualities, sensible doctrine of, 505 
Queen’s college, Oxford, custom at, 43, 
195 

Queenborougb, curious account of, 563 
Questions, danger of asking, 171 
Quid pro quo, 430 

Quin, his apology for a dancer’s absence, 
8; his unfeeling jokes, ib., 9; notices 
of, 470, 709 
Quintain, the, 502, 534 
Quipoes explained, 470 

Race-horses. See Horses. 

Radnor, lord, anecdote of, 45 

Rain, effect of, 541 

Rainbow at Niagara, 683, 685 

“ Ram Alley,” old play, 663 

Ramsay, sir George, killed in a duel, 362 

Randwick near Stroud, custom at, 277 

Ratting, 281 

Ravens, at Nimeguen, 44; tradition re¬ 
specting two at home, ib.; anecdote of 
one at Hungerford, 413 
Ravensbourne, sources of the, engraving, 
735 

Raynal, Abbe, anecdote of, 45 
Reading aloud, remarks on, 139 


Realities resembling dreams, 229 
“ Rebellion, (The)” old play, 677 
Red-herring on horseback, an old dish, 
195; eulogium of red-herrings, 285 
Reformation, manners and customs be¬ 
fore, 195 ; progress of, 242 
Regent’s-street and park, 107, 108 
Relationship, involvement of by marriage, 
238 

Religion, 414 

Request, modest, 734 

Restitution, better late than never, 69; 

for ease of conscience, 201 
Retrospect, 92 

Return made to a parish circular, 189 
“Return, the Soldier’s,” 702 
Revels, master of, licence by for enacting 
plays, 34 

Revenant (Le) 228 
Revenge, wishes of, 98 
Reverie, 232 

Revival, after hanging at the gallows, 228 
“ Rewards of Virtue,” old play, 80 
Rheumatism, asserted effect of, 71 
Rhodian Colossus, 826 
Rhodope aud Cinderella, 774 
Rhone, river, Scipio’s shield found in, 132 
Rhubarb, and the Turk in Cheapside, 97 
Rich man defined, 173 
Richardson, the first public fire-eater, 158 
Riches, good and bad effect of, 174 
Riddle and explanation, 205 
Ridicule, 501 

Right hand, reason for preferring, 140 
liigi, in Switzerland, inscription on book 
at, 69 

Ringing, memorial of, at Bromley, 678; 

anecdotes of ringers, 679 
Rings; the Gimmal ring, engraving aud 
notice of, 415 
Rising, (early) 398 
Rivers, opinions on, 763 
Road-posts inscribed with texts, 270 
Roasting, musical, 516 
Robertson, J., a friend of Thomson, 604 
“Robin Gray, (Auld)” curious account 
of, 100 

Robin Hood’s bower, 243 
Rodd, Mr. H., picture-dealer, 118 
Rollan, Madame, a celebrated dancer, 8 
Roman antiquities, 40 
Romans, customs of, 433; fatality of 
Roman emperors, 612; doubts on Ro¬ 
man history, 621; Roman remains, 
727, 729, 735 
Romuald, St., 711 
Rooms, former lowness of, 84 
Rope-riding at Venice, 540 
Rosamond, (Fair) 158 
Rouen, Easter custom at, 242 
Round robin, ancient custom of, 349 
Royal Society, 276 
Royal families, ill-fated ones, 613 


8(34 










- - V — . - - . - - - ■ 

GENERAL INDEX. 


“ Royal King and Loyal Subject, (The)” 
old play, 663 

Rubens, liberality and kindness of, 5 
Runaway mops or statutes, 88 
Ruptures, curious application for, 647 
Rural delights, 354 

Rushes, houses and churches strewed 
with, 553, &c. 

Russia, Esop in, 643 

Rutty, Dr., a Quaker, confession of, 669 

Rydal Mount, seat of Wordsworth, 552 

Sackville, sir E., and lord Bruce, duel 
between, 527 

Saddles, rules touching, 593 
Sailors, 563 

-, custom of when in Greenland, 

315; generous feeling of one for a dead 
enemy, 316; their remonstrance by a 
round robin, 345; anecdote of an Irish 
one, 350 

St. Bride’s church, admirable organ in, 131 
St. David’s day, 167 

St. Giles Hill, near Winchester, fair at, 
102 

Saint Giles's bowl, 765 

St. Goodrick misleading a bishop, 208 

St. Jerome’s description of an organ, 237; 

conjecture about his dragon, 269 
Saint John’s Well, at Harpham, engrav¬ 
ing, 687 

St. Lawrence church, capital organ in, 131 

St. Margaret’s at Cliff, 225 

St. Mary church, admired organ in, 131 

Saint Romuald, 711 

St. Sepulchre’s bell, at executions, 82 

Saints, a poor female one, 376 

“Sally Holt,” a story, 749 

Salt, the terror of spectres, 261, 262; 

custom of putting salt on the dead, 262 
Salutation, different modes and forms of, 
93, 195; curious one by lord Lovat, 
120; lively lecture on the English 
mode, 278 

Samphire, gathering, 225, 226 
Sandy, James, an extraordinary artist, 754 
Sanitary cordon, 661, 662 
“ Sappho and Phaon,” old play, 547 
Satellites, 603 

“ Satiromastix,” old play, 352 
Saville, sir G., letter to, 660 
Sawston Cross, 455 
Saxons, customs of, 433 
Scaffold, the criminal’s view from, 230 
Scandal, a grand receptacle of, 123; pic¬ 
ture of, 445 

Scarborough, custom at, 202 
Scarfs and tippets, 532 
Scheveling scenery, 644 
Schmidt, celebrated organ-builder, 130 
“ School of Adults,” 745 
Schoolboys, 75; at Malmsbury, tradition 
about, 116 


Schools, rare before the Reformation* 
195; chastisement in, 501; schoolboys’ 
anticipations of home, 548 
Sciences and arts, skill of the ancients in. 
See Ancients. 

Scilly Islands, custom in, 41 
Scipio. anecdote and shield of, 132 
Scot, John, a fasting fanatic, 67 
Scotland, story of the Scotch soldier, 143; 
utility of the Scottish hospital, 143; 
customs on the new moon in, 197; 
amusements called hy-jinks in, 234; 
an old and corrected map of, 253; 
Scotch Adam and Eve, 269; some 
gold found in, 329; Scottish legends, 
3S8; customs in, 426, 434, 486; Scotch 
lairds and judges, 542; Highland emi¬ 
gration, 575; forest of Scotland, 576. 
See Highlands. 

Scott, sir Walter, letter of, to sir A. Fer¬ 
guson, 668 

-, Thomas, shepherd, anecdote of, 669 

Scripture texts, how hung up formerly 
in houses, 195; inscribed on road- 
posts, 270 

Sculpture of the ancients, 827 
Scylla and Charybdis, ancient and mo 
dern descriptions of, 321 
Sea bull, 350 

-• weed, address to, 226 

Seals; bread seals, 45; seal of lord high 
admiral, 287 
Second-sight, 391 
Secrets worth keeping, 371 
Sects, exclusiveness of, 818 
Seigneurs, the benevolent one, 66 
Seignories in England, dreadful abuses 
and oppressions formerly in, 196 
Selden, notice of, 700 
Self-devotion, clerical, 682 
Self-esteem, 790 
Selling and buying, 520 
Sensualist and his conscience, 619 
Sepulchral remains, 41, 42 
Servants, appropiiate addresses of differ¬ 
ent ones, 89; description of statutes or 
mops for hiring, 86, 102; servant- 
maid’s pocket-book, 616; old and faith¬ 
ful servants, 823 
Servetus and his works, 777 
Servian popular poetry, 265 
“ Seven Champions of Christendom,” old 
play, 244 

Session court of, satire on judges of, 542 
“ Shakerley, my aunt,” 746 
Shakspeare, a fault in, 151; contempo¬ 
rary dramatists of, 179; a giant among 
giants, 179; time’s rival, 584 
Sham-fights and invasion, 442 
Sharp, Mr., his dissertation on Coventry 
pageants, 6 

Sheep, aversion of deer to, 377, 378; 
their injury to young woods, 576; 


8G5 






















GENERAL INDEX. 


superstition touching sheep and mice, 
648; sheep-shearing in Cumberland, 
694 

Sheepshanks, Whittle, 548 
Shepherd’s well, Hampstead, 191 
Shepherds, how paid formerly, 197 
Sherbet, receipt for making, 236 
Sheriff's trumpets explained, 197 
Sheriffs, female, 700 

Shield of Scipio found in the Rhone, 132 
“Ship, (The)” order of, 29 
Ships, descent of one over Niagara falls, 
680 

Shirley Common, broom-maker’s at. 639 
Shirts, wearing two in travelling, 590 
Shoeblacks, notices respecting, 632 
Shoemakers, an ambitious one, 585 
Shoes, old, curious application of, 588 
Shorland, Lord, old legend and monu¬ 
ment of, 564, 573 
Showers, summer, 541 
Shrove Tuesday, 136 
Shute, bishop of Durham, pun on, 142 
Shuttle, hanging the, 525 
Siam, summer-house in, 541 
Sight, (second) 391 

Signs, explanation of a modern one, 336; 
one near Skipton, 318; odd signs, 206 ; 
sign-seeking, 620; curious signs, 638, 
666, 792 

Silchester, Hants, Roman station, 692 
Silent club, (the) 234 
Silver, how silver coin tested, 226; found 
in Cornwall, 329 

“Silver Age, (The)” old play, 338 
Siincoe, general, notice of, 625 
Singing, test of excellence of, 519 
Singing birds. See Birds. 

“ Single hair,” for angling, an enthusiast 
on, 330 

“ Sir Giles Goosecap,” old play, 579 
Skating, 75 

Skimmington, procession called, 594 
Skipton in Craven, theatrical company 
at, 35; custom in, 314. See Craven. 
Sleeves, pockets formerly in, 530 
Smith, sir Sydney, and old Dan Bryan, 
316 

Smith, Thomas, a quack, 775 
Smoking, much used in 1634, 85 
Smoking and snuffing, oriental temple 
for, 751, 754; antiquity of smoking, 
800 

Smoky chimnies, how cured, 286 
Smyth, Capt. W. H., his account of 
Scylla and Charybdis, 323 
Snitzler, an honest organ-builder, 427 
Snuff and tobacco, proposed history of, 
194 

Snuffing and smoking, 751,&c.; Laurence¬ 
kirk snuff-boxes, 754 
Snuff-box, (my) engraving and descrip¬ 
tion of, 95 


Snuffers, (curious old) account and en¬ 
graving of, 320 

Snuffing candles, curious process of, 174 
Soames, Dr. master of Peterhouse, 546 
Society simplified by civilization, 110 
Soho bazaar, 77 

Soldier, (Scotch) story of, engraving, 143 
Soldiers; a soldier’s age, 590; a soldier’s 
return, 702 

Somerset, proud duke of, 790 
Son, father and, 430 

Sophia Charlotte, sister of George I., 654 

Southam, custom in, 88 

Southey, poet, residence of, 555 

Spa-fields, sketch in, 796 

Spaniards, spare diet of, 800 

Spanish mysteries, 471; punctilio, 541 

Sparr, Mrs. A., a maiden lady, 170 

Sparrow, address to, 182 

Spectrology, 355 

Speculation, folly of, 590 

Spells of home, 108 

Spinning, tenuity of, 457 

Spit, movement of to music, 516 

“ Spoons Apostle,’’ 823 

Sporting, 142 

Spring, the voice of, 312 

Spring Gardens, a former Vauxhall, 3G0 

Stag-huuting, near Bean Doran, 377 

Stage-coach adventures, 132 

Standing mannerly before parents, 197 

Stanley, Rev. T., rector of Eyam, 729 

Stanmore toll house, engraving of, 86 

Starch-wort, an herb, account of, 599 

“ Stare and Gossip, the,” 445 

Starlings, battle of, 331 

Stars, fixed, the, 602, 812 

Statesmen, model of, 629 

-, small farming proprietors 

called, 603 

Siatistics, curious, 270 
Statutes ior hiring servants, account of, 
86, 102; stupendous ones, 826 
Stealing to restore, 117 
Steam-engines, 457 
Steel manufacturers, 714 
Stephens, his mode of writing, 341 
“ Steps retraced,” 238 
Stilton, (ham and) 90 
Stocking, throwing of, 149! 

Stoke Lyne, lord of manor of, 278 
Stones,sepulchral accumulations of stones, 
42; account of a stone-eater, 177; auto¬ 
biography of one, 177 
Stones, (precious) ancients’ imitation of, 
787 

Stories, (long) 519 

Storks, habits and treatment of, 646, 696 
Storm in 1790, 384 
Stourbridge fair, 103 
Stratford-upon-Avon Church, engraving 
of, 223 

Streams, irregularity of some, 115 















































GENERAL INDEX. 


Street circulars, 238 

Strutt, Mr., new edition of his “ Sports 
and Pastimes,’’ &c., by editor of the 
Table Book, 503 

Stuart papers, interesting account of, 3G9; 

the unfortunate line of Stuarts, 613 
Students in German universities, 62 
Studley statute for hiring servants, 87 
Style, error respecting, 30 
Styles, for writing on table-books, 1 
Suicide never occurring amonggipsies, 105 
Sumatra, oran-outang of, 378 
Summer drinks, receipts for, 236 
Summer; summer-house at Siam, 541; 
summer showers, an effect of, . 41; 
summer garden of Peter the Great, 643 
Sunday, diversions on, 245, 247 
Suppers, a light and early one, 334 
Sup-porter, a sign motto, 206 
Surgery, skill of the ancients in, 785, 787 
Surnames, various cases of that of the 
“ devil,” in families, and arms corre¬ 
spondent, 349 

Surveys, of see of Durham, 208; in 
Doomsday-book, 305 
Sweetheart-seeing, 494 
. Swimming, Kircher’s account of a man 
web-handed and web-footed, 353 
Swiss guards, monument of, 127 
Switzerland, an artist’s letter from, 214 
Sword-dancing in Northumberland, 329 
“Sybil’s Leaves,” 37 
Sympathy, supposed effect of, 581 
System for shopkeepers, 281, 282 
Table Book, explanation of, 1; design of 
the present, 2; editor’s disclaimer of 
various publications iu his name, 382; 
editor of about to publish a cheap 
edition of “Strutt’s Sports and Pas¬ 
times,” 503; editor’s severe domestic 
afflictions, 783 
Table rock at Niagara, 685 
Tadloc’s tread like pavier’s rammers, 1SS 
Tailors and cabbage, 236 
Tailor, origin of the word, 773 
Talbot inn, Borough, 437 
“Tales, (Early Metrical)” notice of, 57 
Talker, the selfish, 171; talking, at times, 
how difficult, 181 

Talkington, George, casualties, that be¬ 
fell, 478 

“Tancred and Gismund,” old play, 161 
Tanner, appropriate name for his villa, 382 
Tanner, Dame, gleaning cake of, 587 
Tartans, now little used in the High¬ 
lands, 147 

Taste, its power and value, 43 
Tasting cLiys, 638 

Taverns and inns, notices of, 435, &c., 
439, Ac. 

Taylor, J., of Birmingham, notice of, 712 
Tempers of birds, how ascertained, 296 
Temple church, organ in, 130 


Temple of Tlealth, Dr. Graham’s, 695; 

for smoking, Mr. Gliddon’s, 751 
Temple, Sir W., disposal of his heart, 644 
Tenter, (Bear and) boys’ play, 596 
“Tethy’s’ Festival,” old play, 321 
Test of talent, 2S6 

Texts of scripture; formerly written in 
apartments, 195; on road-posts, 270 
Thales and other ancients, 824. 

Thames, river, shut out state of, 84; 

bronze antique found in, 134 
Thames Ditton, the resort of anglers, 330 
Theatres, one projected at Edinburgh, 
157; advice respecting formation of, 
ib; curious circumstances of a fire at 
one, 369. See Plays. 

“The thing to a T,” explanation of, 8 

Thomas, Elizabeth, poetess, 99 

Thomson, poet, notices of, 468, 603, 708 

Thorwalsden, monument by, 127 

Thoulouse, cruel custom at, 277 

Thou and you, in poetry, 580 

Thread and thread-makers, 716 

Throwing the stocking, 149 

Thucydides, testimonial to, 324 

Thunder, opinions on, 730 

“Thyestes,” old play, 737 

Ticket porters, regulations and fares of, 10 

Tickling trout, 331 

Tides, opinions on, 731 

Tie and bob wigs, 631 

Tighe, Mrs., poetess, 100 

Timber in bogs, remarks on, 93 

“Time, the defeat of,’’ 582 

Tin mines, in Cornwall, 329 

Tippets and scarfs, 532 

Titles, new, to old books, 34 

Titles, 790 

Tobacco, much used in 1634,85; and 
snuff, proposed history of, 194; anec¬ 
dotes of dealers in, ib or a substitute, 
ancient use of, 800. See Ancients. 
Toll, ungallant, 536 

Tollard, (royal) formerly a royal seat, 18 
Toilet, Elizabeth, poetess, 99 
Tomarton, former dungeon in, 196 
Tomkins, an unrelenting creditor, 334 
Tommy Bell, engraving of, 326 

- Sly, engraving of, 166 

Tonga Islands, custoni in, 413 
Tooth, (the golden) learned dispute on,227 
Torches, dance of, 54 
“Tottenham Court,” old play, 291 
Toupees, how formerly stiffened, 197 
Tours, a curious one, 560 
Townsend, (Bow street) evidence by, 489 
Trade, good and ill of, 520 
Trades, younger brothers formerly not 
bred to, 197; and offices specified in 
Doomsday-book, 308 
Tradesmen, deviation from ancient rule 
of, 120; competition between, 194; 
“The Tradesman,” by Defoe, 282 






































GENERAL INDEX. 


Tradition, picture of, 597 
Tragicomedy and pastoral comedy, 725 
“Traitor, (The)” old play, 704 
Transmigration, explanatory of antipa¬ 
thies, 510 
Trashing, 588 

Travellers, former hospitality to, in 
France, 195; before the Reformation 
were entertained at religious houses, 196 
Travelling by coach and steam compared. 
131 

Travelling, precautions for, 590, 581 
Tread-mills, different standards of labour 
in, 378 

Treasure-digging, patent for, 621 
Treaties; one between W. Penn and the 
Indians, 623, treaty of Uxbridge, 675 
Trees, tasteful disposal of, 404; skeletons 
of, 577; a memorable elm, 625; noble 
trees near Amsterdam, 645; super¬ 
stition about passing patients through 
a split ash, 647; trees poetically and 
nationally considered, 649; height of 
the cabbage tree, 650 
Trials, of Flora, 273; of a negro for 
breach of promise, 90; for life, im¬ 
pressions under, 229 
Tricks of the Fairies, 5S4 
“Triumphant Widow, (The)”old play, 530 
Troller’s Gill, (The) 741 
Tromp, Van, gallantry of, 800 
Trout, tickling, 331 
“True Trojans, (The)” old play, 578 
Trumpets formerly sounded before lords 
and gentlemen, 197 

Tuileries, massacre of Swiss Guards at, 127 
Tumuli, 41, 42 

Turk in Cheapside, inquiry for, 97; the 
Great Turk, 791 

Turks, consolation under persecution by, 
227; a terror to Christendom, 243, 283 
Turnpikeman, (The) 736 
Tutor for tradesmen, 281, 282 
Tuum et Meum, 539 
Twelfth-night custom at Brough, 13 
“Twins, (The)” old play, 579 
“Two angry women of Abingdon,” old 
play, 178 

“Two Tragedies in one,” old play, 244 
Ugliness, naif admission of, 621 
Ugly club, 132, 234 
Umbrella, clergyman’s, 465 
Unhanged and hanged, two classes, 228 
Universities, in Germany, 62; flogging in, 
197; founding the London,* 297 
Unknown, (thegreat) discovered, 153, &c. 
Usurers; life of one, 450; a liberal one, 818 
Utopia, (sir T. More’s) blunder about, 621 
Uxbridge, town and treaty of, 675 
Valediction, 200 
Valentines, 103 

Valle Crucis abbey, pillar near, 175 
Vanithee (wife) Jack Mullally’s, 347 


Vauxhall, a dramatic sketch, 219 
Vega, Francis de la, adventures of, 508 

-, Lopez de, mysteries of, 471 

Vehicle, (pageant) and play, notice a d 
engraving of, 6 

Venice, 540; the doge’s marriage, 226 
Venison, hunted better than shot, 17; 

potted, curious notion about, 581 
Vines, notices about, 430, 728. See 
Grapes. 

Viper’s poison, 796 

Vernon, admiral, patron of General 
Washington, 309 

-, mount, why so called, 309 

-, a musician, anecdote ot, 9 

Vienna, customs in, 9 
Views of a felon on the scaffold, 230 
Village new-year described, 46 
“Virgin Widow,” old play, 161 
Virginia, deliberate duel in, 361 
Virtue and Death, dialogue between, 424 
“Visiting the churches,” 239 
Voice, restoration of, by anchovy, 685 
Volunteer reminiscences, 442 
Vortices, doctrine of, 603 
W, (the letter) 205 
Waggerv, ancient, 210 
Wagstaff, Mr. E., 507 
Wake-Robin, a plant, 599 
Wakefield, custom near, 425 
Wales, character of the ancient Britons, 
168; notices of the Welsh Harp, ib.; 
minstrelsy society in, 169; ancient 
British pillar, engraving of, 175 
Walker, (Willy) and John Bolton, 619 
Waller, sir E., his tomb at Beaconsfield, 
649 ' 

Wallis, lady, her correct estimate of her 
comedy, 286 

Walpole, Horace, letter of, about extor¬ 
tion in Westminster abbey, 5 
Walpole, sir H , and Hogarth, 559, 560 

--, sir R., notice of, 510 

Walls of plaster advised for fruit, 485 
Walsh, Mr. H., his satire on corporations, 
262 

Wainphray, in Scotland, great hiring fair 
at, 102 

Wards, court of, abuses of, 452 
Warming-pans for Jamaica, 8 
“Wars of Cyrus,” old play, 725 
Warwickshire,statutes or mopsin, 86, &c.; 
custom in, 647 

“Washing of the feet” at Vienna, 239; 

at Greenwich by queen Elizabeth, 240 
Washington, general, notice of, 304 
Watchmen, (London) 676 
Water, prejudice against pipe-conveyance 
of, 367; having the effect of fire, 682 
Water carrier, (old) engraving of, 367 
Waterloo-bridge, intended opening to, 107 
Watermen, ancient misconduct of, 84; 
watermen hundred years ago, 314 


8 08 






































GENERAL INLEX. 


Watson, bisKop, letters of to duke of 
York, 55 

Watson, Tom, an eminent dramatist, 193 
Waverley, more than ten years unpub¬ 
lished, 214; Waverley novels acknow¬ 
ledged by sir Walter Scott, 153 
Wax-work and extortion in Westminster 
abbey, 5 

Way to grow rich, 174 
Way-posts with texts on them, 270 
Wealth, good and bad effects of, 174 
Weather, a new hygrometer, 13 
Webster, the dramatist, excellence of, 179 

-, Dr., of St. Alban’s, 120 

Weddings, Highland, 146; Welsh, 396; 

Cumberland, 397. See Marriages. 
"Wesley, John, his return of plate, 20 
West, Gilbert, notice of, 406 
Westminster abbey, curious letter of H. 

Walpole about, 5; burial fees of, 167 
Westmoreland, belief of witchcraft in, 
337 

Weston, the royal cook, 189 
“Weston Favel History, &c.,” remarks 
on, 597 

“Whims and Oddities,” by T. Hood, 694 
Whitelock, collation by to queen of 
Sweden, 276 

Whittington, revolution house at, 671 
Whyte, Mr. S., his account of Mrs. 
Charke, 63 

Wickham (West) church, 406 
Wiggen [ash] tree; its virtues against 
witchcraft, 337 
Wight, isle of, custom in, 771 
Wigs, 122; formerly general, 631 
Wild man of the woods, an extraordinary 
one, 378 

-, Jonathan, first victim to a law, 118 

Wildman, Mr., first purchaser of Eclipse, 
311 

-, Colonel, benevolent conduct 

of, 359 

"Will, Will-be-so, memoir of, 70 
Willie, (Blind) of Newcastle, 231 
Wiliy-Howe, in Yorkshire, legends 
about, 41 

Wilson, comedian, anecdote of, 286 
Wilson, Rev. Mr., curious tract by, 540 

-, professor of moral philosophy, 

notices of, 554 

Wiltshire abroad and at home, 116 
Wiltshire, custom in, 513 
Windows, rarely of glass before the Re¬ 
formation, 196 

Winds, irritating effect of some, 137 
Wine, effect of, 412 

Winter’s day, description of, 74; winter 
flowers, 783 

“Wit in a Constable,” old play, 97 
Witchcraft, how to recognise a witch, 337 ; 
preventives of, ib.; decree against, 
486; “burning the witch,” 705; guard 


against witchcraft, 706; the wise wo¬ 
man of Littondale, 802 
Wives, last resource of one, 226; use of 
a wife and children, 2S3; Mr. E. Wag- 
staff’s, 507; lively letter from one, 
635; consolation for loss of one, 654; 
evidence of affection in wives, 686; 
a wife taking liberties, 790 
Wizard’s Cave, 788, 789 
Wolfe, general, how his death wound 
received, 126 

Wolves; forests burnt in Scotland to ex¬ 
terminate them, 576 

Wolverhampton church, valuable organ 
in, 131 

Women; ungallant ridicule of the “old 
woman,” 10; poniards worn by, in 
Spain, 137; improvement of, 179; for¬ 
mer education of, 195; former court 
rudeness to, 195; former amusements 
of, 196; prodigious fans used by, 
197; a lady customer and a spruce 
mercer, 284; situation of a woman 
in India, 349; former refinement 
of court ladies in Spain, 369 ; customs 
at lying-in, 426; former freedom of 
society with men, 434, 435 ; Egyptian 
compliment to, 617; ingenuous ad¬ 
mission of ugliness by one, 621; a 
young one’s pocket-book, 616; women 
sheriffs and justices, 700; antiquarians’ 
supposed dislike to, ib.; dower of wo¬ 
men, 701 ; an amiable woman described, 
755; “The Wise Woman of Litton¬ 
dale,” 803. See Wives. 

Wood, Ant. a, his dislike of women, 700 
Wood, Nicolas, a glutton, 589 
Wordsworth, (poet) notices of, 551 
Worfield, longevity of vicars of, 12 
Worlds, plurality of, 602 
Wragg, Mary, 384 
Wrestling, 622, 664 

Wright,(Mrs.) herdescription of Niagara 
falls, 683 

Writers, correct estimate by one of her 
own work, 286. See Authors. 

Writing tables, 1; Peruvian substitute 
for, 470; writing-desks, 511, 512 
Yard, derivation of the term, 189 
Yarmouth, long famed for herrings, 285 
Years, reason for not counting, 590 
York, cardinal de, notice of, 369 

-, duke of, engraving and notices of, 

47; list of dukes of York, 50 
York, and the revolution, 671 
Yorkshire, new year’s eve custom in, 4; 
fairies in, 41; Yorkshire Gipsy, (stream) 
115; customs in, 464, 486, 588, 667 
Young, (Mr. S.) of Keston Cross, 432 
“Young lambs to sell,” a London cry, 198 
“Your humble servant,” when first used 
in salutation, 195 
Youth, illiberal teachers of, 281 













INDEX TO THE ENGRAVINGS. 


Alderson, Hut., of Durham, 183 

Antiquarian Hall, 70 

Antique bronzefound in the Thames, 134 

---another view, 135 

Armorial bearing, 278 
Augsburgh, (Diet of) commemoration 
medal of, 575 
Barleycorn, sir John, 58 
Bath chairman, mock funeral of, 21 
Bear garden, in Southwark, in 1574, 246 

-,in 1648, 247 

Beckenham church-yard, porch of, 383 

•-church, font of, 386 

-road, bridge over, 351 

Berne, arcades in, 214 
Billy Boots, 131 

Bird-catcher, (London) in 1S27, 295 
Blake, William, ostler,' 438 
Blind Hannah, 111 

- Willie, of Newcastle, 231 

Bloomfield, George, 815 
Bromley, Bishop’s well at, 447 

-church door of, 463 

-key, 465 

-memorial of a peal rung at, 678 

Broom-maker’s at Shirley common, 639 
Bruce, lord Edw., case containing his 
heart, 527 

-appearance of the 

heart, 529 

Buckingham, duke of, house in which he 
died, 263 

Burnsal Lich-gate, 550 
Charke,Mrs., Colly Cibber’s daughter; 63 
Chatham-hill, Star inn on, 313 
Cigar Divan of Mr. Gliddon, 751 
Cooke, John, saddler, of Exeter, 591 
Coward, Nathan, 543 
Cranbourne Chase, emigration of deer 
from, 15 

“Crooked Billet,” on Penge Common, 335 

Desk, (my) 511 

Eclipse, the race-horse, 310 

Elvet Bridge, Durham, 207 

Fleet river, (ancient) at Clerkenwell, 38 

French assignat, 519 

Gilpin, Mrs., riding to Edmonton, 454 

Gimmal ring, 415 

Grassmere font, 550 

Hagbush-lane, Islington, view in, 607 

-a last look at, 807 

Harpham, St. John’s well at, 687 
Harrow church, font of, 79 
Hervey, (author of meditations) birth¬ 
place of, 598 

Hobby-horses for children, crier of, 343 


Hogarth, embarking at Isle of Grain, 559 
Holly-tree, carrying of at Brough, 14 
Holwood, seat of Mr. Pitt, 726 
Howard, of Effingham, lord, autograph 
of, 287 

Husbandman, the retired, 423 
Interlaken, houses in, 214 
Keston Cross, 431 
Lee Penny, (the) 486 
London cries, 255 

-cherry woman, 343 

“ London Cries, (old)” 630 

-another figure, 630 

Lovat, lord, 119 
May-day, at Lynn, 271 

-dance, 279 

Millhouse, Robert, 495 
Mompesson, Catherine, her tomb at 
Eyam, 655 

--s pulpit in the rock, 662 

Monument at Lucerne, 127 
Newsman, 31 - 

Newspaper, reading the, 399 
North, Robert, of Scarborough, 758 
Pageant vehicle and play, 6 
Pedestrian costume, 214 
Penn, W-, and the Indians, 423 
Pillar, ancient British, 175 
Poor’s-box in Cawston church, 374 

-*-- in Loddon church, 375 

Quintain, (the) 502 
Ravensbourne, source of the, 735 
Revolution-house, at Whittington, 671 
•‘Running horse, (the)” at Merrow, 767 
Seal of the lord high admiral, 287 
Servants, hiring of, at a statute fair, 102 
Shepherd’s well, Hampstead, 191 
Siiorland, lord, monument of, 573 
Sketch, (A) 479 
Snuff-box, (my) 95 
Snuffers, pair of old, 319 
Soldier, (Scotch) story of, 143 
Stanmore toll-house, 86 
Stratford-upon-Avon church, 223 
Swiss costume, 214 

-, 215 

Tobacco-pipes, Irish, 799 
Tommy Bell, 326 

- Sly, of Durham, 166 

Tree, (ash) used as a charm, 647 
Yelocitas, (the) fly-boat, 694 
Water-carriers, (old) 367 
Watson, George, Sussex calculator, 703 
West Wickham church, 406 
York, duke of, 47 
a Young lambs to sell,” 198 


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